Kimberly Winston (since HuffPo didn't)
The title of this post is the title of an article over at HuffPo today [well, you can see it today, but it was published on 26 August 2011]. It can also be seen at Religious News Service. Although one who does not look for conspiracy theories everywhere, I wondered why Ms Winston’s picture was not put at the head of her article, or her curriculum vitae displayed, since HuffPo regularly includes them. So I went searching around for Kimberly, and unlike the Snark, she did not softly and suddenly vanish away. She even has a special corner at amazon.com, where you can look up her books. She’s written three: Fabric of Faith: A Guide to the Prayer Quilt Ministry, Bead One, Pray Too: A Guide to Making and Using Prayer Beads, and Faith Beyond Faith Healing: Finding Hope After Shattered Dreams. Now, this came as a bit of a surprise, since the Masthead of Religious News Service says: “The only secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics” — as you will see if you click on the link above. And here is her editorialteam picture and cv at RNS. You’ll have to scroll way down in order to find Ms. Winston.
However, all this private dick stuff led me to wondering just how impartial this report of the new atheism really is. She begins her article in this way:
In September 2001, Sam Harris was an unknown doctoral student who didn’t believe in God.
But after the World Trade Center crumbled on 9/11, he put his studies aside to write a book that became an instant best-seller — and changed the way atheists, and perhaps Muslims, are perceived in this country.
Now, if that’s not a biased opening, then I don’t know what prejudice is. “Unknown doctoral student changes the way we see atheists and Muslims.” The headline is just struggling to get out, and I wonder whether she thought of that before “New Atheists’ emerge from 9/11″ was chosen for her.
Her very next paragraph gives us her slant on things:
Published in 2004, Harris’s “The End of Faith” launched the so-called “New Atheist” movement, a make-no-apologies ideology that maintains that religion is not just flawed, but evil, and must be rejected.
The article is generously provided with links which I have removed; but how unbiased is this, really? Certainly, in the aftermath of 9/11 many harsh things were said, and there was an apocalyptic fever for several years, expressed, not least, by the American President — although we were assured by Billy Graham that all those who were killed in the Twin Towers were in heaven now and wouldn’t want to come back. But the idea that Harris was presenting a “make-no-apologies ideology” suggests that he never makes an argument, never supports his case, and that is simply false. But once she’s allowed this false statement, the whole article just flows quite naturally from it. All the so-called “new atheists” are tarred with the same brush, and treated in the same cavalier fashion.
Winston will have to do much more to show that this is a secular, unbiased report of the new atheism. As a journalist, though, she had another responsibility. She puts ‘new atheist’ in scare quotes in her title — or someone does it for her — but the scare quotes would have been there even if not in black and white, because she has provided no evidence at all for the provenance of the title, and no explanation as to why these atheists are new, except for remarks about their stridency, their facile ascription of the world’s evils to the sole responsibility of religion, and so endlessly and familiarly on.
But then she says this:
Now, 10 years after the 9/11 attack that launched the movement, freethinkers are taking stock of the New Atheists contributions to their community, which includes atheists, agnostics, humanists and other nonreligionists.
This is just careless journalism. Almost from the start, other nonbelievers, freethinkers, atheists, agnostics and humanists along with their religious brethren have been criticising the new atheism and criticising it loudly, not to say stridently and often abusively. Friendships have broken over the years because of differences of opinion over the tone and direction that those now generally called the new atheists have adopted; and the name itself has not been accepted by those so called without dissent (although I have generally made a virtue of necessity, and accepted this title as a proud and appropriate one for my point of view). Huge internet rivalries have developed, accusations and counter-accusations have been made stridently, and at length, both by religionists and freethinkers. “Now, ten years later … ” — nothing! This has been going on from the get go, and Ms Winston, had she not been so busy with her prayer beads and quilts, should know that. So, going around and asking people now is not taking the temperature ten years later; it’s missing out on the whole show, which she misrepresents from the very start. Ms. Kimberly Winston is a dead loss failure as a journalist, though she does well for a religious apologist.
She goes on to interview Tom Flynn at the Center for Inquiry, and she remarks on the rift between the Center, founded by Paul Kurtz, and Kurtz himself. And she quotes Kurtz to this effect:
“They’re anti-religious, and they’re mean-spirited, unfortunately,” Kurtz told NPR in 2009. “Now, they’re very good atheists and very dedicated people who do not believe in God. But you have this aggressive and militant phase of atheism, and that does more damage than good.”
