ATHEIST SCIENTIST RICHARD DAWKINS DEFENDS CHRISTIANITY after agitating against it for years - He regrets that the vacuum left by Christianity will be filled by SOMETHING MUCH WORSE: ISLAM - Dawkins disparages the left that gives Islam a free pass, no matter how much oppression and violence it inflicts because 'it's their culture' - The hell with their culture, he says.

©http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/. Unauthorized duplication of this blog's material is prohibited.   Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full credit and link is given to Otters and Science News Blogspot.  Link to this post:  http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2016/01/atheist-scientist-richard-dawkins.html - Thank you for visiting my blog.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Caveat:  Although I do not have - and have never had - any religion, I believe in God, an unknowable God.  To me His existence feels real, while it is obvious that religions are in one form or another a human creation.  Somebody heard voices, had a dream, or witnessed an apparition.  And it goes from there.  People confuse God with man-made religion.  And that's the start of a whole set of problems.  But that's my humble opinion. 

 

In the case of Israel, it is the Jewish people's historical land by right.  Even if you take Judaism out of the equation, Muslims are the real occupiers who invaded the land many centuries after Jews had established a Jewish kingdom and a major civilization in Israel.  There was always a Jewish presence in Jerusalem and in the rest of Israel, even as invaders came and went.

 

Religions - man-made and all - are useful because they codify the principles by which a society is to be ruled.  The Ten Commandments for the Jews - Jihad, slaughter of non-Muslims, and raping of women according to the Koran. 

Sometimes tyrants go as far as to declare themselves to be a god, or to be directly guided by god.  It all works to get control the masses more effectively.

 

We must also acknowledge that religious inclination is almost instinctual in human beings.  Wherever there is no religion, people manage to invent one to fill the gap.  Even atheists have a superstition or two, so it's not that they don't believe in the supernatural. 

 

So it's a matter of deciding which set of religious beliefs will cause the least amount of damage to individuals and society. 

 

Militant atheists have been waging an all out war on Christianity, and to a lesser extent on Judaism, because they are easy targets.  Neither Christians nor Jews issue fatwas against those who insult their religion.  It's safe to denigrate both Christianity and Judaism.   So put in very stark terms, those who target those religions while being mostly silent about Islam's depredations are being intellectually dishonest.  

 

Richard Dawkins' buyers' remorse.  But critics of Christianity can now realize that at some point their words have had a deleterious effect on society.  Richard Dawkins is now expressing the equivalent of buyer's remorse.   After denigrating Christianity for years, he is now forced to confront the fact that the expanding cult of Islam is a much greater threat than even the most fanatic sort of Christianity could ever be.  

 

Many people can live righteous and happy lives without believing in God.  But the majority cannot.  Once Christianity and its general moral values are eradicated, we are left with a vacuum that is filled with damaging activities such as different forms of addiction, and a with sense of purposelessness, in addition to the quasi-deification of notions such as moral and cultural relativism. 

 

Devoted Christians too engage in immoral and criminal activities, and can be prone to depression.  But for society in general, Christianity is a safety net available for everyone, and should not be thrown away.  

 

Militant atheism, by the way, does not guarantee that a society will be ruled by reason and compassion.  Take the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea as examples.  The horrors these officially atheist societies have inflicted on individuals and on the environment surpass any sins that Christian capitalism may have perpetrated so far.

 

Nazism also waged war on traditional Christianity, while attempting to obliterate Christianity's roots, the Jews and Judaism, elevating the cult of the German race and their Fuehrer into a religion.  See how depraved civilized people can get once you remove Christian social restraints.

 

Science as religion.  Scientists have an almost religious attitude towards science itself, and they get extremely upset whenever anyone challenges their theories.  They hold scientific doctrine as fact, always forgetting that scientific knowledge is always evolving, and that what was considered "an established fact" 50 years ago, or even 10 years ago, is now being replaced by new - and often contradictory -  "established facts". 

 

This is particularly important in medicine, where much harm is being done in the name of approved medical practice.  Although you will be chastised for daring to challenge a doctor's authority, those practices continue to be revised all the time.  There is no sacredness to science, although scientists would like you to regard it as sacred dogma.

