Recently Ive become increasingly frustrated with the use of terms like militant or extremist when used to describe particularly outspoken activist atheist leaders. More infuriating is when these terms are used by atheists themselves. It effectively and disingenuously conflates people like Hitchens or Dawkins with ideological groups such as ISIS or WBC. Militant is an accurate description of ISIS. Extremist is an accurate description of WBC. But are these accurate words to describe... what? Pointing out that someone is wrong in a belittling way? Being angry? Being unnecessarily rude? This is especially clear in the recent interview linked below, where Dawkins readily states that religion is not the true source of violence committed by groups like ISIS, readily states that our actions cannot solely stem from ration, proud in his purely emotional rationale for wanting to save elephants from extinction, and readily stating that religion can be a positive source of consolation for people. Awareness of these views will do little to dissuade the dogmatic from propagating the idea of a Dawkins hateful of all religion all the time, to which reason is paramount in all situations, but I hope it will stymie the number of atheists that are beginning to accept such blatant misconception. Being as strident as some atheists are on the subject of religion is not a requirement of atheism; such stridency is not the path for all atheists. However, the use of inflammatory rhetoric is by no means fighting fire with fire when compared to the tools of many religious advocates, and neither does it destroy the capacity for reconciliatory dialogue (see Dawkins debate with previous Archbishop of Canterbury). It merely is the acknowledgement that reconcilatory dialogue is often an impossibility in the face of entrenched indoctrination and purposeful propaganda, and sometimes necessary in construing the depths of particular atrocities.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 19:39:06 +0000
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