In looking over the NYT<\/span> article on the gathering of Atheists yet again, I saw a couple other things worth kicking around. First was this quote: The largely white and male crowd \u2014 imagine a Star Trek convention, but older \u2014 came to hear panels that included several best-selling atheist pamphleteers<\/em> Out of curiosity, does this indicate racism or some form of racist tendency among the atheist crowd? After all, with little more than a few extreme examples, the Tea Party continues to be hammered for being racist. Though the NAACP\u2019s<\/span> attempt to call them so met with criticism from CNN and Anderson Cooper. If you\u2019re the NAACP, a left leaning organization, and CNN gets on you, you\u2019ve done something wrong.<\/p>\n But many MSM<\/span> stories on the Tea Party racism have focused on the overwhelming \u2018whiteness\u2019 of the movement. MSNBC<\/span> has had legions of commentaries pointing out that it\u2019s mostly white folk who attend the meetings \u2013 therefore obviously on the weight of that observation alone there\u2019s some racist tendencies. Sooooooo<\/span>\u2026how about this? Any reason why the MSM<\/span> shouldn\u2019t ask the question of modern atheism and its racial makeup? Or at least if modern atheism is so limited that it may only appeal to a very narrow demographic (not to mention the age of the participants).<\/p>\n Another quick observation came from a quote I posted below: [Sam Harris] traveled with bodyguards because he receives death threats from both Christians and Muslims.<\/em> As I said, anyone in the public eye gets death threats. Especially today where you are exposed to the entire planet. Out of six billion people, you\u2019re going to get a few loonies. In addition, if your basic message is founded on \u2018time to eradicate those pesky beliefs I don\u2019t like\u2019, the vitriol might occasionally stimulate the bad in a few more than the usual loons. No matter what, when the media emphasizes death threats, it often shows a particular sympathy on the part of the media. <\/p>\n But I wondered about the statement that the threats were from both Christians and Muslims. From where? Here at home? Abroad? Did the threat makers sign their names as Muslim or Christian? Did someone say \u2018in the name of Jesus I threaten you\u2019? \u2018In the name of Allah you\u2019re toast\u2019? Did the NYT<\/span><\/strong>, who put that snippet in parentheses, ask for some evidence? Not saying it didn\u2019t happen, or that the threats aren\u2019t what the article says. But it was a strange and obvious \u2018look how evil they are, I told you they\u2019re evil\u2019 aside I would have liked the NYT<\/span><\/strong> to back up a little more.<\/p>\n After all, Harris, like most militant atheists, calls for nothing less than the elimination of religions he doesn\u2019t like. Someday, they have got to go. So if a member of the KKK says black people threaten him with violence, I have to be honest and admit there might be some bias on the part of the KKK member who makes the accusation. And since Harris is basically taking a similar approach \u2013 if not less violent then no less provocative \u2013 toward religions he doesn\u2019t like, founding his argument on the proposition that religion is the mack daddy cause of human violence, I would have to entertain the thought that he might not be reading the tea leaves without a tad bit of bias himself.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In looking over the NYT article on the gathering of Atheists yet again, I saw a couple other things worth kicking around. First was this quote: The largely white and male crowd \u2014 imagine a Star Trek convention, but older \u2014 came to hear panels that included several best-selling atheist pamphleteers Out of curiosity, does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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