Yes, got that. But that’s old news, and people have moved on since then. After this quote she remarks that Sam Harris turned down a request for an interview, Dawkins and Dennett could not be reached, and Hitchens is ill. Shouldn’t she have waited until Dawkins and Dennett were available before she filed the story? That is, if she wanted to be truly unbiased, and give an accurate picture of the way things had fallen out? Yes, she should have, but she didn’t. And so we are left with only a story fragment which tries to be the whole story.
She does point out, though, that, after Harris’ book was published, Americans were less trusting of Muslims:
While multiple factors have affected Americans’ negative views of Islam after 9/11, many American Muslims partially blame the New Atheists. A 2010 Pew poll found that only 30 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Islam, down from 41 percent in 2005, a year after Harris’ book.
“I would say they have harmed,” Omid Safi, a Muslim and a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “They direct much of their venom against Muslims, and I have seen some of their material used by Islamophobes.”
Remember, Sam Harris’ book was a response to 9/11, when Muslim terrorists hijacked planes full of innocent people and flew them into buildings which were full of innocent people too. And remember too that from that moment the United States has been at war with Muslim terrorists. It’s still at war with them. Not only that, but 2005, when the first Pew Forum Survey mentioned by Winston was taken, was the year during which Muslims carried out a campaign of suicide bombings in London. In 2006 plots to blow up airliners over the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans by Muslim terrorists were revealed and thwarted, and suspects arrested. Pew Forum did an analysis of American attitudes towards Muslims after the Fort Hood massacre in 2009 in an article entitled “Modest Rise in Concern About Islamic Extremism.” This, and other information is widely available, but Winston does not use it. She offers no evidence that the change in American responses to Muslims is due to new atheist “extremism” to any degree at all (which one of her sources compared hyperbolically to Fox News!), or that the Muslims she consulted are right. (And her qualification “While many factors …” does not excuse such sloppy journalism.) The fact that a 2004 Pew Survey of religion in public life showed that Americans, by a significant margin, would vote for a Muslim for President before they would vote for someone without any religion (38% would not vote for a Muslim, 52% would not vote for someone without religion) suggests at least that the new atheist phenomenon had very little to do with American attitudes.
My complaint, for what it’s worth, has all along been that the new atheists do not criticise Islam sharply enough, for it is surely a more dangerous religion than Christianity, since it was founded in war, expanded by war, and, in many of its guises advocates death to those who are not faithful to the teachings of Islam* After all, the world outside regions dominated by Islam is known as the ”house of war” (Dar al-Harb), which in itself is disturbing. (Christianity itself, of course – and it would be unfair not to remark upon it – once mandated the same penalty for heresy, and carried it out; but that was then, this is now.) It has seemed to me dangerous for those living in what were, historically, the lands of the Christians — viz., Christendom — to criticise Christianity excessively, and leave Islam as the only large religious group in the West largely uncriticised. The fact that the criticism of Islam can be dangerous is even more reason not to make this mistake. This may be one reason why Ayan Hirsi Ali has chosen to commend Christianity to Muslims, as a suitable religious replacement for Islam, which, as she continues to warn us, is incompatible with democracy and freedom. That is an issue upon which the jury is still out, but Hirsi Ali’s opinion surely counts for something here, despite her detractors, prominent amongst whom are the well-known journalists Timothy Garteon Ash and Ian Buruma, whose intemperate attacks on Ayan Hirsi Ali have been characterised by Paul Berman (justly, in my view) as The Flight of the Intellectuals.
Winston brings her article to a close with what she calls a more qualified assessment:
Ryan Cragun, a sociologist of religion at the University of Tampa, is more qualified in his assessment. In their extremism and intolerance, he likens the New Atheists to Fox News Channel — “so far to the right,” he said, that they opened up the middle.
“Now it is OK to be a moderate atheist because you can point to the stridency of the New Atheists and say, ‘At least I am not one of them,”‘ he said. “It opens up a bigger space for freethinkers to actually communicate.”
We are often advised to see ourselves as others see us, but did Winston go looking for the answers that she wanted, or is she, as RNS claims, providing us with “unbiased coverage of religion and ethics.” You know what I think. She started with it, and she ended with it too. It’s called bias.