 

Scientists' adherence to scientific doctrine based on political ideology is well known.  Scientists who don't follow the established dogma to the letter are shunned, and deprived of jobs and grants for research.  This is how the dogma is usually maintained.

 

Please read recent ARTICLE about the intelligence gene.  Leftists, who dominate the media and academic institutions, have always insisted that intelligence and race are a social construct.  Now they are being led kicking and screaming to admit that yes, according to the latest research genes and race can determine a person's intelligence. 

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 VIDEO - Real Time with Bill Maher:
Richard Dawkins Regressive Leftists (HBO)

 

On Islam:  "The hell with their culture"

 

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvvQJ_zsL1U

 

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Professional Atheist Dawkins Says

Christianity ‘Bulwark Against Something Worse’

 

By Thomas D. Williams, Breitbart

 

In a text that is coursing about on social media, professional atheist Richard Dawkins begrudgingly admitted that Christianity may actually be our best defense against aberrant forms of religion that threaten the world.

 

“There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings,” Dawkins said. “I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death.”

 

In a rare moment of candor, Dawkins reluctantly accepted that the teachings of Jesus Christ do not lead to a world of terror, whereas followers of radical Islam perpetrate the very atrocities that he laments.

 

Continue reading

Because of this realization, Dawkins wondered aloud whether Christianity might indeed offer an antidote to protect western civilization against jihad.

 

“I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse,” he said.

 

Although the text originated in 2010, it has taken on a second life, being sent to and fro on Facebook and Twitter and providing fodder for discussions, even among atheists, of the benefits of Christianity for modern society.

 

Dawkins was trained as an evolutionary biologist, but achieved his greatest celebrity not through biology but through his pop atheism, regularly debating theists in public and penning diatribes against God and faith.

 

For a generation of young atheists, Dawkins gave disbelief a thin veneer of intellectual cachet and offered a justification for the belief that atheism was somehow grounded in science.

 

In his 2006 bestseller, The God Delusion, Dawkins famously compared religious education to the sexual abuse of children, concluding incredibly that the latter was actually preferable to the former.

 

Referring to the clerical sex abuse crisis, Dawkins wrote that as “horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place.”

 

Faced with the suicide bombers and child rapists of radical Islam, however, Dawkins finally found something that he thought was worse.

Follow Breitbart author Thomas D. Williams on Twitter @tdwilliamsrome

Source
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/01/12/professional-atheist-dawkins-says-christianity-bulwark-against-something-worse/

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'To hell with their culture' -

Richard Dawkins in extraordinary blast at Muslims

THE UK EXPRESS -  TOP academic and atheist Richard Dawkins has attacked western society's relaxed attitude to radical Islam in an extraordinary statement.

The British scientist was appearing on a live TV chat show in the United States when he blasted "to hell with their culture" when referring to some practices in Islam, such as women being made to wear burkhas.

 

Dawkins was appearing on the Bill Maher's HBO show and the pair were debating regressive liberals and, in particular, universities banning those with extreme views from giving lectures.

 

The conversation turned to Islam when Dawkins criticised those afraid to confront the religion on some of its extreme practices, saying the religion was being given a "free pass".

 

The 74-year-old said: "There's this notion Islam and Muslims are this protected species.

 

"That if we talk about them at all or criticise at all, it's somehow hurting or humiliating Muslims. It's a ridiculous idea."

 

Host Maher then added liberals should protect those who are being repressed regardless of who it offends.

 

He went on to say this includes women forced to wear religious clothing, which led to Dawkins extraordinary comment.

 

Maher said: "We're on the side of the women's movement and poor and minorities and whatever. Gay people, the disabled, the abused, whatever Caitlyn (Jenner) is up to. We're all for it.

"And they (liberals) applaud that but if you say something about a woman being forced to wear a beekeeper suit in the hot sun all day…"

 

 

 

Dawkins then took over saying: "But that's 'their culture' and you have to accept it. It's the one exception. Liberal about everything but this one exception, 'it's their culture'. 

 

"Well, to hell with their culture."

 

Dawkins went on to say Islam had a "free pass"  because of the "terror of being thought racist" if the religion is criticised.

 

He added: "It's confused with racism. An incredible number of people think Islam is a race.

 

"And so they think if you criticise Islam you're being racist."

