The New Atheism: A Clarification.

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American Liberty, BBC, Christianity, Christianity and Islam, Christianity vs Islam, Christopher Hitchens, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Daniel Dennett, Defend the modern world, Muslims, politics, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Religion, richard dawkins, Sam Harris

I wrote a post last week that seemed (and was) hostile to the school of thought labelled as ‘New Atheist’ – more explicitly, the works of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens.

Specifically, I criticised these personalities for repeatedly lying about Hitler’s religious convictions – for claiming, as they do, that the Fuhrer was a believing Catholic, when his real views were closer to rational unbelief.

I don’t want to write the same article twice, so if you’re interested in my argument, please scroll down to ‘Hitler Was an Atheist’ in last week’s bunch. On this occasion, I’d like to clear up my position in regard to the ‘New Atheism; and atheism in general, lest my previous words have failed to communicate my true opinion.

I’ll start by restating that I am the son of a Church of England minister, and (as it goes for most vicar’s sons) the experience has often led me to an extreme and reactive rationalism, inspired by (among other figures) Nietzsche and Sartre, the traditional heroes of the thinking Western adolescent.

At the time of my enrolling in University, I was so convinced by atheism that I rarely thought about it. As far as I was concerned, the debate was dead, and all that remained to do was for the rising generation to destroy any legacy of Christian thought; to liberate the West from its dusty idols, arbitrary loyalties and primitive moral worldview.

Since then, I’ve not gone back on my view of the cosmos, the historicity of religious texts, or the facticity of evolution. But what I have done is read more about the human animal and the role that religion plays in sustaining him, in reminding him of things he might otherwise forget.

I remember at college coming up with what I considered to be a bold new scientific theory: the idea that there is an ‘optimal IQ range’, below which the human behaves in a destructive or abusive fashion to others, and above which the human being malfunctions, seeks to destroy himself or otherwise rebels against natural law. The ‘theory’ (if it can be so dignified) was drawn from the observation that high-IQ people tend to neglect the fundamental practices of nature, most notably the need to reproduce, to avoid suicidal thinking, and to maintain connections with the rhythms of their fellow man.

In retrospect this seems slightly daffy. There are clearly benefits to high intelligence and not just for the individual possessed by it. But that said, I still believe there is something vital in the wisdom of the less able, in their commitment to the essentials of life.

This very week it was reported that by 2070, the number of Muslims will overtake the number of Christians to make Islam the largest religion on Earth. This has to do with three synergetic factors. First, Muslims still believe in reproduction. Secondly, Europeans and Latin Americans no longer reproduce at the required pace and quantity. And thirdly, Europeans are becoming more disjointed and secularised, leading to a collapse of the only cultural coalition large enough to compete with the spread of Islam.

This has less to do with theology than with natural priorities. Religion, though it may on occasion go against science and progress, nevertheless tethers the human mind to very important primal truths. To sever the European from his traditions is to sever him from the destiny those traditions were laying out for him.

According to Richard Lynn, Japan is the most intelligent country on Earth, yet it is turning into a high-tech nursing home. Sweden is similarly dying. Norway is dying. Germany is dying. Italy is dying. Even China is dying.

And that last example is an especially illustrative one. China has been forcedly atheist for over fifty years. In that period of skyscraper building, the birth rate has steadily but surely declined. This has been helped by – but cannot be wholly explained by – the ‘one-child policy’ that (in any case) accompanies the confident atheism of Communism.

Outside of reproductive issues, the abandonment of Christianity by Europeans has another global effect. The more impressionable and cultureless races, most notably the booming population of Africa may be increasingly drawn to confident religions like Islam and turn away from the tired out, apologetic religion of their former colonial masters. The wonderful civilising effect of European Christianity may vanish and plunge great swathes of the world into barbaric darkness.

To repeat my general position – none of these concerns imply religion is true or science false. All I recommend is to consider the void that comes after religion and weigh its benefits against those of history.

D, LDN.

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Notes on the Islamisation of London VIII.

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Birmingham, Christianity and Islam, Christopher Hitchens, Civilisation, Civilization, Counter-Jihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, England, Islamisation of London, LDN, london, Milton Keynes, Multiculturalism, Muslims, No to Turkey in the EU, The Clash of Civilizations

The other day, as I sat in a train carriage taking me from Birmingham to London, I decided to tilt my head against the window and try to get some sleep. It had been a long, difficult, boring day and the opiate lure of sleep seemed to offer a warm bath for my aching senses.

