How to Fight Extremism with Atheism

[rug]

How a new form of atheism can combat jihadists who wish to end the world

Peter Boghossian
James Lindsay
Phil Torres
2:20 PM ET

The world isn’t ending, but we face a tremendous problem from people who believe it is. The beliefs of many radicals have become increasingly apocalyptic over the past decade. They’re convinced the end of the world is imminent and that they have a special role in bringing it about. Whether or not you’re interested in the apocalypse, terrorists who believe it’s coming are interested in you.

Solutions are hard to come by. But there is a way to counter extremism that’s potentially as effective as it is unpopular. It’s a social and intellectual strategy that aims to undermine the religious beliefs that motivate jihadists—and one of the most controversial set of ideas to emerge in the West in the last quarter century: New Atheism.

New Atheism emerged in direct response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks executed by al-Qaeda, which demonstrated that acting upon certain religious beliefs could lead to catastrophe. The movement offered a heretofore unwelcomed perspective: That every religion has negative consequences, and that even religious moderates contribute to the problem because, by affirming that faith is a legitimate reason to hold beliefs, they enable religious extremists.

In making this case, the New Atheists famously broke one longstanding taboo against criticizing a person’s faith. But they broke a second taboo as well. Some New Atheists on the Left—including Sam Harris, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer—joined voices with many on the Right by saying there are unique dangers associated with jihad, such as martyrdom. New Atheists argued that focusing on generic religious extremism is a smokescreen, that the specific contents of religious doctrine delimit ways in which extremism plays out and thus some doctrines pose greater threats than others.

http://time.com/4484681/new-atheism-jihad-apocalypse/

[Jim__]

1. The article is an over-simplification of the causes of terrorism.

Yes, religion plays a role; but the article doesn't tell us what specific role religion plays, nor even if religion plays a primary role.

The September 10-16 issue of New Scientist had an article, Green and desert land, about a project across northern Africa to build a wall of trees 15 kilometers wide and 8,000 kilometers long from the Atlantic coast of Senegal across the southern fringe of the Sahara desert to the Red Sea to block the spread of the Sahara. Some of the backers of this project believe that it will help stop the spread of terrorism. An excerpt from the article:

The wall's backers say that it will halt the desert's advances, cool the air with its shade, block sand storms, provide shelter for livestock, fertilize soils and protect water supplies. By bringing rural prosperity, it could also counter the rise of Islamic militants such as Boko Haram. Abdou Maisharou, director of Niger's National Great Green Wall Agency, has said it would "deter young people from leaving their lands <and so> combat terrorism."

Bringing prosperity, dignity, and hope to the people of the Middle East may do more to deter terrorism than bringing atheism.

[rug]

2. That's the kind of wall we need to get behind.

I found the article you mentioned. I couldn't read it without an account so I opened one, for free. A very stimulating magazine. Thanks for the lead.

[MisterP]

4. right--the suggestion's always that once they eat pork, drink booze, and don't go to mosque or read

the Quran they'll be nice shiny happy salarymen
and that fits the profile of all the French attackers to a T; Boko Haram was condemned by all the Muslim clergy as letting any untrained nut interpret scripture; IS is even more condemned (excommunicated drugged-up butchers of People of the Book and especially Muslims aren't too popular these days)
the neocons have always had a strong ex-Trot streak, attacking Liberation Theology for its Catholicism as much as its socialism: the Latin American Church had let the Reds in through the lych-gate, and weren't that far-off from the USSR anyways
there's always this crypto-Protestant streak in the US, and I'm not just talking about the Trump delegates who declared that Francis is the Antichrist and therefore so's global warming: "the Reformation" and "the Renaissance" are where "modernity" began, where people put down the torches and pitchforks and picked up the microscope and the steam engine and the Galapagos finch
too bad they forgot about the icon-destruction, witch hunts, werewolf scares, gay-burnings based on revived Roman codes that actually occurred in the 16th century
it's like the notion of political "moderation" as a cureall--in the 40s they were certain that violence happens because people just believe in things too hard, so it's best to make sure pluralists and technocrats take over
Amis, Hari, Maher, Rushdie, Harris, Hitchens, Weinberg, and the whole Eurabia industry are not flukes; there's a reason Pinker felt compelled to soft-shoe the slaughter of Iraq and Gaza, and Stenger and Carrier saw the invasion as a growth opportunity to defeat truck bombings with Darwinian theory; Dawkins’ infarction-induced vendettas against middle-school nerds came later

[struggle4progress]

3. Lunatics are swayed by no reason but their own; and it is a fool's errand to suppose

that we can prevent lunacy by abolishing all parts of anything some lunatic might believe