In his seemingly limitless propensity for thick-headedness and mischaracterizations, PZ Myers is at it again, skewing points that Richard Dawkins made about Islam recently on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” — or apparently just commenting on a Daily Beast article about the discussion between Dawkins and Maher, rather than, you know, taking an extra 3 minutes and watching the full video to get some context. Of course, doing so would not have played into the message that Myers is attempting to convey to his fawning followers, so he picks out the most provocative part of the interview and latches onto it, as he is wont to do, like a wolf going after a fresh kill.
Here is the clip from “Real Time”:
In his post, Myers, of course, doesn’t mention any of this, nor that Dawkins was standing up for free speech at college campuses. Instead, he launched into a confused analogy between Dawkins’ fondness for tolerance and Enlightenment principles in the West versus the evolutionary biologists’ critiques of Islam. Here is Myers, in characteristic shrillness, again, just cut and pasting from an article about the interview, rather than actually pulling from the conversation itself (interview quotes in italics):
Oh, that’s their culture, you have to respect it,Dawkins said mockingly.
That’s right! That’s what they say. It’s just insane,Maher said, swooning.
Liberal about everything else, but then this one exception, ‘It’s their culture.’ Well, to hell with their culture,Dawkins concluded, to a storm of applause and a passionate yelp of approval from Maher.To hell with their culture? I despise all religions, and I can sneer at every hateful thing that emerges out of a culture, every culture — but to ignore the good to condemn the bad, to make sweeping dismissals of entire complex traditions…I am sorry, Professor Dawkins, but that is bigotry. To forgive the sins of one culture because of the things one likes about it, while damning another culture wholesale because you don’t like certain parts of it (even when those parts are unforgiveably evil) is something that perpetuates conflict.
Myers, and apparently the author at The Daily Beast, isn’t interested in accurately and honestly reflecting what was said in the interview, as the article doesn’t mention Dawkins’ support of Namazie either. If he were, Myers could not have possibly concluded, as he seems to do, that Dawkins somehow thinks that we:
need to erase the history of the Middle East, Asia, North Africa, and contributions all around the world. We should not ignore the Islamic gifts to literature, poetry, music, mathematics, and science; we must not forget that these are human beings who may feel the deepest love for their culture as a whole, even as they deplore aspects of it.
Dawkins and Maher were clearly referring to oppressive cultures within a minority of Muslim communities that suppress free thought, demonize gays and apostates and subjugate women and force them to wear burqas and full-body coverings as per fundamentalist interpretations of sharia law. They, of course, were not referring to the entire Muslim community or the majority of Muslims who respect free speech and the rights of women to wear what they please, including the right to cover their faces in respect to their religious traditions. Only someone who has been sitting on the sidelines intellectually could possibly conclude that Dawkins does not understand and respect the contributions to math, art and science that Muslims have made down through the generations.
Myers concludes his post with an obligatory nod to radical feminism, as if an old white guy, who happens to be one of the preeminent scientists and thinkers of our day, could possibly have any wise words to offer humanity:
Richard Dawkins is a smart guy, and we see these glimmerings of appreciation for the complexity of human life (how can he not, as a biologist?) in his writings — I hope he can see that he’s taking the wrong path. Even more importantly, I hope atheists everywhere can learn that he’s not the atheist leader we need…and that maybe we shouldn’t be looking for a man to tell us what to think at all.
Self-defeating as that last line is, all of that is actually not the most disturbing part of Myers’ post. The most disturbing part is the headline, “Atheists should not condemn any culture.” Seriously? So, we should not condemn cultures that practice animal sacrifice? What about cultures that eschew the rights of women and essentially give young girls zero say-so in who they can marry? What about cultures practicing female genital mutilation? Cultures that support and encourage honor killing? Cultures that support, with a full endorsement from their holy texts, the work of thugs who lop off the heads of journalists, shoot young girls for daring to educate themselves and hysterical jihadists who hurl themselves into buildings?
This, like the rest of Myers’ pathetic attempts at disparagement, is utter bullshit.