Advice for Tristero

Tristero on Digby's blog has run afoul of the vaste hordes of commenters who stand at the ready, prepared to descend on anyone who criticizes any advocate for atheism on any grounds whatsoever.   Tristero's mistake was in criticizing Sam Harris for his latest diatribe against all of Islam, and all those who practice it.  He writes:  "...  by refusing to accept Harris' over-generalizations and join him in deploring an imaginary demon, I incurred the wrath of many commenters."

Join the crowd.

Tristero attempts to respond to the commenters here.  He or she needn't have bothered.  There will be no appeasement on this topic.  I tried to engage this bunch in dialogue a couple of years back.  I pointed out, as Tristero does, that I don't think very many atheists hold Harris' extreme views of Islam, that while I have spiritual inclinations I'm an agnostic by most classical definitions, that I was raised by an atheist/humanist mother, etc. etc. etc. 

The payback was swarms of posts with titles like "Eskow: Anti-Atheist Bigot."

If I tried to qualify my statements with more disclaimers, making it clear I wasn't tarring all atheists with the same brush, the posts and comments tended to read "Eskow:  anti-atheist bigot who's too wordy."

My advice for Tristero:  Let it go.  This dialog isn't going anywhere.  And as for Harris, he's already taken his logic to its logical conclusion:  He's an outspoken advocate in favor of torture, particularly of brown people from Muslim cultures.  My mention of that fact, together with a link, has been cited as further evidence of my "anti-atheist bigotry" - despite my statement that I believed this was a rare position among Western atheists.

Sam Harris is a sales and marketing expert.  He's selling atheism second and Sam Harris first, and he's very good at it.  But he's not big on engaging in direct and honest debate.  Neither are his supporters,at least if my experience is any precedent.

As I was saying to Tristero: Let it go.

Comments

[Dale]

He's an outspoken advocate in favor of torture, particularly of brown people from Muslim cultures.

That is such a dishonest statement. Anyone who reads the article you refer to can see that your statement is untrue. He's not some Republican or Christian fundie that you can dismiss like that.