Richard Dawkins Admits That Religion ISN'T the Problem in the Mideast - and What the Problem Really Is

In reality, I don't think this is any kind of huge departure from what Dawkins (and Harris and Maher) have been saying all along - he still attributes the violence to their religious beliefs.

It's disappointing to see our supposed "intellectuals" getting caught up with the trees and totally missing the forest. The Muslim jihadists practice a specific form of Islam, and it has little to do with the religion itself and everything to do with the worldview from which it emerges. The same thing is true of their politics, their cultural customs (like dietary restrictions and marrying off girls when they still children), and their educational system (teaching only the Qur'an). Each of these (religion, politics, cultural customs, and education) are trees in the forest we call a worldview.

This is where the Spiral Dynamics model can actually be useful in understanding the situation. The spiral in Spiral Dynamics (the book) emerged from Clare Graves's original theory, which uses a double helix (looks like DNA) model to show the interrelatedness of an individual's perception of life conditions with their inner neuronal systems (psychosocial development), producing a level of psychological existence. In this model, a worldview is shaped by the interplay between life conditions and cognitive development.

If we really want to change things in the Middle East, we need to understand their worldview (or worldviews) and why it motivates them to do and believe that Jihad is the answer to their problems. If we can begin to understand that, then we might look to Clare Graves' original work on "change states" and the stages of change, as well as Robert Kegan's "Immunity to Change" model.

Shocker: Leading Atheist Richard Dawkins Finally Admits That Religion ISN'T the Problem in the Mideast

The statement from the evolutionary biologist is a parting of ways with atheists who claim that religion is the primary motivator for terrorist groups.

September 30, 2014  |  By Dan Arel

Is Richard Dawkins changing his tune on Islam and terrorism? In a recent interview with Russia Today, the evolutionary biologist and noted atheist was questioned about the Islamic religion and its ties to ISIS and just how much responsibility it bears in the brutal beheadings carried out by the terrorist group. Dawkins said:

“Religion itself is not responsible for this... It's also this feeling of political involvement. It's a feeling that it's 'us against them.' And I think that quite a large number of young Muslims feel kind of beleaguered against the rest of the world. And so religion in some sense might be just an excuse, but I do think that a dominant part of the motivation for these young men has to be religion."

Dawkins statement is a huge divergence from the opinions of atheists like Sam Harris and Bill Maher, who continue to claim that religion is the primary motivator for radical terrorist groups like ISIS.

Harris's anti-Islamic statements have been notable. Back in 2006, he posted a statement on his blog that bordered on xenophobia: “Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies."

Dawkins' remarks don't even jibe with earlier comments he made in a piece he wrote for the Guardian back in 2001 where he contradicted the claim that terrorists are cowards:

“On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from. It came from religion. Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East, which motivated the use of this deadly weapon in the first place.”

But now Dawkins is saying that politics plays the larger role in such radical forms of unrest and that religion is little more than a pretext for terrorism. Many on the left have been saying this for some time. In a recent piece on AlterNet, C.J. Werleman came to the same conclusion after looking into the Suicide Terrorism Database:

“...though religion can play a vital role in the recruitment and motivation of potential future suicide bombers, their real driving-force is a cocktail of motivations including politics, humiliation, revenge, retaliation and altruism. The configuration of these motivations is related to the specific circumstances of the political conflict behind the rise of suicide attacks in different countries.”

When Dawkins was asked about the motivation behind the beheadings and violence, he took a more scientific look at the biological aspect of revenge:

"There is a kind of pseudo-tribalism which uses religion as a label. And I suspect that some of these people think that this hideous violence is vengeance against, say, America, for attacking Iraq or for forming alliances with, I don't know, with Israel, say. And this vengeance becomes directed towards innocent people. There's one British man who is threatened with execution now who is an aid worker, whose motivation is purely altruistic towards the people there. [Since the interview, British aid worker David Haines was executed by ISIS.] And yet he's been scapegoated as vengeance against the US and British governments. I think vengeance is a hideous emotion, but it is one that does have a biological basis.”

This is a much-needed step for new atheists like Dawkins, who have a following in the millions of people who look to him as an expert on such issues. When he had wrongfully blamed religion as the driving force for acts of terrorism, it did a disservice to those working to address the real issue behind the Middle East's problems; it's politics, especially bad foreign policy by the U.S. and its allies, that has always played a bigger role in extremism than religion.

