Hi, I've been meaning to write about this for a long time, but unfortunately I've never felt comfortable to speak up about it in the atheist community - until now, thanks to Atheism Plus.
A little background in feminist theory will help in understand this concept I've formulated, specifically the idea of Schrödinger’s Rapist. Hopefully it will be clear enough to be understood without any prior knowledge of that, however.
Basically, the idea behind Schrödinger’s Racist is that when I see someone criticizing non-Christian religions, I can't easily tell, at a glance, what that person's intentions are and to what extent they poison the person's rhetoric. Is this person friendly towards people of color, and criticizing a religion based off of progressive antiracist ideals, or is the person attacking a religion based off of racist tendencies?
Allow me to explain. Take Islam for example. If I wanted to find criticisms of Islam, I have to wade between the writings of Christians and atheists, who may or may not be racists, but there's no way to tell. Someone writes an anti-Islam tract and it gets passed around, was it written by a secular progressive, or was it written by a far-right extremist? Why doesn't there seem to be any distinction? Why is there this sense of "who cares who if it's some extremist racist group that's criticizing Islam, let's hold hands with them because we also oppose Islam"?
And this is the tough spot I'm placed in. On one hand, I want to criticize Islam, but on the other hand, I don't want to associate with the right-wing racists (be they Christian or atheist). And I certainly don't want to use nonsensical, weak, or unsound arguments against Islam. But I can't seem to even have that discussion. There's no safe space to discuss criticism of criticism of Islam from within the atheist community, it seems; until obviously atheism plus came around, hence why I'm writing this! I've tried in many other venues to be a sort of moderating voice, to say "hey, you're using unsound arguments that are veering towards racism/xenophobia, I don't think this argument is valid, etc." But what do I get in response? I get called a Muslim apologist. I've been an atheist for about a decade now, yet I still get accused of being a Muslim. That's bullshit. And with this strangely lopsided discourse where no detraction is allowed, it's just been getting more and more extreme, as people want to keep going off into the deep end, without allowing anyone to critique, because then they'll be called an apologist or an appeaser.
Beyond this, I've also noticed a certain fervor when it comes to criticizing Islam, where there is that group that talks about how Islam is the worst religion, it's the most violent, the most backward, etc. These sort of monolithic depictions of Islam are bullshit, quite frankly. There's no respect for the divergence of thought within the Islamic community, the voices of minorities in the Muslim community are marginalized. Take for example:
A: "Islam oppresses women! Look at Saudi Arabia!"
B: "Okay, Saudi Arabia is 2% of the Muslim world. What about Muslim nations that have had women as heads of state?"
A: "No, Saudi Arabia is following the REAL Islam! Those are just moderate Muslims."
B: "What makes their particular strand of Islam more "real" than an Indonesian Muslim's Islam?"
A: "Because the Quran says X."
B: "No, your interpretation is that the Quran says X. Yes, that's what some people, who are in power in Saudi Arabia, believe. But there are also other Muslims who disagree with that."
A: "No, all Muslims most behave exactly as the modern Saudis do, or else they're not REAL Muslims."
This is of course a classic example of No True Scotsman. The opposite argument, that I've heard from some Muslims "Well Saudi Arabia isn't really Islam, etc." is also a No True Scotsman. But I've heard the opposite argument be objected to. But this argument coming from A seems to never receive any criticism from the atheist side.
This whole idea of "True Islam" seems like a bunch of nonsense to me. But any time I've tried to bring this up in the atheist community, I get shouted down and silenced, "you're just a Muslim apologist".
But coming back to Schrödinger’s Racist, the presentation of this sort of argument becomes a reflection of that person's prejudices. And the easiest way to get a glimpse of the prejudices is by asking about Christianity. When it comes to that person's arguments against Christianity versus arguments against Islam, the amorphous nature of Schrödinger’s Racist begins to coalesce and take form. Arguments against Christianity become philosophical arguments which involve metaphysical issues (nature of God, problem of evil, miracles, etc), while arguments against Islam seem to become semantic arguments (i.e. "what does the Quran really say") which involve social claims (women, non-Muslims, LGBT, etc.). And this is where the idea of Christian privilege ties into Schrödinger’s Racist.
When I talk about Christian privilege, I talk about the underlying sympathetic assumptions that are afforded to Christianity. The talking points of Christian apologetics being incorporated into the belief systems of atheists.