I didn’t get any though, for no sooner had I shut my eyes than a burly Somali woman crashed down on the seat across the gangway and began to graze like a cow.

Fidgeting around in a small grey trolley bag she removed box after box, flipping off the lids each time with an echoing pop. She prepared what must have been the apperitif – a cold soup, green in colour, similar in appearance to a badly made guacamole.

I remember thinking “Now she is not going to drink that out of the tub….She can’t do.”

Well, she did, and with a noise more distressing than the whoosh of an approaching bullet. An English (or any rate European) woman ( long legs, short dress) stationed in front of the Somali began to wince in time to every slurp. At one point (to my pleasure) she consulted me with a wry, sympathetic smile.

This went on through five courses. After each one, the woman wiped her mouth gracelessly on her flowing black cloak (by the end it looked like the bed-sheets of a mental patient).

When the train docked at Milton Keynes, the Somali woman picked up her bag and departed the carriage, leaving the boxes, wrappers, and copius stains for the poor train crew to deal with.

The train peeled away towards the smoke, and as I took the postponed chance to rest my head, I thought lazily about the differences in moral priotities between a Muslim woman and her equivalent in the West. No doubt for that Somali woman, bedecked in her Hijab and modest cloak, the lady in front who winced at her behaviour was a barbarian. No doubt her short skirt, social independence and unmutilated labia marked her out as someone awaiting civilisation. My thoughts of the Somali – of course – were of the same kind.

And that’s a good (if slightly ludicrous) analogy for the Muslim-Kaffir quarrel itself. As Christopher Hitchens wrote, it is not a ‘clash of civilisations’, but a clash about what constitutes civilisation that most separates East from West.

Or of course, I could be reading too much into a woman with no table manners.

D, LDN.

Atheism is a False Hope (a dialogue).

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Against Atheism, Arguments for religion, Atheism Plus, Atheists against Atheism, Bill Nye, Christopher Hitchens, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Ken Ham, Marx, nietzsche, PZ Myers, richard dawkins, Sam Harris, Theodore Dalrymple

Dramatis Personae : A – a fictional interrogator: DTMW – Myself.

A: “Is there a God?”

DTMW: “Possibly.”

A: “The God of conventional religion?”

DTMW: “No.”

A: “So you’re an atheist in that regard?”

DTMW: “Not really. Atheism has become a positive concept. While once it was simply an absence of belief, it is now a very politicised label and suggests a specific worldview built around materialism, liberalism and a forced veneration of science. The New Atheists I find especially dangerous. They do not understand the function religion plays in the maintenance of a civil society, and what would necessarily occur were it removed.”

A: “Which is…”

DTMW: “It protects society from the full consequences of scientific truth. We’ve gotten too used to the idea that the ‘truth will set us free’ – that truth, being a positive value, can only have a positive effect. We forget that it can be beneficial or harmful only depending on its interpretation. Human beings are not naturally good, I’m afraid. Hobbes had this almost correct, except that religion and not government is the most effective Leviathan. Without it, the less evolved among the world population would feel they had no reason to stay within moral boundaries. Without the fear of hellfire, morality becomes a matter of consent. That’s all well and good for intelligent people with their evolved sense of empathy and social nuance. But most people are not intelligent.

And even among the intelligent, atheism allows for an icy, almost mathematical form of ethics that can be used to rationalise just about anything. Abortion, murder in all by name, can very easily be made logical by atheist thinking, but less so by the slightly fuzzy sentimentalism of the religious mind. That fuzzy sentimentalism, even if ridiculed by the petri dish and microscope, protects us from a lot of evil ‘common-sense’. The ‘New Atheists’ are greasing the wheels towards a very cold and dangerous void, the eventual filling of which they shan’t themselves be around to influence.

A: “Richard Dawkins says we can be good without God.”

DTMW: “As well he might. He is the product of a charmed life and first-class education. He belongs the upper-middle class and has never truly experienced hardship of the kind the poor must contend with. Solace of an earthly, material kind was at his side come what may. When the poor are faced with a reality that is horrid in every rational interpretation, they must look beyond reality for comfort. Peace between the classes depends in no small way on this function of religion. The concept of a human ‘equality’ before God; of a levelling after death; of a divine reward measured to match the hardship endured in life – all of these concepts prevent the fires of revolution bursting into life. There is a good reason that Communists went for the churches with as much venom as the banks and corporations.”