Social media erupted over the conversation, with some criticising the strong use of language against Muslims.

 

@MarceAriasSouto said: "This is just anti-Muslim bigotry. @billmaher was always a buffoon. Dawkins is becoming one."

 

@vcw42 wrote: "Usually such attitude comes from ones conservative ignorance. In this case it's Bill's liberal arrogance. #nothelping"

 

Others spoke out in support of the pair.

 

@ibrahimsapien said: "Given the context in which it was said, I agree. And I used to be Muslim.

 

"There has to be objective absolute standards of human rights. No allowance for abuses just because they're labeled 'culture'.

 

"That was his point. If your culture allows for wife beating or marital rape, 'to hell with your culture'. Is that so bad?"

 

Maher and Dawkins started the discussing by criticising universities for banning extreme speakers. 

 

That was sparked by the news former Muslim Maryam Namazie had a visit to Warwick University cancelled.

 

If you can't speak your mind at a university campuses where can you? That's what universities are about. 

 

"They're about free speech, they're about being exposed to ideas you haven't met before or are perhaps hostile to.

 

"If you only get exposed to ideas you agree with what kind of a university would that be."

Source
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/611231/Richard-Dawkins-in-extraordinary-blast-at-Muslims-To-hell-with-their-culture
  
 
More articles about Richard Dawkins on Breitbart
http://www.breitbart.com/tag/richard-dawkins/
 
Richard Dawkins denounces leftists for granting a free pass to Islam
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/10/02/bill-maher-richard-dawkins-denounce-regressive-leftists-for-granting-free-pass-to-islam/
 
Richard Dawkins denounces the regressive left
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/10/02/bill-maher-richard-dawkins-denounce-regressive-leftists-for-granting-free-pass-to-islam/
 
Video interviews with Richard Dawkins on YouTube -
 https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=richard+dawkins+bull+maher+islam+2015

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RICHARD DAWKINS perplexed
by high number of Jewish Nobel Prize Winners

 

The usually self-assured biologist, author and atheist Richard Dawkins expressed his bewilderment at the disproportionate amount of Nobel prizes won by Jews in a recent interview with the New Republic, saying he is “intrigued by” the  “phenomenally high” number of Jewish laureates.

 

Addressing the controversy surrounding a Tweet he wrote during the conferment of Nobel prizes earlier this month, Dawkins offered up something of a mea culpa, stating: “That was unfortunate. I should have compared religion with religion and compared Islam not with Trinity College but with Jews, because the number of Jews who have won Nobel Prizes is phenomenally high.”

 

Continuing, he said: “Race does not come into it. It is pure religion and culture. Something about the cultural tradition of Jews is way, way more sympathetic to science and learning and intellectual pursuits than Islam. That would have been a fair comparison. Ironically, I originally wrote the tweet with Jews and thought, That might give offense. And so I thought I better change it.”

 

Asked why he thought it is that Jews have won so many Nobel Prizes, Dawkins was forthright with his uncertainty.

 

“I haven’t thought it through. I don’t know. But I don’t think it is a minor thing; it is colossal. I think more than 20 percent of Nobel Prizes have been won by Jews.”

 

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, since the Nobel was first awarded in 1901 approximately 193 of the 855 honorees have been Jewish (22%). Jews make up less than 0.2% of the global population.

 

This year 6 of 12 laureates were Jewish. The 13th laureate, for the Nobel Peace Prize, was awarded to an organization and not an individual.

Source
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/10/29/richard-dawkins-perplexed-by-high-number-of-jewish-nobel-prize-winners/#

In 2007 Islam & Judaism holiest days overlapped for 10 days. During those 10 days Muslims murdered 397 people. Jews worked on their 159th Nobel Prize

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SCIENCE is now proving Richard Dawkins wrong.  It's not just culture but genes that have much to do with European Jews' extraordinary contributions to science, technology, and culture in general.

 

Scientific studies have discovered the intelligence genes, and they are determined by race.  This has been long suppressed by leftist academics and the media who insist that race and intelligence are cultural constructs.  But no more. 

 

Read more about the latest research on genes and epigenetics in the book A TROUBLESOME INHERITANCE, by Nicholas Wade.

