The atheist icon is politically incorrect among the true grass roots "progressives" now
In the morning, I saw a two-day-old tweet by Steve Pinker:
The article that Pinker linked to reveals (see also
other outlets) that a radio station disinvited Richard Dawkins who was supposed to give a talk at the First Congregational Church on August 9th.
The talk should have followed the August 8th publication of
Science in the Soul, Dawkins' new book. The organizers' explanation why they cancelled the talk is rather amazing. It obviously includes the usual assumption that the "free speech" may only include the speech that the self-appointed ideologues-in-chief like – all the other speech must be banned as "abusive or hurtful speech". Well, the statement that "the speech that is liked by everybody is allowed" isn't a principle that may underlie a civilization: it is a worthless tautology.
We know that the overgrown haters of the freedom of speech at Berkeley have banned right-wingers Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, and Milo With-a-Greek-name before. But there's another layer of craziness in this particular e-mail.
The KPFA radio station wrote the following to the ticket buyers:
Dear Richard Dawkins event ticket buyers,
We regret to inform you that KPFA has canceled our event with Richard Dawkins. We had booked this event based entirely on his excellent new book on science, when we didn’t know he had offended and hurt – in his tweets and other comments on Islam, so many people. KPFA does not endorse hurtful speech. While KPFA emphatically supports serious free speech, we do not support abusive speech. We apologize for not having had broader knowledge of Dawkins views much earlier. We also apologize to all those inconvenienced by this cancellation. Your ticket purchases will automatically be refunded by Brown Paper Tickets.
Sincerely, KPFA Radio 94.1 FM
The explanation is absurd and proves that these people's brains are broken beyond repair. Dawkins' book is about atheism and so was the scheduled talk. One only needs to know one basic bit of information to be sure that Dawkins is against religions; he is arguably the world's most famous outspoken atheist intellectual. And in the present world, Islam is obviously the most extreme religion that puts all the characteristics that atheists may dislike about religions on steroids.
So how can the organizer of a talk by the world's leading atheist be
surprised that this atheist also opposes Islam? And its irrational approach to science, celebration of brute force, dogmatic attachment to the Middle Ages, suppression of human freedoms and women's basic rights, and tons of other things? The mental dissonance of the KPFA people is absolutely staggering.
Just to be sure, none of the leading atheist pundits suffers from this kind of a flagrant inconsistency. The fact that Islam is a strengthened version of the things that they dislike about religions is often pointed out by every single leading atheist pundit in the world – including Richard Dawkins, Steven Weinberg, Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and others. All sane people know that it would be crazy to fight against religions for hours every day and defend Islam at the same moment. After all, Islam
is a religion. And when we say that it's not just a religion or it's not a true religion, we mean that Islam is trying to be even more far-reaching than other religions and this makes things
worse, not better.
The KPFA and similar people may be utterly insane. But they may also be just immoral jerks who don't actually care an iota about atheism or science. Instead, they only use "atheists" as allies against their actual enemies – the traditional social and moral values of the Western civilization. Because most of the people in their environment who defend these values are Christians, they simply decide that Christianity is the enemy and atheists might be allies. But these extreme leftists only treat them as allies for political reasons. They don't actually understand the logic of the atheists. They don't really care about it at all.
What they care about are things like "identity politics". Along with practitioners of assorted sexual deviations etc., the Muslims have been declared by their ideological movement to be a minority (in the West) that must enjoy privileges and they mindlessly work to make this happen. When they need to disinvite the most famous atheist, they happily do so. When they need to sacrifice their life in fights on the side of ISIS, they probably won't but they will happily sacrifice yours. A leftist is a person who is willing to sacrifice your life for his delusions. A Muslim warrior is at least willing to sacrifice his own, too.
Aside from comments that are compatible with my thoughts about the event, we could enjoy some texts by these brain-dead leftists. For example, Pat Mc Ginley wrote on the WhyEvolutionIsTrue website:
Unfortunately, it’s true that leading atheists, like, Dawkins, Harris, Maher are blatantly Islamophobic. Allowing their politics to harm their great work for atheism. Politically-motivated Islamophobia coincided precisely with the so-called war-on-terror. It was easier to get public support to invade Muslim countries by demonising Muslims. Bush even called it ‘a crusade’.
Wow. Again, leading atheists must
obviously be Islamophobic because this implication follows from the very definitions of these two words. An atheist is someone who is repelled from every God ("a" is negation and "theism" is some acknowledgement or celebration of God's existence). An Islamophobe is someone who is repelled by a specific God, namely Allah, the God of Islam. The previous sentences imply that every atheist must be an Islamophobe. If you can't understand this simple logic, your brain is broken beyond repair and I recommend euthanasia to you, Pat.
Note that even the very word makes it unambiguous that Islamophobia is a phobia of Islam as a faith, not a phobia as Muslims as human beings.
As other participants of the discussions have mentioned, the term "Islamophobia" was coined by the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. The word "Islamophobe" was intended to be a precise synonym of a "heretic". Except that an "Islamophobe" lives at places that the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda don't control yet. So different tools have to be used against these heretics than the tools that are usable on the territory of Daesh or other Islamic regimes. Instead of the "stoning to death", they have to fight the heretics by tools like "terror by the politically correct left-wing useful idiots in their fifth columns". But the term "Islamophobe" has been defined very clearly and the definition can't be changed. It's spectacularly clear that every good and sane person in the West is an Islamophobe to one extent or another. So although the ending -phobia was designed to indicate that there was something ill about Islamophobia, the truth is obviously opposite: It's utterly sick
not to be an Islamophobe.
Incidentally, Bush may have used the term "crusade" at one moment because the conflict against the Islam
was a crusade. The purpose of the original crusades was to liberate the Holy Land from Islamic rule. At least to some extent, some parts of the war on terror had similar sides and a similar purpose so they may have deserved to be called "crusades".
Incidentally, Dawkins himself responded with a kind letter to the radio station:
...I used to love your station when I lived in Berkeley for two years, shortly after that beloved place had become the iconic home of free speech. I have criticized the appalling misogyny and homophobia of Islam, I have criticized the murdering of apostates for no crime other than their disbelief. Far from attacking Muslims, I understand – as perhaps you do not – that Muslims themselves are the prime victims of the oppressive cruelties of Islamism, especially Muslim women...
...I am known as a frequent critic of Christianity and have never been de-platformed for that. Why do you give Islam a free pass? Why is it fine to criticize Christianity but not Islam? ...
...You say I use 'abusive speech' about Islam. I would seriously – I mean it – like to hear what examples of my 'abusive speech' you had in mind. When you fail to discover any, I presume you will issue a public apology, which I will of course accept in a spirit of gratitude for what KPFA once was. And could become again...
One more comment. If you read
the responses to Steve Pinker's tweet, they are absolutely terrifying. Many of them hysterically attack both Pinker and Dawkins and the authors seem to be biology students and similar things. I would be scared of teaching this brain-dead, brainwashed youth. It's a bit surprising that these Western allies of the Islamic terrorists haven't started their own terrorist attacks yet – if we don't count things like the destruction of the Berkeley campus. When these fanatical savages figure out that
yes, they can, things may be tough.