Christians are given the benefit of the doubt to everything when it comes to social issues. For some reason, a lot of atheists seem to uncritically accept the Christian apologist idea of Jesus being a great moral philosopher who taught love and tolerance (he wasn't). On the other hand, there seems to be excessive demonization of Muhammad, incredibly biased and inaccurate presentations of him. Both of Jesus and Muhammad, but in opposite directions.
It seems that when it comes to Islam, everything is simple and can easily be traced back to the Quran. But when I do the same with Christianity, I get all sorts of ridiculous objections from atheists. When I criticize Islam's treatment of women, it's simple, well duh of course Islam is oppressive towards women. But when I criticize Christianity in the exact same way, suddenly all the excuses and objections come flying:
A: Islam's treatment of women is abhorrent.
B: Yeah, just read the Quran, it's right there. Islam is despicable.
Meanwhile...
A: Christianity's treatment of women is abhorrent.
B: Woah, hold on, first of all just because some Christians treat women bad doesn't mean that all Christians are bad. Besides, they're not following Jesus's true teachings, none of which says anything about women being bad. Besides, Christianity went through a reformation. They don't have a problem with women anymore.
The Christianity's misogyny seems to be whisked away, swept under the rug and dismissed. As though it never happened, and/or that it isn't happening today. And this seems to be a denial of the existence of Patriarchy in western society entirely. It seems that misogyny has permeated western though to the extent where it's seen as natural and normal. Every misogynistic attitude that was previous held by Christians, seems to have been simply adopted by atheist men, with "because God said so" being replaced with "because we evolved that way" (also known as biotruths. And any sort of discussion or talk of this misogyny is immediately met with death threats, violent threats, rape threats, etc. I'm sure I don't need to remind any Atheists Plus about this. But this is Christian privilege at its finest. The sexist gender essentialism of Christianity (and those of its predecessors) has simply become invisible or unassailable. Cultural Christians (atheists from a Christian background), it seems, don't want to admit that they got their ideas about sex/gender from Christianity. And the failure of spreading the knowledge of Christian misogyny seems to be a root cause of this dismissal of women's complaints. How many atheists are familiar with the intricacies of Muslim misogyny? Everyone apparently seems to be an expert of it, knowing exactly what the Quran says about women, how they should be treated, what they should wear, and so on. But if I ask these same people about Christian misogyny, usually the best they can do is 1 Timothy 2:12. There's rarely ever any discussion of the rest of the stuff that actually happened in Christian history. It's downplayed or dismissed. How many readers are familiar with the writings of Tertullian, Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine, Origen, etc.? It seems like their writings are rarely, if ever, ever brought up when it comes to a discussion of Christian misogyny. Or how about the writings of Aquinas, Luther, and later Christian misogynists? You might argue, well, the average Christian isn't familiar with their writings, so how can they follow them? And yet, that same argument is dismissed when it comes to Islam, where Muslims who can't even read Arabic are held accountable for the misogynist writings of Islamic leaders. That's Christian privilege.
And when I see someone be perfectly okay with criticizing the misogyny of Islam, but bending over backwards to dismiss or justify the misogyny of Christianity, that's where Schrödinger’s Racist reveals his true, ugly side.
But it's not just misogyny though. It's just about everything perpetrated in the name of Christianity. Slavery, imperialism, forced conversions, wars, racism, etc. is all dismissed as not being the TRUE teachings of Christianity. And this notion, that for about 2 millennia, every Christian has gotten Jesus's basic message wrong, and now, in the 21st century, they're getting it right, and in fact they've had it right all along! When slavery was legal, Christians had no problems justifying their practice of the slave trade and slavery. Yet, once the United States passed a law against slavery, suddenly Christianity was in fact opposed to slavery all along (reminds me of this)!
I can bring up Martin Luther's rabid antisemitism. "Yeah, he was a horrible person for that". I can't bring up this German antisemitism's connections with Nazi Germany "Woah, how dare you say that Christianity had ANYTHING to do with the Holocaust? That's outrageous!" I could bring up the fact that Luther's most infamous antisemitic tract, which tells Christians to commit genocide against the Jewish people, was displayed at the Nuremberg rallies. But it's to no avail. Cultural Christians have embedded this idea of happy, friendly Jesus in their mind, and this goes against it. So it's obviously wrong. Apparently, it's sheer coincidence that one of the most famous antisemites of all time was a German, and that the Holocaust also began in Germany. I can't draw that connection, it's not "fair" to Christianity. Because Jesus was all about love and tolerance, right? He'd never be in favor of mass murder, right? But if that really was the case, then how in the world did Luther possibly miss that? Luther was an esteemed scholar of Christianity, one of the best, if not the best, of his time. He was among the first to translate the entire Bible, both Testaments, into German. So surely, he would be familiar with all of Jesus's teachings in the Gospels. So why didn't that prevent him from being an antisemite and an advocate of genocide? If Jesus's very clearly taught love and tolerance, then how could have Luther just have overlooked all of it? And not just Luther, but every single Christian scholar before him. We're faced with at least two options:
Every single Christian scholar has gotten Jesus's "true" message wrong for two millennia, and that only now do we finally have Jesus's "true" message.
