Hermit wrote: ↑Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:07 am
Forty Two wrote: ↑Thu Feb 21, 2019 11:11 pm
The Left drove out Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins and other big names from "the community." Notice how nobody talks much about them or their stuff anymore, and they are not longer heroes of the Left. They are right wingers now.
It all started around the time of Elevatorgate...
I
never regarded either as a member, let alone a hero of the left. I poopooed Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris long before elevatorgate. Dawkins, when he begged for a knighthood and Harris the moment I first read something he wrote, which was his proposal that a preemptive nuclear strike that "would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day" is an option.
Of course, he never "proposed" that, nor did he say it was an "option." So, you didn't read what he wrote. What he wrote was a speculation of what nations might do if a theocratic regime with suicidal views of the afterlife (akin to the views of the hijackers of 9/11/01) obtained long-range nuclear weapons (capable of hitting Europe or the US or other such places). He said that western countries might be left not knowing where those weapons were, and what to do about them, with possibly the only practical alternative to assure their own safety (not having to take nuclear strike first) to preemptively strike with nukes - thereby committing an "unthinkable crime" which he said would be a "catastrophe" and would be "horrible" and would potentially set off a global conflict killing many many millions of people (which was something he thought nations needed to keep in mind going forward, because it's a very real risk). Agree or disagree, what he did not do is "propose" doing it, or suggest it was some sort of a good "option" to consider. He called it "unthinkable" and a "crime" and a "catastrophe" and "horrible" and other adjectives.
But, this is what I'm talking about anyway. In the aughts, before HItchens died, these guys were the leaders of the New Atheist movement -- Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett (The Four Horsemen of the Counter Apocalypse), plus one Horsewoman (Ayaan Hirsi Ali) with a string of others in tow - Jerry Coyne, Lawrence Krauss,
Harris wrote End of Faith, and Letter to A Christian Nation - Dawkins put out "The Root of All Evil" and The God Delusion.
Hermit wrote: ↑Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:07 am
Harris wrote his first nuclear strike advocacy in 2004 (though I did not get to read about it until about 2008) and Dawkins posted his wish for a knighthood in his now defunct forum in 2007. The Rebecca Watson kerfuffle took place in 2011.
Sure, and Dawkins Foundation was created in 2006. He and the others I named were the leaders of the new movement. The skepchick kerfuffle and the kick-off of the attack-after-attack on the big name old guard of the New Atheism movement started then. The Atheism PLus and PZ Meyers method of divide, separate, attack -- with the "intellectual artillery" of Richard Carrier and the gang of "we're atheists, but we're social justice warriors" began then.
Hermit wrote: ↑Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:07 am
For the record, I never regarded Christopher Hitchens as a left wing hero or even just a left winger either. He certainly wasn't by the time I read some of his stuff. All three of them were just formidable atheists to me.
As for PZ Meyers, at the defunct RDFS I labelled him as the loudmouth from Minnesota and the forum equivalent of the tabloid gutter press upon my first acquaintance with his utterances.
This was a concerted effort of the "Progressive Left" to seize control of the atheist movement from the liberal left. They rejected Hitchens' views on free speech. They adopted the progressive stack and placed Islam on it, so that they defended Islam instead of treated it like Christianity. And, that's what you see here from some people. Mental gymnastics to make it perfectly reasonable to silence mockery of Islam, while nevertheless laughing at and ridiculing Christianity in the same way.
I'm going to circle back to your statement re Sam Harris, as it illustrates a big problem in discussion - when people don't read the primary material, but instead rely on critics of that material.
Here is what Sam Harris wrote in the book you reference about nuclear strike -- The End of Faith, pp. 128-129:
It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence. There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. A cold war requires that the parties be mutually deterred by the threat of death. Notions of martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own.
Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe. How would such an
of self-defense be perceived by the rest of the Muslim world?
It would likely be seen as the first incursion of a genocidal crusade. The horrible irony here is that seeing could make it so: this very perception could plunge us into a state of hot war with any Muslim state that had the capacity to pose a nuclear threat of its own.
All of this is perfectly insane, of course: I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world’s population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the philosopher’s stone, and unicorns. That it would be a horrible absurdity for so many of us to die for the sake of myth does not mean, however, that it could not happen. Indeed, given the immunity to all reasonable intrusions that faith enjoys in our discourse, a
catastrophe of this sort seems increasingly likely.
We must come to terms with the possibility that men who are every bit as zealous to die as the nineteen hijackers may one day get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry. The Muslim world in particular must anticipate this possibility and find some way to prevent it. Given the steady proliferation of technology, it is safe to say that time is not on our side.
Is that, really, the proposal of nuking Muslims, which you alleged? Really? Come on, Hermit.
Clearly, he "was describing a case in which a hostile regime that is avowedly suicidal acquires long-range nuclear weaponry (i.e. they can hit distant targets like Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, etc.). Of course, not every Muslim regime would fit this description. For instance, Pakistan already has nuclear weapons, but they have yet to develop long-range rockets, and there is every reason to believe that the people currently in control of these bombs are more pragmatic and less certain of paradise than the Taliban are. The same could be said of Iran, if it acquires nuclear weapons in the near term (though not, perhaps, from the perspective of Israel, for whom any Iranian bomb will pose an existential threat). But the civilized world (including all the pragmatic Muslims living within it) must finally come to terms with what the ideology of groups like the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, etc. means—because it destroys the logic of deterrence. There are a significant number of people in the Muslim world for whom the slogan “We love death more than the infidel loves life” appears to be an honest statement of psychological fact, and we must do everything in our power to prevent them from getting long-range nuclear weapons."
https://samharris.org/response-to-controversy/
Anyway, there was a change in the movement up to Hitchens' death, clearly, the liberals were the leading voices - those that believed in free speech, freedom to criticize religions, freedom to offend. Stephen Frye's famous quote that claiming to be offended is "nothing more than a whine" and "oh, you're offended by that, so fucking what?" Facts don't care about your feelings (words to that effect) used to be a principle of the atheist/skeptic movement - and now it's coopted by "conservatives."
As we progressed through 2012 and 2013, and beyond, we started seeing more and more the Progressive Left takeover. When we started seeing atheists more and more coming out to defend Islam, because it's an oppressed religion, the movement that was so full of vinegar a few years prior began to stall. And, what we have now is carping about side-issues -- with one side normally screaming how there aren't two sides, and there is no argument or debate - only the Truth on one side and hate speech on the other.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar
