(January 18, 2015 at 9:15 pm)Blackout Wrote: I think it's naive to think there's no racism. In the case of atheists, particularly "new atheists" and anti-theists it's linked to religion because we often criticize other religions like Christianity.
But look at ultra conservative parties in Europe - They criticize immigrant Muslims mostly (not so much white native citizens who converted to Islam) and any non-white immigrant, minority or not - While at the same time they have good relationships with the church because it's "the west's founding religion".
I agree that thinking atheists, particularly the ones more liberal oriented are not in it for racism, but conservatives usually bring up the anti-Islam position for different reasons, very different - It's not because they're Muslims, it's because they're not Christians and have a different culture, whether it's good or bad.
All of this to say there's many angles to look on the problem, and while criticizing religion is not racist, there's people who do it for racial or monocultural reasons. We should be careful with our approach, I do not want to be associated with white nationalists because I'm anti-Islam and I don't want to be their ally.
I didn't say there was no racism, where in this thread did I or anyone say it didn't exist? Knowing it exists doesn't mean it should be used as cover to avoid the real issue of religious tribalism.