________________________
*Takfir
Definition: This is the act of identifying someone as a kafir – unbeliever. Some Muslims believe that the right to do this lies only with God.
Some, however, think that humans are allowed to make such an identification. Doing so has been an important part of Islamic fundamentalism – Muslims are not allowed to wage war on each other, but they can wage war on unbelievers. Thus, if a society or group can be labeled as unbelieving, it becomes religious acceptable to engage in even armed battle with them. [Hence takfiri -- those who consider killing such apostates a religious duty] (about.com)
As you implied, Winston doesn’t acknowledge that some of the very vocal criticism of religion is a response to actual extreme actions taken by religious groups, which is a common thing I’ve seen in other articles as well. It almost seems to be taken as a given that atheists’ criticism is too harsh, extreme, etc. by default.
About the Islam issue, I think Winston makes another very common mistake: Not differentiating between discrimination against Muslims and valid criticism of Islam. I’ve seen both coming from atheists (as well as religious people). When I was a little kid, I disagreed with things in Islam, but I would look around and see that there were two sides who were most vocal: (1) those who defended Islam and (2) those who advocated discrimination against Muslims. One of the things that has given me some hope recently is finding that, although there are those who advocate discrimination against Muslims, there are also those who have some valid criticisms to make. Attempts to lump together the actual bigots and the critics downplays the seriousness of both the discrimination against Muslims as well as the horrible problems within Islam, resulting in a situation in which both remain improperly addressed.
I want to point out your use of the term ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ in your footnote. It’s continued use (even by people as literate and erudite as you are) shows a very deep misunderstanding of islam that falsely and inaccurately and almost intentionally attempts to define the quick response to deadly violence as somehow based on an unusual literal reading of the koran – a reading outside of the assumed typical/mainstream islamic believer.
This is wrong. This is factually incorrect. This is terribly misleading.
Unlike christianity where there is a wide spectrum of scriptural interpretations leading to thousands upon thousands of equally competing but related sects each of whom proclaim knowing The Truth TM, there is no such division in islam. There are splits based on who is the legitimate heir of Mohammed, but the koran itself is the final, perfect word of god. One does not interpret it; one either submits to it or one does not… and the totality of this submission is the rubric that defines good muslims from those who can become better muslims.
When one understands this fact (and please, go talk to muslims to find out for yourself), one can better appreciate why the term ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ is simply a redundancy that has the effect of pretending there are real and legitimate differences between this ‘kind’ of islamic adherent who uses violence and some other larger group of islamic believers who does not. The difference is not based on interpreting scripture differently but the extent to which one submits to it.
That’s important.
I’ll never forget the violent reaction a doctor friend had when he was accused (in the form of a compliment) of being a reasonable ‘moderate’ muslim. In short order he made very clear that he was not a ‘moderate’ muslim but one that could become so much better … one who believed absolutely that the koran was the perfect word of god but a muslim who had fallen far short of living up to its god-sanctioned demands. He has now moved to Dubai where he doesn’t need to suppress his conscience under what he had always considered the constraints of legal secular values in order to live his faith.
As Sam Harris has also pointed out, we should listen to people who say what they believe, and we should believe what they say they believe. By doing this, we will begin to understand why of British born, affluent, university educated muslims say they think killing another in defense of their faith is not only acceptable but justifiably so. Christianity has no such numbers attached to it… even, I suspect, the most fundamental of christian fundamentalists.
There is a difference between islam and other religions and we need to better understand what that difference actually is before we can effectively criticize why it stands firmly – and must do so to remain true to itself – in direct conflict with Enlightenment values.
For some reason the link to 30% of British muslim students was dropped from my comment, so I’ll try again here.