 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

INTELLIGENCE GENES ACTUALLY EXIST
- Scientists discover genes that determine intelligence 
 - There are plans to manipulate them
 - Nicholas Wade's book A TROUBLESOME INHERITANCE was pilloried for presenting links between genes, race, and human development.  Scientific studies vindicate him.

Read more
http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2015/12/intelligence-genes-really-exist.html

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

 

The following article, written by atheist Sam Harris, was published by the Richard Dawkins Foundation webpage

Why Don’t I Criticize Israel?

BY SAM HARRIS

 

 

Samuel Benjamin "Sam" Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American author, philosopher, and neuroscientist.

Harris is the co-founder and chief executive of Project Reason, a non-profit organization that promotes science and secularism, and host of the podcast: Waking Up with Sam Harris.

As an author, he wrote the book The End of Faith, which was published in 2004 and appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks. The book also won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction in 2005.  (Wikipedia) 

I was going to do a podcast on a series of questions, but I got so many questions on the same topic that I think I’m just going to do a single response here, and we’ll do an #AskMeAnything podcast next time.

 

The question I’ve now received in many forms goes something like this: Why is it that you never criticize Israel? Why is it that you never criticize Judaism? Why is it that you always take the side of the Israelis over that of the Palestinians?

 

Now, this is an incredibly boring and depressing question for a variety of reasons. The first, is that I have criticized both Israel and Judaism. What seems to have upset many people is that I’ve kept some sense of proportion.

 

There are something like 15 million Jews on earth at this moment; there are a hundred times as many Muslims. 

 

I’ve debated rabbis who, when I have assumed that they believe in a God that can hear our prayers, they stop me mid-sentence and say, “Why would you think that I believe in a God who can hear prayers?”

 

So there are rabbis—conservative rabbis—who believe in a God so elastic as to exclude every concrete claim about Him—and therefore, nearly every concrete demand upon human behavior.

 

And there are millions of Jews, literally millions among the few million who exist, for whom Judaism is very important, and yet they are atheists. They don’t believe in God at all. This is actually a position you can hold in Judaism, but it’s a total non sequitur in Islam or Christianity.

 

So, when we’re talking about the consequences of irrational beliefs based on scripture, the Jews are the least of the least offenders.

 

But I have said many critical things about Judaism. Let me remind you that parts of Hebrew Bible—books like Leviticus and Exodus and Deuteronomy—are the most repellent, the most sickeningly unethical documents to be found in any religion. They’re worse than the Koran. They’re worse than any part of the New Testament. But the truth is, most Jews recognize this and don’t take these texts seriously. It’s simply a fact that most Jews and most Israelis are not guided by scripture—and that’s a very good thing.

 

Of course, there are some who are. There are religious extremists among Jews. Now, I consider these people to be truly dangerous, and their religious beliefs are as divisive and as unwarranted as the beliefs of devout Muslims. But there are far fewer such people.

 

For those of you who worry that I never say anything critical about Israel:  My position on Israel is somewhat paradoxical. There are questions about which I’m genuinely undecided. And there’s something in my position, I think, to offend everyone. So, acknowledging how reckless it is to say anything on this topic, I’m nevertheless going to think out loud about it for a few minutes.

 

I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state. I think it is obscene, irrational and unjustifiable to have a state organized around a religion. So I don’t celebrate the idea that there’s a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. I certainly don’t support any Jewish claims to real estate based on the Bible. 

 

Though I just said that I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state, the justification for such a state is rather easy to find. We need look no further than the fact that the rest of the world has shown itself eager to murder the Jews at almost every opportunity. So, if there were going to be a state organized around protecting members of a single religion, it certainly should be a Jewish state.

 

Now, friends of Israel might consider this a rather tepid defense, but it’s the strongest one I’ve got. I think the idea of a religious state is ultimately untenable. 

 

Needless to say, in defending its territory as a Jewish state, the Israeli government and Israelis themselves have had to do terrible things. They have, as they are now, fought wars against the Palestinians that have caused massive losses of innocent life.

More civilians have been killed in Gaza in the last few weeks than militants. That’s not a surprise because Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Occupying it, fighting wars in it, is guaranteed to get woman and children and other noncombatants killed. And there’s probably little question over the course of fighting multiple wars that the Israelis have done things that amount to war crimes. They have been brutalized by this process—that is, made brutal by it. But that is largely the due to the character of their enemies.  

