The Arab Spring and "the War on Terror"

[limpid]

favouring confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social cause.

 

Really? 33% of VT confront or are violent in the name of their atheism?

[YLN]

Not sure it's what some media outlets have called him. I imagine it is an extreme atheist who wants to harm religious people.  At a guess.

No doubt some psychotic episode rather than a militant anything.

 

Hardly enough parallels with an ISIS/terrorist attack for the media's less than total interest to be described as a double standard.

[chrisp65]

ok, 28%

[omariqy]

So if a Muslim killed three Atheist people in the same place because they were Atheist it would be treated the same?  Ok then.

[chrisp65]

So if a Muslim killed three Atheist people in the same place because they were Atheist it would be treated the same?  Ok then.

 

If he did it BECAUSE he was a muslim and they were atheists, that would rightly be a big deal. It would fit into a larger narrative. Today's version of reds under the bed. You have to see that there is quite some recent history here, there is form, and people are easily panicked. Where people are easily panicked or scared there are newspapers to sell.

 

Now, if you could prove there was a coherent cause that white atheist nutters were beginning to rally behind and they were using the media to spread and grow their murderous cause then that would be a much bigger deal. When atheists pose by their murdered religious victims for social media fame, then there is a parity. One guy 6,000 miles away with no known or declared 'cause' at this point is absolutely not the equal of the Lee Rigby story. 

 

I'm not saying that is right. I'm saying the media has limited space and needs clicks and sales. If these marches in Germany began to lead to a pattern of murders then there would be massive focus on them. You'd also see people travelling across europe to show their opposition to it. When needed good people care and take action. I don't believe, from my ivory tower, that tipping point has been reached.

[limpid]

It's hard to imagine how someone could be militant in the name of an absence of belief.

 

"I'm going to commit a violent act because of the failure of someone else to prove their fairy tale is true." - I just can't see it.

[Chindie]

The victim narrative peddled out here is starting to wear thin.

[chrisp65]

I don't think it's an absence of belief in a god that causes militancy in some. I think its a recognition that others are different and therefore a threat. A 'belief' or fear of others taking over. Whether the others are roma, muslim, gay whatever there are people happy to identify them as different and therefore a threat and therefore legitimate targets.

 

I agree, I've never heard of people militantly proclaiming their violent atheism. But then I've never looked for any evidence of that either, something in the back of my mind tells me there was a nazi campaign along the lines of 'you are either a christian or a nazi', but that's hazy so I won't use it as an example. One for looking up later. But by the same token, plenty of non-religious people have killed the religious because those people have self identified as different or non-compliant in some way. From all the usual examples that are wheeled out, Stalin, Pol Pot etc. Not religious themselves but happy to kill others that had a belief in a different system to the one they were peddling at the time.

 

But then, my own personal 'belief' is that of all these people that kill in the name of their god, the majority don't really believe in it anyway. It's a prop, a gang, a tribe, a legitimacy.

[Wainy316]

The Guardian are reporting it http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/11/north-carolina-shooting-three-dead?CMP=fb_gu

 

I wouldn't expect to see it in the Mail or Sun etc because it doesn't fit their narrative.

Three Muslim students dead in North Carolina shooting as suspect arrested

 

Hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter trends as man, 46, charged with murder after killing at housing complex near University of North Carolina campus

 

 

[limpid]

something in the back of my mind tells me there was a nazi campaign along the lines of 'you are either a christian or a nazi', but that's hazy so I won't use it as an example. One for looking up later.

Hitler was a catholic and the Nazi's ruled with the blessing of that church. I suspect you've misremembered

 

But by the same token, plenty of non-religious people have killed the religious because those people have self identified as different or non-compliant in some way. From all the usual examples that are wheeled out, Stalin, Pol Pot etc. Not religious themselves but happy to kill others that had a belief in a different system to the one they were peddling at the time.

As you say, none of those killed because of their atheism (if they were atheists).

 

But then, my own personal 'belief' is that of all these people that kill in the name of their god, the majority don't really believe in it anyway. It's a prop, a gang, a tribe, a legitimacy.

True enough.

 

Just to clarify terms. Atheist is literally without god (a-theist). Someone who does not feel that the claims for the existence of god(s) have been proven.

[OutByEaster?]

It's hard to imagine how someone could be militant in the name of an absence of belief.

 

"I'm going to commit a violent act because of the failure of someone else to prove their fairy tale is true." - I just can't see it.

 

Although oddly I think true in this case - I believe the murderer described themselves as an anti-theist. Someone actively against any belief in religion.

[limpid]

 

It's hard to imagine how someone could be militant in the name of an absence of belief.

 

"I'm going to commit a violent act because of the failure of someone else to prove their fairy tale is true." - I just can't see it.