It’s propaganda, isn’t it, Eric? It’s just easier to pick on some protesters and not bother to do any serious research. It’s easier to think, it invokes the welcome sympathy of thoughtless fools, and it looks good on the page. Remember how easy it was for Hitler to put Jews in concentration camps. Simple-minded is always best, and ignorance is bliss. And she has her agenda, god-given, so the way is clear.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali strikes me as someone who is fighting a lone battle. I think it is a great mistake on her part to advocate Christianity as an alternative for Muslims, but I can see why she does; in various ways, it seems a counsel of despair. She is, in my view, right to say that Islam is incompatible with democracy (unless it can be “defeated” — her word) but so is Christianity, as developments in the USA and pronouncements by the former Archbishop of Canterbury and the recent increase in the number of antidemocratic Christian protesters in the UK have shown. She sees Christianity as having been defeated, after a tediously long history of battles and bloodshed, many generations ago. She doesn’t seem to see the recent resurgence of what I call neochristianity: heretically literalist, arrogant, bombastic, intolerant, absurd, and determined. Nor does she seem to see the stirrings from within the wings of “normal” Christianity against secularism and human rights. Maybe she’s getting tired. I wouldn’t be surprised. It must require a superhuman effort to keep going. Much easier to be like poor stupid Kimberley and go for the simplest option.
I didn’t know Billy Graham had made his authoritative pronouncements on the eternal fate of the victims of 9/11. How wrong he is! Obviously, it’s the hijackers who are enjoying everlasting bliss and the erstwhile workers in the Twin Towers who are burning everlastingly in hell. You have to believe it, after the Islamists went to all that trouble.
It really is quite a funny reaction. ‘faith is fuzzy thinking and can be used as a justification for horrible atrocities’ = atheist ideology. Who would have though calling for critical thinking and religious accountability would be regarded that way?
tildeb, I also know some Muslims, and it seems to me that things are not quite so simple as you suggest. The people I know clearly feel they belong to a democracy and equally clearly have their own way of interpreting religious ideas. There is always the risk that written teachings will prevail over the ordinary desire of people to just get on with their lives, but there is also the reasonable hope that the latter will prevail. Muslims know what the teachings say, but they don’t all like all the implications. I think that that is one of the reasons why so many keep quiet: they don’t like to just come out and say what they really think; they’re still in hock to the fear of recrimination and hellfire.
Just wanted to comment on the whole Christianity vs. Islam issue. Upon leaving Islam, I actually continued to believe in God for a few years and considered Christianity. Then, I realized that there were too many similarities: that the good things I’d head about Christianity compared to Islam were a result of ignoring the Bible — not the result of the Bible being better than the Qur’an on issues like science, equal rights, and so on. I realized the difference was a matter of Christianity being affected, over the long years, by secularism, while Islam still has to undergo that — not a matter of some difference that made Islam inherently worse.
@tildeb: I always had the impression that “fundamentalist” referred to the adherence to certain strict interpretations of a religion; I didn’t think it necessarily implied that the fundamentalists are small in number. Also, while I do think that fundamentalism is more “mainstream” in Islam, compared to other faiths, I do think there is room for acknowledging that it is by no means universal.
I’m going to be a bit more charitable (or maybe not) toward Kimberly Winston, in that her piece is not so much biased, as uninteresting. There is nothing radical or polemical about her article, it’s that kind of timid bland pseudo-neutrality that goes for journalism, hiding behind the opinions of others and merely editing them together to push some attempt at presenting various ‘sides’.
That is why, I think, that such articles provoke us into looking for the opinions of the reporter, and if we detect any hint of one-sidedness, we’ll cry foul far more vehemently, because the technique is so phony to begin with.
It’s dishonest journalism, because it tries so hard to be unbiased and neutral. And that is why it is so offensive. It’s not about truth, or argument, it’s about removing argument and truth and any sense that the reporter even exists, so the world appears to be a war between various sides, and the only ‘good’ people are those polite neutral gutless journalists who have no opinions of their own.
Well spotted, Eric. The absence of the usual journalistic backgrounder is revealing.
Egbert (#8) I’m not nearly so disposed as you to be charitable. Of course, it’s a HuffPo piece — bound to be dull and uninteresting. But I don’t think she attempted, nor did she succeed if that was her intention, to be dispassionate. I believe she has a religious interest in showing up the “new atheism” as a extremist movement to which only wing-nuts and crazies belong. Many of those who read her article will know little else of the new atheism, and will not question her apparently authoritative claims. They will not read the four horsemen,and they will be confirmed in their judgement of nonbelievers. That was Winston’s goal, I suspect. What I think compounds the problem is that the “agency” she writes for bills itself as secular and impartial. It is nothing of the sort, if Winston is anything to judge by. As skepticlawyer points out, the missing pic and bio is revealing. To have identified her as the writer of spiritual pabulum would have blown her cover, and HuffPo has demonstrated in the past a focused animus towards the new atheism, and therefore has an interest in making her article look as plausible as possible.
