This is a great lecture Richard Dawkins gave at a TED conference a few years ago. Anyone who read his book (which I highly recommend) will know that Dawkins is in the middle of an important struggle that has two main goals: getting atheists to get out of the closet, and getting religious people to see the mental cage they are in. two noble causes indeed.
I'm a great fan of Richard Dawkins. As an atheist I couldn't have asked for a better representative, and personally, I try to take any opportunity that occurs to me in order to show religious people the mental cage they are in, but I think there is something important to be considered by American atheists before waging war on religion (focusing mainly on American Christianity of course) as Dawkins recommends. The important question is – is this the right battle to be fought at the moment?
It's definitely a very important and just one, but is it strategically the right cross to bear at this particular moment in time?
I'm pretty shore it's not. I think it’s a bit like someone standing in Europe in 1939 talking about how dangerous communism is, and how it most be fought against. He'll be absolutely right, only a bit ahead of his time…
History does repeat it self, only in slightly different versions. Today is 1939. Just like then, there are only a certain amount of people who are both aware of what they are standing in front of, and are willing to do something about it. An internal struggle within this important group is the last thing we need.
There's a huge variety of religions on this planet. Putting them all under one headline is a dangerous mistake. Protestantism, Reform Judaism, and modern Buddhism have their flaws, but potting them under the same headline with extremist Orthodox Judaism, extremist Catholics and almost any kind of Islam is a mistake, and an insult. Stepping into a struggle with these groups today is a mistake. Not because I believe they are right in their point-of-view on the philosophical debate about the existence of god, but because we have bigger and more urgent problems, and we can't afford not having these good people on our side.
I believe Richard Dawkins understands very well that the true threat to modern society and its values comes in the century we live in mainly form radical Islam (off course there are fanatic groups in all other religions but they're insignificant comparing to those Islam had manage to create). If Dawkins walked any street of a major city in his home land in the last decade or so, he most probably noticed this painful fact. So, why is he attacking all three religions equally?
I believe political correctness is the answer. Dawkins grew up in a generation that decided that it's moral to criticize your own culture but immoral to criticize another. Criticizing his own religion feels and looks much better, you don’t feel as moral when you criticize another man's culture, even if you know you're right. If you criticize your own religion you’re a freedom fighter, if you criticize someone else's, you're a racist.
Dawkins looks so brave on that stage, but this is where he chicken's out, obeying to the political correctist demand for self hatred, not daring to mention the huge difference there is between the two first monotheistic religions and the third. If we want to preserve the values of the society we live in, we cannot allow ourselves to declare war on religion as a hole, we don't have that luxury. We need to bravely look at reality and understand where the real threat to free thought comes from. At this moment it’s the mosque far more then the church.
Unlike Christendom or Judaism Islam does not have legitimate moderate versions. The idea of the Islam being a "religion of peace" with a small fundamentalist group inside it is simply untrue; it derives from booth ignorance and politically correctness. There have been a few attempts to create moderate versions to Islam (such as the Baha'is), but unlike in the other two monotheistic religions these attempts have not been successful. Such groups are today considered infidels. Unfortunate as it may be, when Said Qutab (or Ossama Ben Laden for that matter) claims they represent the only true Islam they are right. They didn't interpret the Quran in a new fundamentalist way, they are closer to following it's instructions as they are written then anyone else. Multiculturalists will tell you that Islam has peaceful commandments, if they did their homework, they might even quote the very rear peaceful commandments which do exist in the early chapters. Unfortunately, beyond being rear, these commandments are simply irrelevant. Why? Because of one of the first rules that have been created in order to solve some of the contradictions within the Quran. The simple rule says- later commandments of the prophet supersede earlier ones. A sad fact is that the book becomes more aggressive and militant with every chapter (with very few exceptions).
So what we have is an already militant book which true believers are only allowed to interpret in the more militant way, So much for a religion of peace.
