Why Atheists Caricature Islam: An Insiders Perspective

[rug]

April 24, 2016 by Ro Waseem
GUEST POST BY KILE JONES

My last couple posts dealt with debunking stupid memes that tried to show the Qur’an is hate-speech towards non-believers and daily inspiration for ISIS. I also wrote a piece on how progressive Muslims and atheists can work together. Now it’s time to clean house and address a very real problem in atheist circles: the use of simplistic and naive caricatures of Islam.

This is not just about people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali calling Islam a “cult of death,” it’s much more diffused and endemic. Us atheists can always shrug these ridiculous claims off to the hate-mongering of a few sensationalized figures. And while it is true that these people do not represent all of atheism, it’s unfortunate that many of us fail to see a problem with being utterly uncritical and sophomoric in the way we discuss Islam. It should not be that hard to convince people that believe critical thinking, reason, and intelligence are supreme virtues to utilize them when discussing Islam, but it is.

People who usually call afoul on the inductive fallacy are seen embracing it when they use a single anecdotal example to stereotype billions of people, and the irony is not subtle. And when atheists disassociate from people like Bill Maher or Richard Dawkins and then are quick to connect all Muslims with some outspoken and firebrand Mullah, it appears they have forgotten a lesson they learned for themselves. While this phenomenon of double standards is not limited to atheists and Islam, it happens enough to make a post like this necessary.

Why do many atheists fail to see these glaring blind-spots? Now, I’m no psychologist, but I have a few ideas:

It’s easy to lump people together. It’s easy to think of Muslims as dumb sheep with martyrdom complexes who wish to appease their Mullahs and Allah (often in that order) by enacting violence against infidels. It’s easy to take an extremist and use them as the ideal model for a whole group of people. It’s easy because it does not require in-depth analysis or research. So when atheists proof-text the Qur’an or Hadith to show how evil Islam is, they very rarely examine the cultural, historical, and textual context of the passages they use.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/quranalyzeit/2016/04/24/why-atheists-caricature-islam-an-insiders-perspective/

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Because hundreds of millions of Muslims think adulterers and apostates should be killed

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/

And caricature is one way of trying to persuade people that there's a problem that stems from some of the basic beliefs of the religion. That doesn't mean we can't put forward serious arguments as well. Like we both caricature the Republican party and use serious arguments against it.

[rug]

3. That's as good as any reasonto lump 1.2 billion people together, eh?

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. When about a fifth of them are murderous for religious reasons

you have to say that specific religion has a problem that needs fixing, yes.

This isn't about misogyny that the religion may encourage in many; it's about them wanting to kill. It's extremely serious.

[edhopper]

2. Why is every

Criticism of Islam. Even of beliefs that large portions and at times the majority of Muslims hold, always dismissed as bigotry, racism and unwarrented.

[Lost-in-FL]

5. That only happens with the "regressive left".

Not even constructive criticism of islam is allowed.

[Albertoo]

6. So many fallacies in this text

- Accusing critics of Islam to conflate it with 1.6 billion Muslims.
- Denying "the Qur’an is hate-speech towards non-believers" when passages obviously are
- Suggesting "the cultural, historical, and textual context" can excuse that hate speech

Anyway, like all religions, Islam could be made to say anything. It just takes more effort to find a nice, progressive common ground because one needs to explain away the nasty bits
(misogyny, homophobia, non freedom of speech, supremacism, ..)