Again, Werleman notes the impact of these policies:

“To maintain control of the Middle East’s cheap oil supplies, we [the U.S] have engaged in industrial slaughter. To achieve our ends, we have propped despotic regimes and brutal dictators, overthrown democratically elected governments, and waged three wars in two decades on Muslim soil. All while we fund and are complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation and theft of Palestinian land.”

Those like Harris seem to ignore this fact and would rather claim that these groups claim to carry out these actions in the name of Allah as proof that they are religiously motivated.

Not understanding this difference can have catastrophic results, especially since now the U.S and its allies are dropping bombs across Iraq and Syria and carrying out the same foreign policy strategy that typically breed groups like ISIS. It is easy for us to believe that we are carrying out an ethical battle against a religious evil, but to believe so is an illusion and ignores all available evidence.

Atheists often want to vilify religion so badly they fail to see the contrary evidence right in front of them. But ignoring the evidence just to serve an anti-theistic agenda does the world no favors. It is time for other new atheists to join Richard Dawkins in accepting the evidence behind the origins of such terrorist movements, and work to solve the problems instead of disparaging an entire religion.

Dan Arel is the author of Parenting Without God and blogs at Danthropology. Follow him on Twitter @danarel.

Atheists Seen as a Threat to Moral Values (via Pacific Standard)

For some reason, I find this nonsense deeply amusing. It's ludicrous to think that Christians, who have been responsible for some of the greatest atrocities in human history, can condemn atheists as immoral and "deeply threatening." One need look no further than the Middle East to see how religion can motivate hate and violence.

At the same time, I do not reject religion as a whole, despite being an atheist of sorts myself (an agnostic atheist). Religion is an important moral and communal center in many peoples' lives. It's only when the "one true god" or "nonbelievers are heretics" ideologies get triggered that religion becomes dangerous.

“Atheists are stereotyped to be (among other things) cynical, skeptical, and nonconformist,” they write. “Individuals perceived to endorse conflicting values, or who fail to openly endorse group values, could threaten to undermine performance and success of the group as a whole by failing to adhere to group norms.” 

***

So it appears atheists have a huge perception problem: People widely assume that if they reject the notion of God, they also reject essential ethical values. Although they don’t represent all atheists, it would clearly help if humanists, with their vision of a moral society that does not require otherworldly guidance or punishment, could raise their profile. 

Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Bill Maher have done a good job of instilling this view of atheists in the public. Dawkins and Maher, in particular, are so strident in their views and their presentation of their views that they alienate even other atheists, such as myself. Secular Humanism is the best antidote to the dogma of Dawkins and the rest.

Atheists Seen as a Threat to Moral Values

By Tom Jacobs • September 15, 2014

(Photo: J. Bicking/Shutterstock)

New research attempts to pinpoint why non-believers are widely disliked and distrusted.

•

Halloween is coming, so here’s a tip for those of you who have yet to decide on a costume. If you really want to scare people, dress up as Richard Dawkins. Or Sam Harris.

Or just tell them you’re an atheist.

Confirming and expanding upon previous research, a newly published paper reports that, in the minds of many, atheists are deeply threatening. Specifically, they are seen as posing a danger to the value systems that unite us.

The fact that their belief systems defy the national consensus, along with “negative cultural stereotypes of atheists as cynical,” leads to the assumption that “atheists are unlikely to follow important group-based value norms” such as reciprocity and trust, according to a research team led by Skidmore College psychologist Corey Cook.

“The perception of threat alone is enough to drive intergroup enmity,” the researchers note, “even if atheists as a minority group do not have the political power or raw numbers to institute cultural changes in value systems.”

Cook and his colleagues describe two experiments, one of which featured 100 undergraduates at a large public university in the southeastern U.S. Seventy-three percent of participants were affiliated with a Christian church.

They were randomly assigned to read one of two news stories designed to appear as if they ran in the college newspaper. One was about a proposed expansion to the dental school. The other was about “moral decline among college students.” It reported that “traditional values such as loyalty and fidelity are less important than in previous years,” adding that today’s students lie and cheat more frequently than their predecessors.

After completing a filler task, participants reported how tense and anxious they felt when thinking about groups of people who are frequently stigmatized: college students, gay men, HIV-infected students, and atheists. They were also asked to indicate, on a one-to-six scale, “whether they would be willing to vote for an atheist presidential candidate, support a local business run by atheists, and whether they believed the U.S. Supreme Court should include atheists.”

