The Dark Side of Militant Atheism: Atheism is not always peaceful

While, browsing stuffs on Twitter, I saw the militant atheist Richard Dawkins, retweeted a post saying that militant Muslims and militant Christians do violence, while militant atheists write books and do lectures. I laughed the shit out when I saw it. This Richard Dawkins and a self described atheist author named Michael A. Sherlock, always emphasize that religion is violent and atheism is peaceful. When a small group of Christians committed stupidity, they will assume that whole Christianity is stupid, and if a small group of Muslims committed violence, they will assume that whole Islam is violent. You could see it for yourself. Look at the Twitter accounts of Dawkins and this Sherlock.

          Dawkins is well versed in evolutionary biology, but he is definitely not well versed in philosophy of religion, human nature and history of religion. And this Sherlock was just a self-proclaimed well-versed in the nature of Islam as a result of his “years of research.” But like Dawkins, he lacks understanding of philosophy of religion, human nature, and history of religion. Sherlock even considered the Middle Ages in Europe as really a “Dark Age.”  What he did not know is that the Church is the only institution that maintained the civilization of Europeans after the fall of Roman Empire. These people also did not appreciate the cultural achievements of religion for mankind: Islam preserved the works of the Greco-Roman writers after the Roman Empire; Catholicism revived the works of the Greek and Roman writers during the Carolingian Medieval Renaissances that will give birth to the real Renaissance; Christianity gave the world the Justinian Laws that formed the foundation of virtually all code of laws in the Western World; and so many achievements that man enjoys today.

          The New Republic atheist John Gray said that Dawkins’s militant atheism stems from his lack of empathy. (Another New Republic atheist named Jerry A. Coyne said that Gray must criticize Dawkins's ideas not his character, but Coyne must know that a person's character determines his ideas.) The celebrated physicist Peter Higgs even said that since Dawkins believed that whole Christianity is Fundamentalist, Dawkins is himself a fundamentalist. Even others detected Dawkins’s lack of understanding of human nature, which had led him to be a Fundamentalist atheist.

          Since Dawkins and Sherlock see religion as violent because they saw that a small group of religious people are violent, I have the right to say that atheism is also violent because I saw that Marxist-Leninist atheists are violent. Yes, there is a form of violent militant atheism. (I could feel a flow of conscience to say this, because there are open minded atheists like Gray and Higgs, but for the sake of rhetoric I shall say it.)

          Atheism is not always peaceful, and sometimes it is as violent as Islamic extremism, and you could see this in Soviet Russia’s dynamic political landscape.  The atheist USSR anti-religious campaigns in the 20^th century harassed religious people and gave them little rights. To trigger secularization, the USSR anti-religious campaigns executed thousands of priests and bishops.

An Orthodox icon showing Christian martyrs during the USSR anti-religious campaigns being executed in the Botovo firing range. The icon was drawn in Medieval style. 

          During the late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance in Spain, Catholic monarchs persecuted non-Christians: exiling Jews and Muslims, forcing them to convert to Catholicism if they want to stay and persecute those who are proven to practice their non-Christian religions secretly. The case is also the same in the Middle East today. Islamic extremists are forcing people to convert to Islam and persecute those non-Muslims. It is also the same on what happened in Soviet Russia in the 20^th century. They forced the secularization of Russia and persecuted religious people, forcing people to be atheists. I wonder what Sherlock and Dawkins will do to secularize the western world. Are they going to use force and violence to convert everyone to atheism? Or are they going to push it with writing books, lectures and mere Tweets? Do they really think Tweets and books and lectures will convert the whole western world? Do they really think the western world will be converted to secularism and atheism without using violence? 

          Richard Dawkins had a foundation called “Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science” but his atheism stems from his emotions not reason.