H/T to fellow Boston-area blogger, Miss Kelly for this long piece by atheist Sam Harris over at the Huffington Post. I can’t do much better than MK’s characterization: “surprising indeed”.
The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we will kill you. Of course, the truth is often more nuanced, but this is about as nuanced as it ever gets: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter your journalists, know that we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for “racism” and “Islamophobia.”
Our capitulations in the face of these threats have had what is often called “a chilling effect” on our exercise of free speech. [emphasis added]
Apparently, and ironically, the WaPo refused to publish this… which only adds power to Harris’ argument.
The danger, of course, is in extending this argument (and its variants) to religion in general, and Christianity in particular (which Harris does elsewhere).
With apologies to the late great Barry Goldwater, one might say that dogmatism in the defense of truth is no vice… as long as the truth is really true and eternal and not just imaginary or personal.