Participants who read the neutral essay felt less anxiety when thinking about atheists than they did when considering the other feared groups. But for those who read the “moral threat” story, the level of anxiety provoked by pondering atheists shot up, to the point where it basically equaled the tension elicited by thinking about the other feared groups.

In addition, those who had read about the looming “moral threat” expressed more willingness to discriminate against atheists in the various contexts described above.

In another experiment, atheists produced more “feelings of moral disgust” than other “groups also perceived to threaten values—Muslims, gay men, and people with HIV.” Participants in this experiment (131 undergraduates) also expressed more willingness to discriminate against atheists than against member of the other groups.

Cook and his colleagues have a pretty good idea why the anti-atheist prejudice they documented is so pervasive.

“Atheists are stereotyped to be (among other things) cynical, skeptical, and nonconformist,” they write. “Individuals perceived to endorse conflicting values, or who fail to openly endorse group values, could threaten to undermine performance and success of the group as a whole by failing to adhere to group norms.”

“Although acceptance and egalitarianism are endorsed as traditional American values,” they add, “perceptions of violations to personal and group values are often seen as justification for hostile attitudes and subsequent discrimination. Such justification is reflected in the unwillingness to accept atheists as an everyday part of American society.”

So it appears atheists have a huge perception problem: People widely assume that if they reject the notion of God, they also reject essential ethical values. Although they don’t represent all atheists, it would clearly help if humanists, with their vision of a moral society that does not require otherworldly guidance or punishment, could raise their profile.


Staff writer Tom Jacobs is a veteran journalist with more than 20 years experience at daily newspapers. He has served as a staff writer for The Los Angeles Daily News and the Santa Barbara News-Press. His work has also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Ventura County Star.

More From Tom Jacobs

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• Yes, I’m a Good Person. But Did You Hear About Her?

Related Story

Americans Intuitively Judge Atheists as Immoral

In this episode of Larry King Live, Gus Holwerda (film maker) Dr. Lawrence Krauss (American theoretical physicist) - who created the film The Unbelievers - were joined by Michael Beckwith (American new thought minister & author), Christian actor David A. R. White, and Jay Bakker (pastor, speaker and author).

Nothing new here - but it's interesting to hear Beckwith spar with Krauss. It's also interesting to hear Jay, the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, talk about faith vs. belief (dude has some serious tats).  I'd like to see the film Krauss helped make, The Unbelievers: What Are You Willing to Believe?

This aired on August 20, 2014.

The State of Faith in America Panel with Larry King

According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, religious disaffiliation in the U.S. is at an all-time high. A panel of religious leaders and nonbelievers joined Larry King on his Emmy Nominated show Larry King Now to discuss this trend and what it means for the future of faith in America.

The Unbelievers is a film directed by Gus Holwerda featuring Lawrence Krauss (American theoretical physicist) where they traveled across the globe speaking publicly about the importance of science and reason as opposed to religion and superstition. Both Gus and Lawrence were joined by Michael Beckwith (American new thought minister & author), Christian actor David A. R. White & Jay Bakker (pastor, speaker and author) on this recent episode of Larry King Now.

During the panel the religious leaders and nonbelievers evaluated the presence of religion, or lack thereof in Hollywood. "Sex, violence, and religion. Those will sell, and I think Hollywood cares about what’s going to sell. I don’t think they have an agenda, except making money. Religion is a guaranteed way of making money in Hollywood," Lawrence Krauss remarked.

Physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss also discussed the public's perception of atheists and claims that a research study finds that atheists are viewed in the same vein as rapists. Whereas American New Thought Minister Dr. Michael Beckwith weighed in on why much of the world’s unrest is derived from religion.

• The episode is now LIVE on Ora.tv and Hulu.com (episodes premiere daily 5pm EST)
• To watch the interview, click here: http://on.ora.tv/1pbUUyl

Clips:

Are Atheists Viewed In The Same Vein As Rapists?
Physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss discusses the public's perception of atheists, and claims that a research study finds that atheists are viewed in the same vein as rapists.

I’d Call Myself A Christian Agnostic
Jay Bakker, son of famed televangelists Tammy Faye & Jim Bakker, discusses his progressive outlook on religion & what his popular “Emerging Church Movement” stands for.