A: “What about Islam?”

DTMW: “Not all religions are equal. Some are more moral than others. It’s important to remember that a living religion is more than its foundational text. It is the product of elaborations and philosophies inspired by that text over hundreds of years. This is why Judaism and Christianity evolve and Islam doesn’t. The Qur’an, unlike the Bible, is a book that cannot be re-interpreted without fear of death.

A: “So you’d rather the Arabs and Persians and others converted to Christianity?”

DTMW: “I think that would be transformative. A Christianised Islamic world would solve so many of the worlds anxieties that it is difficult to describe how highly I favour the idea. I also expect the second generation growing up in a forcibly Christianised Pakistan (say) would be thankful to those who dominated and converted their elders. Islam makes life hell. Even Islamists are desperate to escape the fruits of their own labours. They are too proud to admit otherwise of course.”

A: “Are atheists evil?”

DTMW: “No. But many are certainly elitist. Elitism hides behind atheism rather well. You might say ‘No, I don’t hate poor White Americans; I just enjoy ridiculing their belief in Noah’s Ark. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that I went to University and they didn’t.’ I’m not convinced by that sort of thing I’m afraid.

As both Nietzsche and the Nazis understood, Christianity has always opposed elitism and made it politically impossible. This is the case today in America. The anti-intellectual instinct of Southern Baptism for example is something I sympathise with. The elite of America would love nothing more than to re-order society based on IQ or erudition. Christianity demands that other qualities are taken into account; unscientific qualities – like modesty, friendliness and warmth.

On a social level, mass atheism (as opposed to scattered, disorganised disbelief) would open Pandora’s Box. Many sleeping ideologies would awaken and moral values would be re-examined. It isn’t enough to say that ‘reason’ would take the place of religion. Whose reason? Can you not make a reasonable case for unreasonable things?

A: “Do you prefer Catholic or Protestant culture?”

DTMW: “My father is a retired C-of-E minister and so Protestantism is more familiar to me. I don’t like the hierarchicalism of the Catholic church, but I like the aesthetics of Catholic communion. Protestantism is more earthly. The West would fare well with either.

A: “Should children be raised with religion?”

DTMW: “I couldn’t be insincere in that regard, so instead I would make them understand that this is historically a Christian culture and that Islam, Hinduism and the like, are foreign to it. We reserve the right to uphold traditions and to maintain a unifying sense of identity. A religious core strengthens a nation by giving it a point of focus. It is terribly short-sighted to recommend the removal of religion from public life entirely.

D, LDN.

We Are Not Wrong about Pakistan.

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Afghanistan, America 911, Asia, Christianity, Christianity and Islam, Christopher Hitchens, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Daily Telegraph, Defend the modern world, Government, Lahore, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Pakistan, Pakistani people, Peter Oborne, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Rihanna Muslim, United States

Peter Oborne, the lonely iconoclast at the staid and tedious Daily Telegraph, posted an article the other day that has since been shared over 22,000 times.

The title of this article is a question – ‘Are we wrong about Pakistan?’, and the answer Oborne supplies thereafter is a resounding ‘Yes’.

Reporting back from a visit to Lahore, the veteran hack said the following –

“I had been dispatched to write a report reflecting the common perception that Pakistan is one of the most backward  and savage countries in the world. This attitude has been hard-wired into Western reporting for years and is best summed up by the writing of the iconic journalist Christopher Hitchens… Since my first night in a Lahore restaurant I have travelled through most of Pakistan, got to know its cities, its remote rural regions and even parts of the lawless north….the Pakistan that is barely   documented in the West – and that I have come to know and love – is a wonderful, warm and fabulously hospitable country. And every writer who (unlike Hitchens), has ventured out of the prism of received opinion and the suffocating five-star hotels, has ended up celebrating rather than denigrating (the country).”

Needless to say, traditional Telegraph readers were less than impressed by all this. I can appreciate the sentiment.

What Mr Oborne appears to be confusing is the notion of a country that welcomes tourist income, and one which is a pleasure to live in.

