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| Maryam Namazie, Central Committee member of the Worker Communist Party of Iran, and good at smiling. |
Religious Inquisitions Bad, Anti-Religious Inquisitions Good?
In an astounding act of chutzpah, Iranian communist leader Maryam Namazie just gave a hell-fire-and-brimstone sermon against Christian and Muslim inquisitions at the World Atheist Conference in Dublin. She breathed not a word about communist inquisitions, which have resulted in the torture and death of tens of thousands of innocent people, for every victim of the Spanish Inquisition. (Which itself was, I agree, one of the low points of Christian history.)
"Religion kills," Namazie warns us.
Yeah, right. Thanks for reminding us.
Her talk proved deeply popular among "Gnu" atheists. In just a few hours, it already has 82,000 page hits. It was also linked at PZ Myer's popular Pharyngula site, where her attacks were of course generally welcome. This despite what I see as both deplorable logic and deep historical ignorance, as I think I'll explain in a later blog. (Viewer alert: I will probably post a thorough, not entirely unappreciative, response to Namazie's talk tomorrow.)
But what's most striking is the humbug and hypocrisy not only of Namazie's address, but of the World Atheist Conference, for inviting a communist aparatchik to give a talk on inquisitions. Were they expecting a seminar on how to conduct them? Evidently not, since she didn't give any such useful tips, and no one seemed to note their absense.
So what are the Dublin atheists thinking? How does one explain this astounding bit of chutzpah? Here are a few possibilities I came up with:
(a) Atheists are all Medieval scholars. They are head-in-the-clouds historians, who are live in the past, and never noticed the 20th Century.
(b) They believe that the problems with Soviet communism were all the fault of Joseph Stalin. Otherwise, Marx and his followers are all truly dedicated humanitarians and lovers of freedom. In other words, they haven't forgotten quite ALL of the 20th Century, just most of it.
(c) Hey, she's Iranian, she's female, she's lesbian, she's radical, she's got a nice mellow smile -- why read the rest of the resume?
(d) What's wrong with a little "Common Front" until the Gnus take over? We might as well make a big noise about liberty and all -- we've got the schools and are brainwashing the kids just like the Soviets were, anyway. Let's squack about their Inquisitions, keep mum about our own, and keep the other side on its toes -- the best offense is a good offense, eh?
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ReplyDeleteDavid said:
She breathed not a word about communist inquisitions, which have resulted in the torture and death of tens of thousands of innocent people, for every victim of the Spanish Inquisition.
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Tu quoque really isn't much of an argument. That communists have done bad things does not excuse the bad things done by the religious.
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Atheists are all Medieval scholars. They are head-in-the-clouds historians, who are live in the past, and never noticed the 20th Century.
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LoL! Yes David, that's it exactly; you've found us out. Now please excuse me as I repair to my alchemy laboratory to reprogram some computers with pig urine and bats' blood. ;)
I guess I count myself among those who are skeptical of nearly all attempts to identify strong causal links between religious or areligious belief and actions.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that there is compelling evidence that people (whatever their religious proclivities) tend to decide what to do first, and only then confabulate a rationalization for it.
Even where there may be statistically significant correlations between certain religious beliefs and attitudes, I tend to think that it is the social factors, more than the doctrinal components of the belief system, that are doing most of the real work.
This means that I view both those who like to say "religion has caused atrocities" and those who say "atheism has caused atrocities" with approximately equal skepticism. A pox on both their houses.
What about option e: The Cult of Gnu isn't interested in honesty or rationality in large part. It's mostly about politics, and if a lie works better than the truth, the lie wins hands-down?
ReplyDeleteAnd it wasn't that "communists" have done bad things, but "atheists". And here comes the 'but atheism didn't lead to that, even though their policies and philosophies were explicitly atheistic and anti-theistic' dance. No true scotsman, unless it's a religious crime, in which case there's no false scotsman.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeletePlease read up on the history and ideology of the Communists. Their views and policies were not explicitly "anti-religious" but often were partnered with religious institutions. It's also noteworthy that the fight against religion only occurred later on, once the church threatened the Communists' plans for socialism, debunking the myth that they only wanted to target religion. They did so only because the church threatened their socialist utopia they were trying to create. Where does atheism come into play in this situation may I ask?
That's two "anons," with opposite views. Thanks for posting, but maybe I need to require ID -- this gets confusing. It also feels like talking with ghosts.
ReplyDeleteI have "read up on the history and ideology of the communists" -- in English, Russian, and Chinese. I've also lived in Soviet and Chinese societies. The founder and editor of the Slavic Review, also head of the University of Washington history department, read my article on "Where Did Marx Go Wrong?" (now a chapter in Jesus and the Religions of Man) and said he agreed with my analysis.
In fact, communism was intensely anti-religious from the beginning, and before the beginning -- in the childhood poetry of Karl Marx, for example.
I'll just repeat what I ended my previous comment with: Where does atheism come into play in this situation may I ask? Even if I grant you the argument that the communists were anti-religious from the beginning how does that implicate atheism? How is atheism and anti-religion one and the same? They aren't connected in any way. Someone can be an atheist and not hate religion and vice-versa. Can you prove the communists hated religion because they were atheists? If so, that would be good evidence for your thesis.
ReplyDeleteAtheist: I misread your post a bit -- sorry for the confusion.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you take my thesis to be? I said it was an "astounding act of chutzpah" for a communist aparatchik to lecture on the evils of religious inquisitions, and breath not a word about far worse communist inquisitions.
Do you want more than that? OK:
The communists who committed those crimes were, in fact, atheists. Most modern atheists have, in fact, learned their atheism from communist propagandists. Of course one need not justify or commit crimes just because one is an atheist, any more than one must do so as a Christian. But it is rank hypocrisy for a crowd of atheists to cheer a communist speaker denouncing RELIGIOUS crimes that occurred most of a millennia ago, without breathing a word about far worse ANTI-RELIGIOUS crimes committed far more recently and profusely, by atheists who belong to the same sect as the speaker!
But I'll analzye Ms. Namazie's speech in more detail, and post the analysis probably tomorrow, after getting some real work done first. Take it easy.
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ReplyDeleteAnonymous [#1] said:
The Cult of Gnu isn't interested in honesty or rationality in large part. It's mostly about politics, and if a lie works better than the truth, the lie wins hands-down?
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That's OK with me so long as you're willing to admit that it also applies to religion.