Why The Decline In Religion?
Larry’s panel of believers and nonbelievers analyzes a recent Pew Study that says religious disaffiliation is at an all-time high in America.

Surface Level Believers Are Those Who Fight
American New Thought Minister Dr. Michael Beckwith weighs in on why much of the world’s unrest is derived from religion.

Religion Is A Guaranteed Way Of Making Money In Hollywood
Larry’s panel of religious leaders and nonbelievers evaluates the presence of religion, or lack thereof, in Hollywood.

Quotes:

LAWRENCE KRAUSS
"I just ask questions and I want people to think for themselves. And just asking, 'Maybe we don't need a god'—you get called a strident atheist. And somehow that's viewed in our society as a bad thing, for asking questions. But asking questions is what it's all about." — on society being quick to label and write off atheists

"This cosmic Saddam Hussein—if you do something he doesn't like, it's not as if he just tortures you for a few years. It's for all eternity. That doesn't seem to be love." — on the Christian god being a "loving" god

"You cannot, in this current time, say you're an atheist." — on the impossibility of electing an openly atheist president

"The Bible was written, basically, before people knew anything." — on whether the Bible is reputable

GUS HOLWERDA
"I could never buy into it. It was never something I could believe in, so I cast it off at an early age." — on choosing to be atheist

"You can't, with one hand, use science and reason to defend your position about god, and with the other hand, say that the laws of nature can be suspended any time there's a miracle."

MICHAEL BECKWITH
"I had the record for converting Christians to atheism on our college campus."

"I had an encounter with what I call 'love-beauty.' I didn't call it 'god' because I didn't believe in god. The presence was so profound and so real that it altered my character. I can use the word 'god' again, but it's not the god you read about in the Quran or the Bible."

"When I use the word 'spirituality,' I'm speaking of verities like love and peace and harmony and beauty. Those are spiritual qualities. [...] when they become active in you, your character changes."

"If you remain at the surface of just being a believer, a zealot, 'I just believe this' on the surface, then you think that your religion is better than another person’s religion. You’ll fight for religion. But if you actually practice your religion, you don’t end up fighting or thinking yours is better." — on truly practicing religion versus accepting it on the surface

"The Bible, to me, is an evolution of human consciousness. We don't call it the word of god. We call it people who were inspired by the presence of god."

DAVID A. R. WHITE
"I've never wavered from knowing, at the end of the day, where I'm going and is there a god." — on his faith

"I gain my faith, my belief, from what the Bible says about god. Ultimately, Christianity is about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That's what it's really about."

JAY BAKKER
"Christians are doing enough to destroy themselves just by going against each other over theologies. [...] I'm not really worried about the new atheists as much as I am other Christians."

Omnivore - The Age of Atheism

From Bookforum's Omnivore blog, a collection of interesting links on atheism and its discontents.

The age of atheism

Feb 24 2014 

3:00PM

• Stephen Bullivant (St. Mary’s): Why Study Atheism?; and Defining “Atheism”. 
• The real New Atheism: Jeffrey Tayler on rejecting religion for a just world. 
• Remembering Christopher Hitchens: G. Elijah Dann on religious belief and Hitch's greatest hits. 
• When did faith start to fade? Adam Gopnik reviews The Age of Atheists: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God by Peter Watson; and Imagine There's No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World by Mitchell Stephens. 
• George Dvorsky on the 7 most intriguing philosophical arguments for the existence of God. 
• From Philosophy Now, does God exist? William Lane Craig says there are good reasons for thinking that He does (and a response); and Rick Lewis interviews Simon Blackburn on his atheism. 
• Clayton Littlejohn reviews God and Evidence: Problems for Theistic Philosophers by Rob Lovering. 
• Ryan Stringer on a logical argument from evil. 
• Oliver Burkeman on David Bentley Hart's The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, the one theology book all atheists really should read (and more by Damon Linker; Isaac Chotiner on how the case for God's existence is empowering atheists; and Jerry Coyne on why the “best arguments for God's existence” are actually terrible). 
• No, we don’t owe your religion any “respect”. 
• Can a Christian be an atheist? Dom Turner finds out. 
• Are religious teachings fairy tales? Howard Kainz wonders. 
• Research indicates that lack of religion is a key reason why people in wealthy countries don't feel a sense of purpose. 
• Katie Engelhart on the age of atheism: “If God exists, why is anybody unhappy?”