There is no sane Westerner alive who would relocate to Pakistan, especially after having become accustomed to European society. None at all. And indeed, emigration rates (excepting Pakistanis themselves) reflect this. When these are compared against immigration rates, the case could hardly be more starkly presented.

There are over 4,000,000 Pakistanis living in Europe and America as of 2013, whilst the number of non-Pakistani origin Westerners upping sticks for the Indus Valley can be counted on your fingers.

Let’s not pretend we don’t know the reason for this. Despite Pakistan’s natural beauty (which I don’t doubt for a second), the country is one of the most corrupt and unfree on the planet. Even those smiling and civilized folk who showed Mr Oborne to his gin cabinet will no doubt derive from tyrannical extended families who themselves are mere cogs in a gruesome machine of tribal repression extending across the country.

True, Pakistan may be hospitable to white, wealthy journalists, but perhaps next time Mr Oborne should try visiting disguised as a Shia Muslim. Perhaps the welcome in that case would have a more foreboding and funereal character.

When discussing Pakistan, there are some in the CounterJihad tendency who claim partition – the separation of what has become ‘Pakistan’ from India – as a disaster. I disagree.

India, let’s not forget, is a nascent regional superpower and without the cessation of Pakistan, there would have likely emerged a Muslim majority there some time this century. This would have imposed serious geopolitical consequences on the South-Asia/Greater Middle East locale.

There are reasons to be grateful for Pakistan therefore, but in the greater scheme of things, its critics, Mr Oborne, are far from wrong.

D, LDN.

Appreciating Mark Steyn.

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America Alone, Christianity and Islam, Christopher Caldwell, Christopher Hitchens, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, English Defence League, Eurabia, Mark Steyn, Oriana Fallaci, Pamela Geller, Paul Berman, Sam Harris, United States, Zionism

The Counter-Jihad movement (and its underlying intellectual tendency) originated in different places, depending on who you ask. 

For some, ‘Counter-Jihad’ sentiment is merely the delayed reaction to 9/11 by the Western moral majority, with the delay usually attributed to political correctness and a lack of organization in the years following the attack. 

For others, it was the work of the ‘New Atheists’ which first prepared the ground for popular ‘Islamophobia’, and by this they usually intend the work of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

For me though, the real turning point, and the one which has enabled the loud, confident voice now afforded to us, was the publication in 2006, of a polemic entitled ‘America Alone: The End of the World as We Know it’, by Canadian author Mark Steyn.

Outside of actual events (like 9/11, 7/7 etc..), this slim volume ranks as one of the most commonly cited reasons for independent conversions to the anti-Islamist cause both in Britain and America. Time and time again, I read or hear people say something like the following –

“I was absolutely convinced by the whole Left-wing argument. I opposed the war in Iraq. I thought the West was evil and trying to steal the oil and that terrorists were just reasonably angry people fighting back…. But then I read this book called ‘America Alone’, and I switched sides overnight.” 

That’s quite something. Great polemical books are known to make you question your beliefs, but it usually take a few of them to spin you exactly around.

There are, of course, a great many other talented authors within this tendency. I’ve mentioned elsewhere the work of Oriana Fallaci, Fjordman, and Paul Berman. Steyn’s book however, unlike the work of these authors, does something more than convince you of a certain position; it makes you pity those who aren’t convinced, embarrassed that you were ever aligned differently, and desperate to go out and persuade others …

The explanation for the book’s quasi-religious power is simple: Mr Steyn is a very funny man indeed.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like the other authors mentioned immensely, but they all – to varying degrees – neglect the resource of humour as a means of potentiating their arguments, and this is a shame. One can read their books (the content of which addresses precisely the same topic as Steyn’s) and be nothing but depressed, shocked and occasionally stirred to action. By contrast, one can guiltlessly relish reading about pretty much any subject – terrorism, mass-murder, Fascism, American decline etc… so long as it is Mr Steyn describing it.

I am currently reading the follow-up to ‘America Alone’, which is called ‘After America: Get Ready for Armageddon’. In this volume, the author turns away from Europe to consider the prognosis of the American economy should it continue with the Socialist experiment initiated by President Obama. As with the previous book, there is much ‘laughter in the dark’ to be had here, as well as some substantial arguments worth pondering further. Also as in ‘America Alone’, Mr Steyn slips regularly in and out of the comedic voice in order to perfectly frame each argument. The resulting narrative hits the target perfectly.

