CJ Werleman - The New Atheist Threat: The Dangerous Rise of Secular Extremists

First Published in Great Britain 2015
by Dangerous Little Books CJ Werleman All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Dedicated to the memory of Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Razen Mohammad Abu-Salh.

Their respective lives cut short execution style by an avowed New Atheist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, February 2015.

CJ Werleman is an author, speaker, columnist for
Middle East Eye, and host of Foreign Object.

Also by CJ Werleman

God Hates You. Hate Him Back

Jesus Lied. He Was Only Human

Koran Curious

Atheists Cant Be Republicans

Crucifying America

PRAISE

Drawing from personal experience, CJ Werleman tears the liberal cover off of the New Atheist movement and exposes its ringleaders as the fundamentalist, imperial cheerleaders they are. His book is an important intervention and could not be more urgent.

MAX BLUMENTHAL, AUTHOR OF THE 51 DAY WAR: RESISTANCE AND RUIN IN GAZA

For far too long, the New Atheist movement has masqueraded as enlightened liberals. Theres just one problem: theyre not liberals, nor are they enlightened. In this timely and convincing new expos, CJ Werleman masterfully exposes the ugly underbelly of this cadre of charlatans, showing how their brand of secular extremism is suffocating the progressive values they claim to champion. A must-read for believers and non-believers alike.

NATHAN LEAN, AUTHOR OF THE ISLAMOPHOBIA INDUSTRY: HOW THE RIGHT MANUFACTURES FEAR OF MUSLIMS

The great contest of our time isn't Islam versus the West, or faith versus reason. It's tolerance versus bigotry, which Werleman finds hiding behind a surprising name: Atheism. Werleman enlightens us and educates us even as he challenges us. Because I didn't just enjoy this book (though I really, really did). I was left wondering: Do I show the same courage in evaluating my own beliefs and biases?

HAROON MOGHUL, A FELLOW AT THE INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL POLICY AND UNDERSTANDING.

PROLOGUE

February 2015: Three Muslim American students lay dead in an apartment near the Chapel Hill campus of the University of North Carolina on a wintery night. Each with a single bullet wound to the head killed execution style.

When I first heard news of the attack, I immediately presumed the shooter, Craig Stephen Hicks, to be a right-wing extremist; someone of the Anders Breivik ilk but with probable Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leanings. I was shocked when CNN identified the killer to be an atheist.

An atheist? Im an atheist. The mere idea of an atheist motivated hate crime is nonsensical to me. Atheism is a non-positive assertion. Wholly and solely atheism means non-religious belief. Its not anti-anything or anyone. So instinctively I knew there had to be more to the killers motives than atheism or a parking dispute.

A visit to Hicks Facebook page hints at something a little more sinister, however. Hicks is a rabid anti-theist (New Atheist), and its important to make its distinction from atheism, because anti-theism is to atheism what Zionism is to Judaism, or what ISIS is to Islam. If the latter analogy sounds a little far-fetched, then you really need to read more about the anti-religious genocides of the 20th century, and the remainder of this book.

Hicks customized Facebook banner featured the wording:

Anti-Theism: Of course I want religion to go away. I dont deny your right to believe whatever youd like; but I have the right to point out its ignorant and dangerous for as long as your baseless superstitions keep killing people .

In the days prior to carrying out his heinous deed, Hicks wrote chillingly: When it comes to insults, your religion started this, not me. If your religion kept its big mouth shut, so would I. Hicks entire page is a shrine to New Atheism (anti-theism). He lists Richard Dawkins God Delusion as one of his favorite books, and has littered his timeline with dozens of antagonistic, anti-religious meme infopics. On 20 January 2015, Hicks posted a photo of a gun: Yes, that is 1 pound 5.1 ounces for my loaded 38 revolver, its holster, and five extra rounds in a speedloader, he wrote.

Hicks is a white American, so predictably the media didnt rush to label his heinous act a hate crime or a terrorist attack. In America, the word terror is reserved exclusively for acts of political violence carried out by Muslims. Initially, the media reported the attack as a parking dispute. This is standard U.S. media trope to lessen the white mans crime and, in turn, apportion blame to Muslim or dark skin victims. Put another way, if a Muslim had have killed three white people, execution style, inside their apartment, the media wouldnt be talking about a parking dispute.

The day after the murders, the father of one of the victims, Mohammad Abu Salha, stepped forward to strongly refute the medias parking dispute narrative. He knew the killer well and he contends the killer knew his Muslim victims equally so. It was execution style, a bullet in every head. This was not a dispute over a parking space; this was a hate crime. The man had picked on my daughter and her husband a couple of times before, and he talked to them with his gun in his belt. And they were uncomfortable with him but they did not know he would go this far, Abu Salha told reporters. He said his daughter wore a head scarf and she had warned she had a hateful neighbor. His daughter told him: Honest to God, he hates us for what we are and how we look. He told us that.

Prior to the murders, Hicks former wife had cut communication with him, branding him as someone who is very hateful towards religious people. This guy hated religion, and my family is outwardly religious, said Farris Barakat, brother of slain Deah Shaddy Barakat. I want to know why this guy can express such hostile views toward religion, be a hateful person, then walk into my brothers apartment and execute him and shoot these two women who are Muslims, he asked. How is that not a terrorist attack?

This book is a plea for atheists to denounce the extremists in their ranks, and by extremists I mean anti-theists (New Atheists) masquerading as atheists. This book is an appeal to pluralistic atheists who are tired of the mean-spirited, often hostile and bigoted, always confrontational voices of the New Atheist cult. Its time for pluralistic and humanistic atheists to take atheism back from the anti-theistic New Atheists who peddle fear, suspicion, and hate. I can say this boldly because I was a New Atheist. Witnessing an al-Qaeda suicide attack in 2005 was my come-to-anti-Muhammad moment. I blamed religion, and particularly Islam, for that attack and 9/11, as stridently as any of todays crop of New Atheist writers and cheerleaders. I now hate that me.

Ive seen the anti-Muslim animus, and anti-religious rhetoric up close and personal. Ive spoken at the conferences; Ive listened to and appeared on many of the popular New Atheist podcasts and I can assure you the New Atheists, venomous and virulent, speak in the same hostile language as the religious fundamentalists and bigots they attack. New Atheists love to assert beliefs lead to actions, but they overlook the fact hate speech also leads to dangerous beliefs, which ultimately end in violent actions. Like all fundamentalists, New Atheists have divided the world in two: good and evil. Those who champion science and decry religion are the enlightened and righteous. Those who do not are to be ignored and dismissed as probably evil, definitely ignorant. They share the same binary worldview of ISIS and the Christian Right, and thats what makes them dangerous.

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