In a different Ted talk, Dan Dennett talks about dangerous memes and claims that just like a dangerous virus, sometimes a dangerous meme cannot be wiped out, but has to be gradually transformed into something a body/society can live with. This process has happened in both Christendom and Judaism, were the mainstream of religion had become something society can live with, taking a positive part in society by preserving communities, teaching people to be less selfish and so on. Islam has not gone through this process yet. It's going to be a very long and bitter struggle to get this one to become a minor flu we can live with. Especially if we keep telling ourselves that it is something different then what it really is.
Post colonial guilt together with an overwhelming control off the left wing in universities in both the states and Europe had blinded us from seeing Islam for what it really is. Do yourself a favor- read a little about the real history of the 1300 year old war between the Islam and the European culture, and read the Quran as well. You'll be surprised how far it is from what you’ve been taught by your university, your TV or public opinion.
Dawkins says in his lecture:" we should stop being so dammed respectful". I think we can stay respectful, but we should all stop being so afraid of appearing to be extremists. There is nothing extremist or racist about understanding that a certain ideology is dangerous and harmful. You don’t have to be racist against Germans in order to understand Nazism is crazy and dangerous. You don’t have to be racist against Arabs, Asians or Hindus in order to understand how dangerous Islam is. I want to be absolutely clear about this point: I'm not talking about Muslim people as people here. Muslim people are, off course, mostly good by nature, law abiding people like anyone else. I'm talking about an Idea. The majority of Muslim people in Europe today are moderate people who just want to live their lives peacefully like anyone else, but, they are not moderate because they follow a moderate religion. They are moderate because they had the courage to leave behind a few parts of a religion which is in its base extremist and hateful. Telling them, and our selves that the religion they partly left behind (even if not consciously), is actually a religion of peace, is not exactly encouraging them to change it or leave it behind.
One more thing: I want to urge upon all atheists (including myself, off course) an important question:
Are you truly as open minded as you put yourself to be? Are you not controlled by a semi religious mechanism, a new "ism" that dictates your thoughts and obligates you to ignore the facts that stand right in front of you? Telling you what your opinion is, in every important aspect of modern life?
I want to argue that, to some extent, most atheists in this generation have their thoughts dictated to them as well. Cultural relativism, political correctness or however you what to call it, is the great "ism" of this century. It might prove to be at least as dangerous as Nazism and Communism. In his book Dawkins shows the semi religious characteristics of these modern religions. Just like them, cultural relativism is a modern atheistic semi-religion. It controls people's minds in a similar way, dictating certain truths that are not to be questioned in every aspect of modern life, without a need for evidence. It is a dangerous meme for cultural suicide. The scariest thing about it is that it succeeds in persuading intelligent people they are open minded, while they are anything but. The second scariest thing about it is - I suspect Dawkins, my favorite guru, might be him self a bit infected.
Dawkins thinks that hi's speaking to an audience which is atheistic in its majority. I suspect hi's not. I think it's probable to assume a large percentage of his audiences are a part of a modern semi-religion at its early stages.
How can it resemble a religion, you might ask, it doesn’t even have a god? The answer is simple- religion doesn't need a god in order to exist. What it does need is a basic Axum that rules out rationality as a tool for handling reality. That’s exactly what a totalitarian regime needs as well. Just like George Orwell said in 1944: “The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is that it attacks the concept of objective truth".
Cultural relativism does exactly that. It rules out rationality as a tool for handling reality. It tells you there is no truth out side yourself, and you're rational judgment is culturally based, and there for not an expectable tool for telling right from wrong. It tells you, for example, that modern society's values of democracy, equality and human rights are morally equal to a culture that preserves slavery, punishes for blasphemy by execution (by stoning…), discriminates woman, and sanctifies the killing or at least the brutal discrimination against anyone who is not a part of it.
Like any other religion, once you accepted the basic fundamental Axum of relativism, there is no limit to the logical contradictions you'll be able to ignore in order to defend it, and there is no limit to the stupidity of the things you'll find you're self say and do.
In order to have the moral right to try and show religious people the mental cage they are in and help them step out of it, we must first see our own cage and boldly step out. Once we do that, many religious people will join us without the need for persuasion, since what's keeping them from doing it today, is that they look at us and see very well the cage we are in.
