Sam Harris, Karen Armstrong, and the God Fraud

Do I detect a note of testiness in fellow atheist Sam Harris’ response to one Karen Armstrong, one of those paragons of goodness and enlightenment who would have us believe that every outrage ever committed by religious bigots since the dawn of time was just the result of a “misunderstanding?” Well, I must admit that, on rare occasions, I too am capable of losing my habitual air of supercilious philosophical detachment if sufficiently provoked. This, however, was not one of those occasions, probably because Sam took the trouble to post Ms. Armstrong’s reply. As he no doubt recognized, she is such a perfect parody of herself that one can only smile.

Of course, Ms. Armstrong is not alone. There are legions of others like her with the rare intellectual gifts necessary to understand that all the slaughter and mayhem perpetrated in the name of religion was just the result of a regrettable misunderstanding. They have arrived on the scene just in time to enlighten the rest of us with the news that they have discovered the “real” meaning of Islam, Christianity, and any other religion you might care to mention. Astoundingly, it happens to be in perfect accord with the warm, fuzzy treacle one usually associates with “progressive” ideology.

Think of it! When all the collective brainpower of the Christian Church assembled at the Council of Constance decided it was their religious duty to burn Jan Huss at the stake, thereby launching a series of wars that devastated Europe for decades, it was all a misunderstanding. When the followers of Huss, whose every act was an expression of their religious belief, launched their formidable battle wagons against their foes, leaving death and scorched earth in their wake, because they insisted on celebrating Communion in a way not approved by the pope, it was all a misunderstanding. When a later pope appointed Torquemada to lead the Spanish Inquisition, launching a regime of pious torture and oppression, it was all a misunderstanding.  When Urban II preached the Crusade at Clermont seconded by virtually every divine of any note in Christendom, launching a series of wars that would result in the deaths of millions and misery and devastation for millions more, it was all a misunderstanding.  When Mohammed launched his armies on a devastating path of conquest that ended in the violent seizure of Iran, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and the rest of north Africa, Spain, and a host of other countries, he just “misunderstood” his own religion.  It goes without saying that bin Laden and all his followers, steeped as they are in the teachings of the prophet, and claiming as they do that all their acts are inspired by his teachings, have, once again, misunderstood him.

Why not carry this a bit further?  Is it not obvious in the light of Ms. Armstrong’s wise teachings that Hitler committed his crimes because he just didn’t understand the true teachings of Nazism?  As for Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Kim Il-sung, why, they only thought they were acting in the name of Communism when they killed 100 million people.  It was all a misunderstanding. 

Of course, we all know the other side of this coin.  Whenever some unsavory character guilty of deeds sufficiently horrific to win him historical infamy can be shown, truthfully or not, to have been an atheist, why, he did it because he was an atheist, regardless of the reasons he gave for his actions himself, and all atheists are guilty of his crime by association.