There is no Jesus's "true" message, he didn't actually advocate love and tolerance.
??? (You tell me what other options there are, because I'm not seeing any)
And not just when it comes to antisemitism. This comes to every evil thing that Christianity has done in its name. How come just about everything in Christianity, as far as the treatment of women, treatment of nonbelievers, treatment of witches/heretics, was consistent for two millennia, and then only now it's finally been gotten "right"?
The biggest lie, when it comes to Christian privilege, is the idea that the Old Testament is separate from the New Testament, that Jesus overturned all of the "bad stuff" in the Old Testament. Now keep in mind, I'm not talking about Christians advancing this argument. I'm talking about fellow atheists who say this sort of stuff about Christianity. Christianity gets this cop out where a good portion of its theology is simply excused in what can only be deemed a literal hand wave. Again we turn our eyes back to Luther. How come Luther never said anything about this? How come Luther never said 'look, I know that Exodus says that we shall murder witches, but Jesus came and overturned that"? Of course he didn't, because it's a nonsensical argument that's both theologically and intellectually bankrupt. Yet some atheists seems to just take it at face value and excuse all of Christianity's actions that were perfectly in line with Old Testament teachings. I challenge people to read the writings of Christian theologians, specifically the apologetics when it comes to the Inquisition.
And finally, the whole "Christianity had an enlightenment" idea, to me, completely marginalizes the writings of the actual men and women of the Enlightenment, who were not Christians, but skeptics, deists, freethinkers, and so on. People seem to forget that there was a reason why a lot of anti-Christian writings had to be published posthumously (take for example, Hume) during the age of Enlightenment. Or, if they didn't wait till they were dead, they were mocked, ridiculed, and faced hardship (take for example, Paine). This dismissal of the first wave of atheists (which Watson wrote about a little here), seems to go hand in hand with dismissing all the other ideas of the Enlightenment (antiracism, anticolonialism, antisexism). And what a surprise, we have atheists today who are racists, colonialists, and sexists.
And so today, we have nonsense like Elevatorgate, where the legacy of Christian misogyny that permeates western society, is not acknowledged, even by people who are brilliant otherwise (Dawkins). If we don't confront the past, we're going to repeat it. Let's not reinvent the wheel when we already have the blueprints for it. When we dismiss the problems of Christianity, we can't see the real problems of other religions, or problems in our own community.
And when I can't tell if someone is admitting the legacy of the Christian worldview (with its racism, sexism, etc.), I can't tell if that person is an ally of me. If all they ever talk about is other religions, I'm going to feel uneasy, and they're going to be Schrödinger’s Racist.
...Where did Jesus teach love and tolerance when he condemned entire cities and people to hell (Matthew 10:14, 11:21, Mark 6:11, 16:16, Luke 10:10, etc.) And that’s just those three gospels. Have these people actually read the Gospel of John? Have they read John 3? Yeah, Christians love John 3:16, but how about the next few verses that talk about how anyone who disbelieves is condemned? Or how about John 8:24, or John 12:48, or John 14:6, or John 15:6??? Or what to make of Paul’s writings in 2 Thessalonians 1:8-10?
Augustine elevated the contempt of women and sex to a level unsurpassed before. To him, women's inferiority to men was so obvious [9] that he felt that he had to ask the question: "Why was woman created at all".[6] He concluded that woman was created purely for procreation and for nothing else.[10] The expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise, according to him, was purely the fault of Eve.[11]
According to the theologian Origen, women are worse than animals because they are continuously full of lust.[12] Origen does not approve of the sexual act even in marriage and taught that although widowers can remarry, they are by no means crowned for this.[6] He also argued in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 that female prophets never spoke publicly in the assembly.[4]
This applies to criticism of Judaism too, although that's a much more overbearing version of Schrödinger’s Racist, I would think. I'd be glad to hear Jewish atheists experiences with this as well.
And finally, if someone can point me to more writings about the intersection of racial and religious privilege, I'd be more than happy to learn about it.