It might sound like an insult, but Steyn is not just an involving writer, but a very skilled propagandist; his writing is instructive for anyone wanting to learn the art of persuasion, whether for an ideological or personal cause. Consider this nicely phrased and gently stirring excerpt:

“Micro-regulation is micro-tyranny, a slithering, serpentine network of insinuating Ceaucescu and Kim Jong-Il mini-me’s. It’s time for the mass rejection of their diktats. A political order that subjects you to the caprices of faceless bureaucrats or crusading “judges” merits no respect. To counter the Bureau of Compliance, we need an Alliance of Non-Compliance to help once free people roll back the regulatory state.”

That’s so much better than the dry, mechanical, graduate language of the modern press, don’t you think?

On his website, Mr Steyn is not advertised as a strictly comic voice, but more as an independent journalist, similar in kind to those popular on the American radio circuit. I suppose this is accurate enough; the author can be drab and serious when it serves his argument to be so. 

But it’s the ability to make people laugh when they should rightfully be crying that has won Steyn global acclaim. 

His work provides valuable evidence of the power of comedy to carry a political message to greater distances than sobriety and exactness alone.

D, LDN.

Liberty GB: A Counter Jihad Party?

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BBC, Christopher Caldwell, Christopher Hitchens, Counter-Jihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, English Defence League, Enza Ferreri, Eurabia, Islam and the West, Islamification of Britain, Islamisation of London, Islamism, Liberty GB, Mark Steyn, Multiculturalism, Paul Weston

 

I sat down this evening to write a blog-post about Islam (just trying to diversify my portfolio you know?), and felt straightaway the rough anxiety known as writers block. This isn’t the first time that this subject has produced such a feeling. After all, what is there to say that has’t already been said?

This is by-itself a misnomer, given that the Islamisation of the West is the premier issue of our day and the one most in need of talking about. But to an extent it is this very urgency which explains the impotence.

The obviousness of the Islamist threat is such that nothing usually needs to be added to what can be observed. The experience of seeing a Muslim woman strolling down the street clad in funeral black isn’t something which needs elaborating upon. The vital fact here is readily apparent. She is a perfect display of confinement, imprisonment, barbarism and exotic cruelty.

When Christians are literally fed to dogs in Syria, expressions like “barbaric” or “savage” seem redundant. These words belong to a society which can understand them, and a society which can understand them is by its nature incapable of such actions. The words therefore are doomed to be an echo, a weak protest after the event, by those too far away to do anything.

Addressing the Islamist threat is now so urgent that language – whether books, blogging or journalism – seems an exhausted form of expression. The neccessary books are already written and the issue is still undecided.

Those who like to read at all will have read (or will eventually read) volumes like “America Alone” by Mark Steyn, “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe” by Christopher Caldwell, “Londonistan” by Melanie Phillips etc… These are sufficient to explain most future variations on the Islamist theme. Those who like to watch people argue will have already observed Christopher Hitchens mowing down opponents on the Islamist issue on youtube. Those who like to riot and protest will have joined the English Defence League, the BNP or another comparable organisation.

But all of these categories, taken as one, amount to little more than a tenth of the population. The remaining ninety percent are not convinced of the need to address the problem, or even that there is a problem.

I grow tired of hearing things like “The time for talking is over”, or “Now is the time for action”…. But I tire of hearing them in the same way in which a smoker tires of hearing people tell him that he is damaging his health. I dislike their words for their accuracy and for my refusal to act on them.

And so, what are people doing about the Islamist threat? The EDL are at least doing something, albeit not very successfully, and not with any sophisticated plan of action. The BNP have core beliefs repellent to the liberal and decent majority and UKIP are too centrist and pro-Muslim to be of any real use.

We need then a party of our own.

I am told by my friend, the blogger Enza Ferreri (who runs the page ‘Save the West’ on facebook), that Paul Weston, the figure behind the now defunct British Freedom Party, has a new one for us to join – Liberty GB. I enclose a link to its homepage at the bottom of this article. For Britain’s sake, join it, attend its meetings, stand as candidates for it, vote for it.

The excuses for idleness are wearing thin.

D, LDN.

• Please could British readers share either this article or at least the LibertyGB homepage which can be found at

http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/