I was surprised to read Ryan Liebl’s assertion that Western nations have devel- oped criminal justice systems through scientific reasoning, especially after the Building Bridges conference which dealt with this topic.
The U.S. prison system, which overcrowds inmates, encourages rape, and disproportionately affects minorities is built around retributive justice and maximizing profit, not rehabilitation. The ineffectiveness of this system is evidenced by our very high recidivism rates.
If we did use scientific reasoning to create our justice system, we would emulate Norway, whose prisons are humane and educational, and have the lowest reoffending rate in Europe.
I am also troubled by the trend among atheists, especially Sam Harris, to single out Islam as the leading force for destruction and unhappiness in the world.
This kind of Islamophobia can lead to policies of racial profiling, torture, and militarism and is increasingly aligning atheists with ultra conservatives who want to invade Muslim countries at the drop of a hat.
The type of thinking that opposes “the Western world” with “the Muslim world” and awards Westerners the moral high ground is extremely simplified and dangerous.
While always shrouded in moral rhetoric, the foreign policy of the United States is most often fueled by financial motivations, not doing what is right for the world.
Sage Macklay ‘15
I fully recant the point that the US has developed a criminal justice systems through scientific reasoning. It’s inaccurate and I was unable to alter the wording before my article was published. I agree with you 100% that Norway is a fantastic model that we should emulate.
However, I still maintain that even US criminal justice is mor advanced and humane than Sharia law. We don’t cut off people’s hands, stone adulterers, or crucify people–so that must be a step in the right direction.
I also don’t agree that I or Sam Harris are guilty of Islamophobia. Islam is the biggest religious threat that we currently face. This should be plain to see. Islamists think our country is a nest of infidels and sin and are justified in killing us according to the Qur’an–we “attacked” them first after all. It isn’t Islamophobic to recognize and respond to this threat. Unfortunately, ultra-conservatives are some of the few who have the backbone to stand up to radical Islam. If liberals would, we wouldn’t have a problem there.
We are experiencing a clash of civilizations. The ideas of Fundamentalist Islam are simply not compatible with the West’s Secular (and generally superior) values. The West does have the moral high ground here, as should be plain from my criminal justice examples. But to add more: we don’t perform honor killings, arrange marriages of 9 year olds to middle-aged men, or force our women to wear burqas or be punished. All of these are immoral practices that fundamentalist Islam regularly engages in.
I agree that our interventions in the Middle East have had financial motivations, but some have been genuinely useful. We shut down the terrorist hubs in Afghanistan and Iraq that would have undoubtedly attacked the US frequently and forcefully had we left them alone. They almost certainly would have deliberately targeted innocent civilians. The moral rhetoric is more than just a shroud.
I’ll include a quote from Sam Harris on this topic below as well as the link to the page where he shows –at length–why your criticisms of his views are unfounded. The quote:
“Because I consider Islam to be especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse, my views are often described as “racist” by my critics. It is said that I am suffering a terrible case of “Islamophobia.” Worse, I am spreading this disease to others and using a veneer of philosophical atheism and scientific skepticism to justify the political oppression, torture, and murder of innocent Muslims around the world. I am a “neo-con goon,” a “war monger,” and a friend to “fascists.” In other words, I have blood on my hands.
It is hard to know where to start untangling these pernicious memes, but let’s begin with the charge of racism. My criticism of the logical and behavioral consequences of certain ideas (e.g. martyrdom, jihad, blasphemy, honor, etc.) impugns white converts to Islam—like Adam Gadahn—every bit as much as it does Arabs like Ayman al-Zawahiri. If anything, I tend to be more critical of converts, whatever the color of their skin, because they were not brainwashed into the faith from birth. I am also in the habit of making invidious comparisons between Islam and other religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Must I point out that most Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains are not white like me? One would hope there is no such need—but the work of several prominent writers suggests that the need is pressing.
Needless to say, it is on the topic of Islam that my critics have truly mastered the art of selective quotation. Here is how the trick is done: Murtaza Hussain writes an abysmally dishonest article on the Al Jazeera website accusing me of a genocidal hatred of Muslims. I am, we are told, a bloodthirsty racist—and my words prove it. Consider:
‘Harris has stated that the correct policy with regard to Western Muslim populations is in fact that which is currently being pursued by contemporary fascist movements today. In Harris’ view: ‘The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.’’
The author then helpfully links to an article about European fascists—in this case members of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party in Greece—who have threatened to turn immigrants into soap and lampshades. How, the shocked reader is left to wonder, could I admire such people?
But here are my words in their original context:
‘Increasingly, Americans will come to believe that the only people hard-headed enough to fight the religious lunatics of the Muslim world are the religious lunatics of the West. Indeed, it is telling that the people who speak with the greatest moral clarity about the current wars in the Middle East are members of the Christian right, whose infatuation with biblical prophecy is nearly as troubling as the ideology of our enemies. Religious dogmatism is now playing both sides of the board in a very dangerous game.
While liberals should be the ones pointing the way beyond this Iron Age madness, they are rendering themselves increasingly irrelevant. Being generally reasonable and tolerant of diversity, liberals should be especially sensitive to the dangers of religious literalism. But they aren’t.
The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists. To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.’
The whole purpose of that essay (written in 2006) was to express my concern that the political correctness of the Left has made it taboo to even notice the menace of political Islam, leaving only right-wing fanatics to do the job. Such fanatics are, as I thought I made clear, the wrong people to do this, being nearly as bad as jihadists themselves. I was not praising fascists: I was arguing that liberal confusion and cowardice was empowering them.
Perhaps the point is still not clear (can one ever be sure?). So, imagine: A copy of the Koran gets burned tomorrow—or is merely rumored to have been burned. What will happen if this act of desecration is widely publicized? Well, we can be sure that Muslims by the thousands, or even the tens of thousands, will riot—perhaps in a dozen countries. Scores of people may die as a result. Who can be counted upon to defend free speech in the face of this pious madness? Will the editorial page of The New York Times remind the world that free people should be free to burn the Koran, or any other book, without fear of being murdered? Probably not. But the secular Left will surely denounce the bigot who burned the book for his “religious insensitivity” and hold him largely (if not entirely) responsible for the resulting mayhem and loss of life. It will be left to crackpot pastors, white supremacists, and other jingoists on the far Right—and, of course, “Islamophobes” like me—to remind us that the First Amendment exists, that books don’t feel pain, and that the sensitivities of every other faith are regularly traduced without similar uprisings.”
The link:
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2/
I would caution against implying that atheists are more likely to be Islamophobes. Irrational fear of Islam as a whole because of the actions of a small group of radical Muslims is a problem shared by many different types of people. Some of the more visible (and famous) atheists may single out Islam to some extent, but their views should not be taken as representative of the views of other atheists or non-religious people. As to why such atheists have chosen to criticize Islam more than other systems of belief, it may be because radical Islam currently produces more visible and egregious violations against human rights “in the name of God” than other belief systems. This makes radical Islam an easy target for atheists looking for examples of people using their religious beliefs to justify violent or abusive actions.