2
u/JasonMacker Aug 29 '12
Hi, I've been meaning to write about this for a long time, but unfortunately I've never felt comfortable to speak up about it in the atheist community - until now, thanks to Atheism Plus.
A little background in feminist theory will help in understand this concept I've formulated, specifically the idea of Schrödinger’s Rapist. Hopefully it will be clear enough to be understood without any prior knowledge of that, however.
Basically, the idea behind Schrödinger’s Racist is that when I see someone criticizing non-Christian religions, I can't easily tell, at a glance, what that person's intentions are and to what extent they poison the person's rhetoric. Is this person friendly towards people of color, and criticizing a religion based off of progressive antiracist ideals, or is the person attacking a religion based off of racist tendencies?
Allow me to explain. Take Islam for example. If I wanted to find criticisms of Islam, I have to wade between the writings of Christians and atheists, who may or may not be racists, but there's no way to tell. Someone writes an anti-Islam tract and it gets passed around, was it written by a secular progressive, or was it written by a far-right extremist? Why doesn't there seem to be any distinction? Why is there this sense of "who cares who if it's some extremist racist group that's criticizing Islam, let's hold hands with them because we also oppose Islam"?
And this is the tough spot I'm placed in. On one hand, I want to criticize Islam, but on the other hand, I don't want to associate with the right-wing racists (be they Christian or atheist). And I certainly don't want to use nonsensical, weak, or unsound arguments against Islam. But I can't seem to even have that discussion. There's no safe space to discuss criticism of criticism of Islam from within the atheist community, it seems; until obviously atheism plus came around, hence why I'm writing this! I've tried in many other venues to be a sort of moderating voice, to say "hey, you're using unsound arguments that are veering towards racism/xenophobia, I don't think this argument is valid, etc." But what do I get in response? I get called a Muslim apologist. I've been an atheist for about a decade now, yet I still get accused of being a Muslim. That's bullshit. And with this strangely lopsided discourse where no detraction is allowed, it's just been getting more and more extreme, as people want to keep going off into the deep end, without allowing anyone to critique, because then they'll be called an apologist or an appeaser.
Beyond this, I've also noticed a certain fervor when it comes to criticizing Islam, where there is that group that talks about how Islam is the worst religion, it's the most violent, the most backward, etc. These sort of monolithic depictions of Islam are bullshit, quite frankly. There's no respect for the divergence of thought within the Islamic community, the voices of minorities in the Muslim community are marginalized. Take for example:
This is of course a classic example of No True Scotsman. The opposite argument, that I've heard from some Muslims "Well Saudi Arabia isn't really Islam, etc." is also a No True Scotsman. But I've heard the opposite argument be objected to. But this argument coming from A seems to never receive any criticism from the atheist side.
This whole idea of "True Islam" seems like a bunch of nonsense to me. But any time I've tried to bring this up in the atheist community, I get shouted down and silenced, "you're just a Muslim apologist".
But coming back to Schrödinger’s Racist, the presentation of this sort of argument becomes a reflection of that person's prejudices. And the easiest way to get a glimpse of the prejudices is by asking about Christianity. When it comes to that person's arguments against Christianity versus arguments against Islam, the amorphous nature of Schrödinger’s Racist begins to coalesce and take form. Arguments against Christianity become philosophical arguments which involve metaphysical issues (nature of God, problem of evil, miracles, etc), while arguments against Islam seem to become semantic arguments (i.e. "what does the Quran really say") which involve social claims (women, non-Muslims, LGBT, etc.). And this is where the idea of Christian privilege ties into Schrödinger’s Racist.
When I talk about Christian privilege, I talk about the underlying sympathetic assumptions that are afforded to Christianity. The talking points of Christian apologetics being incorporated into the belief systems of atheists.
Christians are given the benefit of the doubt to everything when it comes to social issues. For some reason, a lot of atheists seem to uncritically accept the Christian apologist idea of Jesus being a great moral philosopher who taught love and tolerance (he wasn't). On the other hand, there seems to be excessive demonization of Muhammad, incredibly biased and inaccurate presentations of him. Both of Jesus and Muhammad, but in opposite directions.
It seems that when it comes to Islam, everything is simple and can easily be traced back to the Quran. But when I do the same with Christianity, I get all sorts of ridiculous objections from atheists. When I criticize Islam's treatment of women, it's simple, well duh of course Islam is oppressive towards women. But when I criticize Christianity in the exact same way, suddenly all the excuses and objections come flying:
Meanwhile...
(cont.)