Dawkins and Harris both struggled with Islamaphobia and hiding behind a critique of Islam that leaned heavily into racism, a charge which both Dawkins and Harris were upset about. Yet… in my opinion it’s not a charge that is incorrect, especially as it was their works which laid the groundwork for the “edgy atheist youtuber” movement that “somehow” manifested itself as right-wing.

For examples, here is when Richard Dawkins basically said that letting kids read supernatural fiction was dangerous because it made them less likely to understand the difference between fantasy and reality:

He suggested children should be taught scientific rigour from an early age.

“Is it a good thing to go along with the fantasies of childhood, magical as they are? Or should we be fostering a spirit of scepticism?” the Daily Telegraph quotes him as saying.

“I think it’s rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism – we get enough of that anyway.

“Even fairy tales, the ones we all love, with wizards or princesses turning into frogs or whatever it was. There’s a very interesting reason why a prince could not turn into a frog – it’s statistically too improbable.”

And here is a really good breakdown from Daniel Schultz on Sam Harris’ blind spots that reveal his critiques of Islam to be less biased than Harris thinks they are (it’s also highly amusing that the referenced exchange was with Glenn Greenwald of all people). Emphasis is mine:

One of the critiques, advanced by Hussain against New Atheists like Harris, concerns the way in which their rational thinking is not as free from history as it presumes; on the contrary, it often exhibits the tendency to rehearse oppressive (at times racialized) features of colonial thought. Harris’ phrase “this iron age madness” functions as a clear example of the way in which he codes ‘non-Western’ as traditional, backward, and repressive, allowing the West to represent itself as modern, forward thinking, and free.

This form of reasoning confuses its descriptions with its presuppositions, using the former to covertly ground the latter.

In a notable example of such confused reasoning, Harris asserted, in a Huffington Post piece quoted by Hussain, that “the outrage that Muslims feel over US and British foreign policy is primarily the product of theological concerns.”

Here we see Harris’ assumptions: 1) theological concerns cannot provide a basis for reasonable claims; 2) theological concerns are symptoms of a mistaken (traditional, backward, culturally determined) understandings of oneself and the world; 3) non-theological (atheistic) concerns as the only kinds of concerns capable of grounding an accurate view of oneself and the world.

Harris’ assumptions mask the vast differences internal to modes of religious thought (an oxymoron for Harris) and religious life. It also obscures the fact that there might, in fact, be non-theological reasons for Muslims to feel outraged over US and British foreign policy.

Harris’ new form of atheism sounds very much like an old form of colonialism.

This is seen most clearly at those moments when Harris shows us the ethical character of his thinking. He writes, in the e-mail response to Greenwald, “one of my main concerns is for all the suffering women, homosexuals, freethinkers, and intellectuals in indigenous Muslim societies.”

Appealing to the discourse of Western moral superiority, Harris invokes their plight as a way to justify belligerent attitudes against Islam. His reasoning predicates the West as the source of salvation and precludes the possibility of thinking meaningful social transformation outside the framework of an atheistic liberalism.

When I was in college I met an exchange student from Palestine (he had to actually say he was from Jordan, but he was originally from Palestine, he lives in Jordan now), and I quickly learned that not everyone from an Islamic culture is some backwards radical religious nut. It might have behooved either Dawkins or Harris to actually meet someone from such a culture like my friend. My friend also eventually became an atheist, but he also struggled and grappled with the fact that this would be viewed damningly in his home country. The point being he was thoughtful, smart, and was able to come to his own conclusions about life, just like I was, despite being from wildly different cultures. His culture did not make him “backward” or “iron-age.”

Really makes me look back on the days of us making fun of women with dyed hair shrieking over Trump winning. They were right, they were reacting appropriately and I was a fool to not see it. (Just want to emphasize that I’m not a Trump supporter, I just didn’t think things would get this bad)

HRT helped me actually feel again, and empathy made me realize that thinking “logic is superior” is really stupid and even thinking there’s a seperation between emotion and logic in politics is really stupid. Oftentimes logic is just justification and obfuscation of an emotional opinion.

The final nail in the coffin for me was when I stumbled on this Martin Luther King quote about how the moderate is the true obstacle for civil rights, those “who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom”.

It made me realize how stupid it is to negotiate with fascists and bureaucracy. That we should get angry, we should get emotional, we should get active and maybe violent, when we see human beings stop being treated as such.

I doubt most people know an open furry. But there’s always been antifurry hate since they’re kinda weird and niche and you can always try and link them to bestiality but just like now its always just been a thinly veiled wedge to start hating on gay and trans people and really anyone different. I think a lot more people understand intellectually someone who was born male but identifies as a woman than the whole fursona thing. Honestly antifurry rhetoric seems like an easy predictor to all kinds of minority hate. Love the litter box in the bathroom one have to tell people that’s obviously stupid all the time.

They’re not gonna give up because they viciously hate furries (for the most part, there are some fucking weird Nazi furs and i will never understand that) but yeah, that message just doesn’t resonate with people who live in the real world.

The ‘litter boxes in the bathrooms’ continues to come up, like clockwork every few months. It’s absurd. As fucking if anyone has ever actually put a litter box in a bathroom in a gods damned school.

Because bad actors will search these terms and harass you for speaking ill of them, no matter the platform.

Not sure why you’re being aggressive over someone taking precautions to protect themself.

Maybe they just find their names distasteful.

Or not watch them because they’re shit and the algorithm changes what it recommends.

These fascists do that with everything. They take a real social issue people are upset about and then use it as a pretty container to fill with their bullshit. I was around then and I don’t even remember the original controversy just the weird backlash against women as gamers.

I wrote “arguments” instead of “argument” because it was pretty clear to those of us outside the drama that for a lot of people it was about hating on women who had the audacity to make shitty indie games like any other shitty indie developer. There was a point hidden in there somewhere about unfair practices in the game industry in general, but I’m skeptical that most people really remember it for that today.

Just explain the big bang. I mean, not as if anything else is true. As for the “meaning” of life, my parents were quite blunt. And I’m also blunt to my kids: “there is no meaning. Life is what you make off it. Be excellent to each other and enjoy the ride”

Some don’t have an answer or don’t care. Some parents show all the religious answers to disillusion the uniqueness and originality of major religions’ answers. Many children don’t ask or care. Many children are perfectly fine with documentaries about the Big Bang, seeing the complexity involved.

I asked, my parents didn’t know and cared little to find out, I found documentaries and audiobooks made for children. It took a long time for me to understand that the boring religious stories they subtly taught in school were seeking to at least partially replace the scientific narratives.

We were/are always just honest with our kids. No, we don’t think there’s a god/goddess/whatever. When we/grandma/grandpa/whoever dies, they’re just gone. Nobody knows where the universe/world comes from. As far as anyone knows it’s several billion years old. Explain the big bang as best as we know it. Etc.

There’s no ‘right’ way for so many things when it comes to kids. Ours know that many people believe in a god. We don’t. That’s ok.

There was one time I took way too much DOC and had a life changing experience. I was tripping for 24 hours, felt like I lost all meaning of myself, was filled with despair, but felt connected to everything and everyone. Afterwards I found the term “ego death” and well… yeah that happened.

While I’m an atheist now, I was raised catholic and really believed in everything until 20 or so. Without experiencing that ego death, I might still believe today.