 

Although oddly I think true in this case - I believe the murderer described themselves as an anti-theist. Someone actively against any belief in religion.

If that's true, then he's not "a known militant atheist". He's a known antitheist. Even so, has he said that he did this because of his beliefs? Genuine question, I've not gone looking for the scant media coverage of yet another shooting in America.

[mjmooney]

So, where is the atheist IS? The atheist Al Quaieda? The atheist Boko Haram? The rival atheist sects killing each other over points of doctrine?

Don't make me laugh.

[omariqy]

It's not an atheist issue. It's more a double standard issue when it is a non Muslim committing the terrorist attack. Doesn't fit the narrative.

[limpid]

It's not an atheist issue. It's more a double standard issue when it is a non Muslim committing the terrorist attack. Doesn't fit the narrative.

From what we can gather, no atheist is involved, so yes, it's not a atheist issue. Even if an atheist is involved, that doesn't mean it's related in any way to his lack of a belief in god(s). It appears a sole actor in a gun rich society shot some people. That's all we know at this point. 

 

When there's a multiple school shooting in America, pro-gun people are criticised and called to account. The media do think that pro-gun lobbyists should justify what gun wielding nutters do with their guns. Isn't that the same narrative you say is only applied to Muslims?

[mjmooney]

I can argue with my Christian friends, and qualify my argument by saying "I'm not having a go at you personally, just your religion". That doesn't work with most Muslims, who would far rather you insult them personally than insult their religion. And that's what people don't 'get'.

[blandy]

It's not an atheist issue. It's more a double standard issue when it is a non Muslim committing the terrorist attack. Doesn't fit the narrative.

I think that's true to a large degree. Much of the media here and in the US (from what I see) has just decided (wrongly, IMO) that Muslims and Islam are a kind of "agent within" and they will highlight or talk about bad things done by Muslims people more than by other people. They will also give less coverage if Muslims are the victims. It's the impression I get, anyway.

 

It's not that they don't cover crimes or horrors not involving muslims, it's just that they seem to have a view that Muslims are different, morally, somehow, and that's wrong.

 

Mike's comment about some Muslims feeling it's worse to offend their religion than them as individuals seems anecdotally true, I'd say as well. Perhaps some hold that view that the worst thing you can do is insult the prophet ,while other walks of life think it's worse to insult the individual, and that does seem a kind of core difference, culturally from what I have seen (I might be wrong, but it does seem that way at times). Because different cultures have those different values it makes it easy for something not intended as seriously (or even slightly) offensive uttered by (say) me as a non religionist, could be taken horribly offensively by some one religious in Islam. And the reverse might be true - Stephen Fry can be insulting about Catholic God and he get's a bit of stick from a couple of people in the media, and it's forgotten. Would that have been the same if he had said the same about Allah?

 

As Chris said the other day, perhaps we should just try to be aware of each other's cultural foibles.

 

Absolutely no offence is intended to anyone or to any deities, real or imaginary, by this post.

[chrisp65]

just as a point from earlier, a quick bit of basic 'wiki' googling re the nazi's:

 

early on they got the churches on side, had treaties and agreements with the catholic church

as their power grew they closed down churches, arrested and / or executed up to 6,000 catholic priests

'Kirchenaustritte' allowed the people to 'de register' from church. In 1937 / 38 / 39 over 400,000 were members of churches - by 1944 this was down to 23,000

 

 

During the war Alfred Rosenberg formulated a thirty-point program for the National Reich Church, which included:

• The National Reich Church claims exclusive right and control over all Churches.
• The National Church is determined to exterminate foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800.
• The National Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the Bible.
• The National Church will clear away from its altars all Crucifixes, Bibles and pictures of Saints.
• On the altars there must be nothing but Mein Kampf and to the left of the altar a sword

 

 

religion in nazi germany

 

anyway, having done a little reading, the jury is out and confused

 

I'll stop this diversion well off topic here, apologies.

[limpid]

The concordat signed in 1933 was (for the church) a self-defence mechanism and (for the Nazis) moral** justification / credibility. The pope failed to repeal it after the war (no surprise) and the German state still has to collect tithes on their behalf from anyone who hasn't de-registered from religion. There is no record that Hitler de-registered his Catholicism (and his mother was devout). Reading Mein Kampf will clarify how religious Hitler was, although he cherry picked and would probably be better defined as a deist with strong Christian tendencies.

 

** Not that morals come from religion, but a lot of people think they do.

[bickster]

So if a Muslim killed three Atheist people in the same place because they were Atheist it would be treated the same?  Ok then.

I suppose it depends if those three people are in one of the seven countries in the world where atheism is punishable by death. All seven countries have Islam as the state religion, one of them is even supposedly a democracy. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Maldives, Mauritania and Afghanistan.