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This reminds me of my tenure on the Atheism+ forums, back before my redpilling/blackpilling (I don't know what to call it, since I didn't really change my beliefs, I just realized the people I thought were on my side, aren't).
A+, as you know, was woker than woke before "woke" became a thing. And one of my "WTF?" moments when I realized these people are fucking crazy is when they went hard on defending... Muslims. Not against general racism and bigotry, but against criticisms that the "New Atheists" had no problem applying to every other religion.
At one point, the forum got trolled hard by a poster from one of the hater-forums who monitored them, a set of people running an account that adopted the persona of a gay man who proceeded to post long effort-posts about the connection between homophobia and Islamophobia, and how seeing the latter "triggered" him, as a gay man, despite the fact that he was an atheist.
The mods on the A+ forum proceeded to take him very seriously and started modding comments that were too "Islamophobic."
He also declared that the term "homosexual" was homophobic. The mods proceeded to mod anyone who used the word homosexual.
I was one of the few people who pushed back and kept getting in arguments with him, until he eventually DMed me and let me know what the game was. I already suspected something of the sort, because to any sane person his arguments were so transparently nonsensical. But the mods and the other SJWs on the forum ate it up.
As to your broader point, I think liberals like Maher and Harris suffer from a misapprehension that I had myself until recently (my beliefs have changed on this one): that Islam is just another religion and that, like Christianity and Judaism and other bronze-age religions that were once full of barbarism and genocidal ideology, the civilizing effects of modern Western liberalism will eventually secularize them until they are just like the rest of us, and we'll have a big joint Christmas/Hannuka/Ramadan holiday season.
This does happen to an extent. Moderate Muslims in the West are... mostly like the rest of us. I hesitate to say that Islam is fundamentally incapable of undergoing some kind of "Enlightenment." (Leaving aside the arguments from some of our resident Christians that post-Enlightenment Christianity isn't real Christianity at all.) I don't think Islam is some sort of unique Neal Stephenson mind virus that turns its followers into violent p-zombies even if many of Islam's critics do.
But I am pessimistic about Islam, in its current form, being capable of coexisting long-term with other ideologies. I have a lot of other uncharitable and blackpilling thoughts I've been tossing around and trying to decide how much of it is Chinese Cardiology and selection bias.
I do think a blanket "Muslim ban" is stupid (and clearly unconstitutional). But a ban on importing large numbers of people from countries that just happen to be dominated by Muslims of an uncompromising, anti-Western, pro-jihadist bent does not seem irrational or bigoted to me, but it would be hard to frame it in a way that would be acceptable to those who believe Islam is "just another religion."
One problem is that most of the arguments that can be used in favor of a Muslim ban can also be used in favor of banning people who have far-left or far-right views. Even if there might be some good pragmatic reasons for being wary of Islam, banning Islam is a slippery slope towards banning every militant ideology that is incompatible with the mainstream of today's West. But I would not want to live in a country that is even as censorious as modern Germany, much less China. Personally I think that Islam is stupid, but I think that communism and fascism are stupid too, and I perceive that banning communists, fascists, and Muslims from immigrating to the US, aside from just grating very strongly against my pro-free-speech attitude, would also open a whole can of worms that could potentially lead to banning even people with much less far-out political views, myself included.
Adding onto this, as a participant in New Atheism at the time it was definitely noticed by some atheists that what the evangelical Christian right (at their generational height of power in the Bush administration) said about Muslims while calling for bans on them, leveling the middle east, profiling and so on matched and rhymed with the things that they also said about us. Given many new atheists were former evangelicals in heavily religious areas, myself included, we were quite familiar with how much hatred they had for "secular humanism" and atheists in particular.
There was a distinct feeling that if the Bush administration put this unpopular religious minority on the chopping block, we could end up being targeted down the line in the sense of the "first they came for the socialists, and I did nothing because I was not a socialist" speech.
This is a very self serving far left take which justifies Christian hostility towards "secular humanists".
The neocons are influential now and wrecking harm and new atheism had plenty of crossover with that but you are going to frame your political coalition as the victims by focusing on the past. This fails to address the current problems of our time and gives excessive sympathy over the past to atheists.
"secular humanists" have had their influence and have targeted others especially Christians, so please stop with this victimhood narrative. Atheists are one of the groups that poll as one of the most pro censorship in fact.
Importantly, the ideology of these atheists has western civilization at a trajectory of destruction. It is justifiable to suppress that ideology just for not caring about extinction and low fertility rates. If atheists in general were so good, they wouldn't poll so far to the left. Now, I think personally that there are some wise atheists so I am against hostility towards every atheistic person in a general manner from political discourse. But I don't buy into this idea of atheists as on average the wise people who have abadoned stupid dogma.
And even their anti religious sentiment seems to somehow focus especially against Christianity, with certain other religions (less so Islam) getting much less criticism.
Now, there are problems with Christianity and progressive Christianity is a disaster that shares the pathologies of the "secular humanists" so there also needs to be a significant change but the reality is ironically that a Christian society of a somewhat conservative bent is more successful in creating a society ruled by humanism than "secular humanists" have ever been. It is a model that worked, while you "secular humanist" atheists have behaved in inhumane and destructive manner in societies you ruled over. Albeit the term secular humanism is a misnomer and those using it are not eager to gatekeep that their faction does not include cruel fanatics willing to be inhuman in the name of humanism. Moreover, there are tradeoffs and some of the rules and behaviors encouraged by Christianity are actually necessary components of a lasting civilized society.
So rather than recreating a wise framework from a "secular" perspective, the "secular humanists" just adopt, or are in fact part of the leaders of a far left ideological dogma that works badly. The vaccum left by Christianity's decline does not lead to less fanaticism, as the new ideological religion is promoted with fanaticism.
Today, Christians are arrested in Britain for silently praying in abortion centers. When a trans mass shooter kills Christian kids due to anti christian and anti white racism, the American goverment promotes transgenders as the victim. Not to mention all other left wing associated racism against whites who are more right wing coded and direct promotion of progressive stack. So enough with this idea of groups in a left wing framing due to events of the past are the victims against the right wing oppressor. Especially funny you bring up the socialists when they have also done their own great share of crimes.
This one sided obsession is incredibly destructive, and atheistic anti christian types have been rather willing to use power to screw over others in modern history. Have some humility and consider your own faction's sins, and whether your faction's influence have made things worse.
Are you using ChatGPT? The longwinded passages that read as if responding to things that weren't said in my post have certain qualities and odd phrasing that are seriously tripping my AI-generated content radar.
Instead of responding to anything of substance you just throw some false accusations. If 2 days pass and you haven't come up with something that addresses the actual post, it is better if you say nothing.
I'm still suspicious.
The argument revolves around self preservation.
I was a rightist at the time, as were all atheists I knew, and I would still be one for another decade afterwards. One doesn't have to like a group's beliefs - and I very much dislike Islam - to be against empowering others to inflict collective punishment and wage concerted attempts at destroying them. You've already advanced to arguing that atheism is incompatible with western civilization, which is what was being said in the arguments building up for going after rando Muslims.
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