The other night I saw Newt Gingrich on Tv talking about how atheists are so mean to Christians but never say a word to muslims. This is a common sentiment amongst the religious right, it is high-time it get shown for the nonsense it is.
First, all of the books associated with the “New Atheism” are critical of Islam and mention its adherents and the Qu’ran in a none-too-glamorous light. The End of Faith by Sam Harris, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens, and God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger all have criticize the violence of Islamic cultures and the Qu’ran.
Prometheus Books, perhaps the largest atheist press in the English-speaking world, has published 40 books on the Qu’ran and Islam, most of which seem from the title to take a critical stance that would enrage Islamic fundamentalists. By comparison, Prometheus has published 13 books under the category of ‘Christianity’ and 58 books under ‘Biblical Criticism.’ Since some of the publications fall under both categories, Prometheus has published less than 60 books on Christianity, compared with 40 books on Islam. I reckon a right-winger might still attempt to use this as an indicator that atheists have a somewhat larger bias towards Christianity than Islam, but that would be nonsense. There are a great many former preachers and Christians in the United States and Europe who are willing to speak and write about their former faith, whereas this probably isn’t true about muslims. Further, because of the popularity of Christianity in the Western world, we can only expect for their to be somewhat more interest in it than Islam.
Last but not least, our own blogging network includes the wonderful No Cross No Crescent, a former muslim who is now an atheist. Plenty of youtubers (Pat Condell comes to mind) and other bloggers and videomakers exist who are thoroughly atheistic and thoroughly critical of Islam.
In short, the claim that atheists aren’t critical of Islam is a myth and a delusion, a myth that smacks of irrational persecution complex, a delusion because it has no basis in reality.
The following is a video from Nick Gisburne that I uploaded on my channel.