IDF soldiers
at prayer

Whatever terrible things the Israelis have done, it is also true to say that they have used more restraint in their fighting against the Palestinians than we — the Americans, or Western Europeans — have used in any of our wars.

 

They have endured more worldwide public scrutiny than any other society has ever had to while defending itself against aggressors.

 

The Israelis simply are held to a different standard. And the condemnation leveled at them by the rest of the world is completely out of proportion to what they have actually done. 

 

It is clear that Israel is losing the PR war and has been for years now.  One of the most galling things for outside observers about the current war in Gaza is the disproportionate loss of life on the Palestinian side. This doesn’t make a lot of moral sense. Israel built bomb shelters to protect its citizens. The Palestinians built tunnels through which they could carry out terror attacks and kidnap Israelis.

 

Should Israel be blamed for successfully protecting its population in a defensive war? I don’t think so.

 

But there is no way to look at the images coming out of Gaza—especially of infants and toddlers riddled by shrapnel—and think that this is anything other than a monstrous evil. Insofar as the Israelis are the agents of this evil, it seems impossible to support them. And there is no question that the Palestinians have suffered terribly for decades under the occupation. This is where most critics of Israel appear to be stuck.

 

They see these images, and they blame Israel for killing and maiming babies. They see the occupation, and they blame Israel for making Gaza a prison camp.

 

I would argue that this is a kind of moral illusion, borne of a failure to look at the actual causes of this conflict, as well as of a failure to understand the intentions of the people on either side of it. 

 

The truth is that there is an obvious, undeniable, and hugely consequential moral difference between Israel and her enemies.

 

The Israelis are surrounded by people who have explicitly genocidal intentions towards them.

 

The charter of Hamas is explicitly genocidal. It looks forward to a time, based on Koranic prophesy, when the earth itself will cry out for Jewish blood, where the trees and the stones will say “O Muslim, there’s a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him.”

 

This is a political document. We are talking about a government that was voted into power by a majority of Palestinians. 

 

The discourse in the Muslim world about Jews is utterly shocking.

 

Not only is there Holocaust denial—there’s Holocaust denial that then asserts that we will do it for real if given the chance.

 

The only thing more obnoxious than denying the Holocaust is to say that it should have happened; it didn’t happen, but if we get the chance, we will accomplish it.

 

There are children’s shows in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere that teach five-year-olds about the glories of martyrdom and about the necessity of killing Jews.

 

And this gets to the heart of the moral difference between Israel and her enemies. And this is something I discussed in The End of Faith.

 

To see this moral difference, you have to ask what each side would do if they had the power to do it.

 

What would the Jews do to the Palestinians if they could do anything they wanted? Well, we know the answer to that question, because they can do more or less anything they want. The Israeli army could kill everyone in Gaza tomorrow. So what does that mean? Well, it means that, when they drop a bomb on a beach and kill four Palestinian children, as happened last week, this is almost certainly an accident. They’re not targeting children.

 

They could target as many children as they want. Every time a Palestinian child dies, Israel edges ever closer to becoming an international pariah. So the Israelis take great pains not to kill children and other noncombatants. 

 

Now, is it possible that some Israeli soldiers go berserk under pressure and wind up shooting into crowds of rock-throwing children? Of course. You will always find some soldiers acting this way in the middle of a war. But we know that this isn’t the general intent of Israel.

 

We know the Israelis do not want to kill non-combatants, because they could kill as many as they want, and they’re not doing it.

 

What do we know of the Palestinians?

 

What would the Palestinians do to the Jews in Israel if the power imbalance were reversed?

 

Well, they have told us what they would do. For some reason, Israel’s critics just don’t want to believe the worst about a group like Hamas, even when it declares the worst of itself.

 

We’ve already had a Holocaust and several other genocides in the 20th century. People are capable of committing genocide. When they tell us they intend to commit genocide, we should listen.

 

 

There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could.

 

Would every Palestinian support genocide? Of course not. But vast numbers of them—and of Muslims throughout the world—would.

