Atheist man opens fire on Muslim students at UNC Chapel Hill

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think this has a lot more to do with the victims being Muslim than with the perpetrator being an atheist, in that I really do have to admit that I doubt that the perpetrator being Christian or something would have helped.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So Richard Dawkins is going nuts about this on Twitter. He seems profoundly nervous. He made something like a dozen tweets insisting it was 'just a parking dispute' in a row.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If nobody is blaming atheism, then what is all the arguing here for?

Atheism is impossible to blame in good faith (pun intended). Atheism is a no-thing. There's a certain type of worldview that is atheistic, and to some extent preoccupied with this fact, but also characterized by a certain degree of intellectual intransigence and often an animus against Muslims specifically, that I think is what we're arguing about whether or not to blame. (I don't think 'militant atheism' and 'New Atheism' are especially honest terms for this worldview, but it's definitely an identifiable, and specific, ideological current.)

I think what's going on with Dawkins here is that he's concerned about whataboutery, even if the whataboutery is comparing incidents that are, while similar in kind, vastly different in degree. I think this is a reasonable concern for him to have, but I don't think he's doing himself any favors; he really does just seem like he's freaking out, and it's unbecoming. (Then again, Twitter has...never really been a medium in which he acquits himself very well in general.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Was it Dawkins who coined the phrase 'moral coward' as a term of abuse for people whose ethical beliefs are significantly informed by their religious faith? I think it might have been Dawkins who coined that phrase. If so, hahahahahahahahahahahaha