You'd hardly believe the flak I'm coming in for by merely mentioning this case in a forum ... an atheists' forum for heaven's sake!
I think I've mentioned here before that I'm coming across an unhealthy situation recently where criticising any religion in any way is fair game in the general atheist community ... except when it comes to Islam. That's off limits.
If anyone has the time and/or interest, I'd be grateful for your views on the shape this thread is taking at atheiststoday.com (
http://atheiststoday.com/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=37&thread_id=396). As always in forums and elsewhere, I go by my real name, neilmarr (Neil Marr). Most of the folks on the AtheistsToday board (formerly Atheists.com), by the way, are probably ex-Christian, lily-white and brought up, as I was, on Hopalong Cassidy and hamburgers by fathers (and mothers) without beards.
My point is simply that we must resist religious intrusion and influence in all areas of secular society -- especially governmental, educational and legal -- and that ancient scriptural codes must remain
overriden by modern law and social structure. They are quaint, but they are irrelevant and counter to modern ideals of social morality.
I was well aware when I first started to visit the Council of ex-Muslims forums early on in its career that I wouldn't necessarily find a band of fellow atheists here. Rejection of a particular hard-line faith does not imply rejection of the concept of a deity or even rejection of all facets of religion and religious tradition. I have, though, found that atheism (at least agnosticism) seems the norm among those who are now ex-Muslim in these forums. But whereas I feel free to chuck in my two-pennies' worth here (on those rare occasions when I think I know enough to do so), I feel timid about criticising Islam on more general secular boards.
Why is that, do you think? Is atheism itself (apologies for convenient herding of cats) now cherry-picking which religions are exposed to open-season critical policy and which are out of bounds? Has it come to knock-seven-colours-out-of-
all-religion ... but Islam's a special case and should be afforded uncommon respect?
I'm an atheist and I am actually anti-religion to boot. I'm an equal opportunities atheist and utterly detest all religions without prejudice. I really don't want to have to go easy on Islam any more than I would want to go easy on Mormons in magic underpants, Bible Belt Creationists, devil worshippers, self-professed witches, Jewish landgrabbers with a mandate from their god, Hindu caste bigots, Scientologists who believe we're left-overs from some ancient alien race galaxies away, or the darned Pope.
Cheers. Neil