 

Needless to say, the Palestinians in general, not just Hamas, have a history of targeting innocent noncombatants in the most shocking ways possible. They’ve blown themselves up on buses and in restaurants.

They’ve massacred teenagers. They’ve murdered Olympic athletes. They now shoot rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas. And again, the charter of their government in Gaza explicitly tells us that they want to annihilate the Jews—not just in Israel but everywhere.

 

The truth is that everything you need to know about the moral imbalance between Israel and her enemies can be understood on the topic of human shields.

 

Who uses human shields? Well, Hamas certainly does. They shoot their rockets from residential neighborhoods, from beside schools, and hospitals, and mosques.

 

Muslims in other recent conflicts, in Iraq and elsewhere, have also used human shields. They have laid their rifles on the shoulders of their own children and shot from behind their bodies.

 

Consider the moral difference between using human shields and being deterred by them. That is the difference we’re talking about.

 

 Iconic photo of Gaza childrendeliberately placed atop a building
that was a war target

The Israelis and other Western powers are deterred, however imperfectly, by the Muslim use of human shields in these conflicts, as we should be. It is morally abhorrent to kill noncombatants if you can avoid it. It’s certainly abhorrent to shoot through the bodies of children to get at your adversary.

 

But take a moment to reflect on how contemptible this behavior is. And understand how cynical it is.

The Muslims are acting on the assumption—the knowledge, in fact—that the infidels with whom they fight, the very people whom their religion does nothing but vilify, will be deterred by their use of Muslim human shields.

 

They consider the Jews the spawn of apes and pigs—and yet they rely on the fact that they don’t want to kill Muslim noncombatants.

 

Now imagine reversing the roles here. Imagine how fatuous—indeed comical it would be—for the Israelis to attempt to use human shields to deter the Palestinians. Some claim that they have already done this. There are reports that Israeli soldiers have occasionally put Palestinian civilians in front of them as they’ve advanced into dangerous areas. That’s not the use of human shields we’re talking about. It’s egregious behavior. No doubt it constitutes a war crime.

But Imagine the Israelis holding up their own women and children as human shields. Of course, that would be ridiculous. The Palestinians are trying to kill everyone. Killing women and children is part of the plan. Reversing the roles here produces a grotesque Monty Python skit.
 

 

Israel Defense Forces - IDF - female soldier on patrol

Israeli battalion The Lions of Jordan

If you’re going to talk about the conflict in the Middle East, you have to acknowledge this difference. I don’t think there’s any ethical disparity to be found anywhere that is more shocking or consequential than this.

 

And the truth is, this isn’t even the worst that jihadists do. Hamas is practically a moderate organization, compared to other jihadist groups.

 

There are Muslims who have blown themselves up in crowds of children—again, Muslim children—just to get at the American soldiers who were handing out candy to them. They have committed suicide bombings, only to send another bomber to the hospital to await the casualities—where they then blow up all the injured along with the doctors and nurses trying to save their lives.

 

Every day that you could read about an Israeli rocket gone astray or Israeli soldiers beating up an innocent teenager, you could have read about ISIS in Iraq crucifying people on the side of the road, Christians and Muslims.

 

Where is the outrage in the Muslim world and on the Left over these crimes?

 

Where are the demonstrations, 10,000 or 100,000 deep, in the capitals of Europe against ISIS? 

 

If Israel kills a dozen Palestinians by accident, the entire Muslim world is inflamed.

 

God forbid you burn a Koran, or write a novel vaguely critical of the faith. And yet Muslims can destroy their own societies—and seek to destroy the West—and you don’t hear a peep. 

 

So, it seems to me, that you have to side with Israel here.

 

You have one side which if it really could accomplish its aims would simply live peacefully with its neighbors, and you have another side which is seeking to implement a seventh century theocracy in the Holy Land.

 

There’s no peace to be found between those incompatible ideas.  That doesn’t mean you can’t condemn specific actions on the part of the Israelis. And, of course, acknowledging the moral disparity between Israel and her enemies doesn’t give us any solution to the problem of Israel’s existence in the Middle East.

 

Palestinian TV children shows incite kids to hate and murder Jews.

