In my conversation with Faisal (A Conversation Between Two Atheists From Muslim Backgrounds on The Huffington Post), we slammed some Western liberals for betraying their counterparts in the Muslim world. Our article found its way to PZ Myers and his Pharyngula blog, where he completely misses the point of our conversation -- demonstrating himself to be exactly the kind of Western liberal Faisal and I were talking about. PZ has confused making false equivalencies (which Faisal and I talked about) for excusing the crimes of the West (which we didnt do at all). He also says that what we talked about -- ie Western liberals making false equivalencies -- only happens rarely. But he has done it himself! Heres PZ Myers saying that Ugandas anti-LGBT policies are no different than the UKs: bit.ly/Mlk25Y (I have a feeling Ugandas LGBT community may disagree.) THIS is the problem with many Western liberals obsession with wanting others experiences (especially marginalized others like atheists from the Muslim world) to fit into their pre-conceived, nuance-deficient narrative. PZ is the perfect example of this. I dont know if PZ is really this clueless, or if his animosity against Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett -- all of whom shared/praised our article along with many others -- is further opacifying his hyper-PC Atheism Plus blinders. Many of these Western liberals love to slam people like Dawkins/Harris for being racist against brown people. But Dawkins/Harris have embraced and promoted the diverse and varied views of former Muslims/atheists from Muslim cultures (were brown too!) generously and extensively -- while self-proclaimed higher moral ground liberals like PZ and Glenn Greenwald continue to betray us AND their own values.
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 17:23:04 +0000