Palestinian anti-Jewish rhetoric is worse than that used by the Nazis.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6647/abbas-palestinians-murder

 

http://www.palwatch.org/

 

Again, granted, there’s some percentage of Jews who are animated by their own religious hysteria and their own prophesies. Some are awaiting the Messiah on contested land. Yes, these people are willing to sacrifice the blood of their own children for the glory of God.

But, for the most part, they are not representative of the current state of Judaism or the actions of the Israeli government. And it is how Israel deals with these people—their own religious lunatics—that will determine whether they can truly hold the moral high ground. And Israel can do a lot more than it has to disempower them. It can cease to subsidize the delusions of the Ultra-Orthodox, and it can stop building settlements on contested land.  

 

These incompatible religious attachments to this land have made it impossible for Muslims and Jews to negotiate like rational human beings, and they have made it impossible for them to live in peace. But the onus is still more on the side of the Muslims here. Even on their worst day, the Israelis act with greater care and compassion and self-criticism than Muslim combatants have anywhere, ever.

 

And again, you have to ask yourself, what do these groups want? What would they accomplish if they could accomplish anything? What would the Israelis do if they could do what they want? They would live in peace with their neighbors, if they had neighbors who would live in peace with them. They would simply continue to build out their high tech sector and thrive. 

 

What do groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and even Hamas want? They want to impose their religious views on the rest of humanity. They want to stifle every freedom that decent, educated, secular people care about. This is not a trivial difference. And yet judging from the level of condemnation that Israel now receives, you would think the difference ran the other way.

 

This kind of confusion puts all of us in danger. This is the great story of our time. For the rest of our lives, and the lives of our children, we are going to be confronted by people who don’t want to live peacefully in a secular, pluralistic world, because they are desperate to get to Paradise, and they are willing to destroy the very possibility of human happiness along the way. The truth is, we are all living in Israel. It’s just that some of us haven’t realized it yet.

Source https://richarddawkins.net/2014/07/why-dont-i-criticize-Israel

Listen to the audio here.

AUTHOR SAM HARRIS
http://www.samharris.org/

 

Wikipedia - Compared to various other major world religions, Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse." He asserts that the "dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one’s faith, both from within and without" to varying degrees, is a central Islamic doctrine that is found in few other religions, "and this difference has consequences in the real world."

 

In 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Harris wrote, "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy—and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside.

 

But it is important to recognize why this is so—it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms."

 

 He has voiced support for profiling, stating, "We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it." He states that his criticism is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam as an ideology, acknowledging that not all Muslims subscribe to the ideas he is criticizing.

Source
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Palestinians' use of human shields
 confirmed many times

August 2015:

POLISH REPORTER CONFIRMS HAMAS USED HUMAN SHIELDS IN GAZA - He witnessed how they deliberately provoked Israeli fire by launching rockets from residential areas so as to use casualties as propaganda - He is one of several media correspondents exposing this practice. - Hamas officials have confirmed their use of human shields - It's in their war manual, found by the IDF

 

 

ON THIS PAGE:

• Polish reporter's witness account of Hamas launching rockets from crowded civilian areas in order to use Arab civilian casualties as anti-Israel propaganda.
• Map of Gaza showing the many empty areas in the region.  They are not used for rocket launching precisely because there are no civilians for human shield use.
• Links to other foreign correspondents' reports of Hamas use of human shields
• Daily Mail report of Hamas ADMITTING they use human shields.
• IDF found Hamas' own urban warfare manual recommending the use of human shields
• Thousands of Arabs expelled from their homes at the Gaza-Egypt border and their houses destroyed BY EGYPT because of jihadi activity.  The media ignores it because they can't blame Israel.
• The plight of thousands of Palestinians in Yarmouk, Syria.  Blockaded by Assad, starving, victimized by ISIS.  The media ignores it because they can't blame Israel.
• Ex AP correspondent exposes widespread bias in international reporting from Israel and Gaza.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  

Read more

http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2015/08/polish-reporter-confirms-hamas-used.html

 

 

 LATEST HEADLINES January 2016

 

Palestinian Authority ruling Fatah political faction:

Drown Israelis “in a sea of blood”

 

Music video on Fatah-run Awdah TV:

 

“Besiege them in all their neighborhoods

Drown them in a sea of blood

Kill them as you wish"

 

Read more

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=16880

 

 

 

          /