Ani Sharman. Thank you for joining the conversation. Are you quite sure of the comparison between Christianity and Islam? After all, the Bible, while claimed by Christians to be the word of God, does not claim that it is so. There are certainly prophets who claim to speak the word of the Lord, and one of the pastoral epistles in the NT claims that the scriptures are “God-breathed”, which presumably means that the Jewish scriptures are inspired by God, but there is nowhere where scripture as a whole claims to contain the direct, literal words of God.
The Qu’ran, on the other hand, and the traditions of the prophet, clearly make this claim. Do you think it will be as easy for Islam to make a transition through secularism in such a way as to moderate this claim? Just look at Christianity which, despite having gone through the Enlightenment, still finds it difficult to distance itself from a claim that is not even made within the text. How much more difficult will it be for Islam, I wonder?
In any event, no scriptural religion can be considered safe, and is there time enough, given the powers available to us today, for Islam to go through the process of modernisation before someone commits the final atrocity, and lets loose death and destruction upon us all?
tildeb
The first Muslim I talked to was a mathematics professor at Carleton U who moved across the street from us after being driven from Uganda by the depot Idi Amin. I knew his wife and children and we visited his home and his family joined us at my parents often. He chided me on my atheism at the time (’73?) and suggested I wasn’t reading the bible correctly. I considered him quite reasonable,
While there aren’t as many sects as Christianity the various cultures and people who identify as Muslim have different ideas as to just what is meant by the Qua ran and the Haddith.
Just comaparing the differences between Saudi Arabia and Indonesia will show that what you are pushing is wrong, incorrect , and terribly misleading.
As an aside, re the interpretation of the koran, as Jim points out, it’s just a fact that there are different interpretations, and even defining “infallible” in this context isn’t so simple.
In the last year I’ve read 3-4 books covering different aspects of Islam, from Ibn Warraq to some more apologetic histories, and it would be unfair to say that there aren’t attempts to wriggle out of what the koran says that’s embarrassing to a modern reader and the idea of infallibility. I haven’t read any convincing arguments for how they get around the problem, rather than just shifting it along one, but it’s misleading to suggest that every muslim is a literalist.
I agree that the term “fundamentalist” has been stretched to fit into too many niches, however.
As for Watson’s article, the final word from the dude from tampa is, to my mind, actually, high praise, even if he doesn’t see it that way. If new atheists have, by their vocal advocacy, allowed other atheists to be more out than they were, then score to the NAs.
Eric, I will be honest with you, I do think Kimberly Winston made an attempt at balance or neutrality or moderation (however we’re going to call this kind of gutless journalism). I also think your suspicions and reasoning are fully justified, and this is why I think this kind of journalism is corrupt. It hides behind the appearance of being unbiased and objective.
But since we are naturally biased in favour of new atheism, that puts into question whether our reasoning and judgment is itself suspect. I read the article, and I think it tried to be balanced. I’m not sure if it is Kimberly Winston’s integrity that needs to be questioned, rather it’s this style of journalism that is dishonest.
Kimberly Winston wrote:
I wonder if when she read that poll she noticed the category of people ranked right below the Muslims…
Winston quoting Omid Safi:
And Christians complain that atheists only target Christians and virtually never Muslims, because Christians are easier or safer targets. Which is it?
Personally I think far more harm has been done by the religious right, as seen in their opposition to Muslims building various mosques in various places in the US. On the other hand, I can’t think of a single prominent “New Atheist” that wasn’t defending the right of Muslims to build mosques.
@Eric MacDonald: I should say,first of all, I very much enjoy your blog. Thanks very much for responding.
When making my comparison between the Bible and the Qur’an, I was referring moreso to the ways in which the books are wrong in areas like science, equal rights, and so on.
The reason I doubt that the Qur’an plainly saying it’s literally the word of God will prevent at least some Muslims from being more moderate, compared to Christians, is for two reasons. (1) There are some passages, as you wrote, which are interpreted to mean that the message in the Bible is from God and other passages that say not to remove or add to it. (2) Many people say they believe that their holy book is the word of God without having read it, so that leaves open the option to say that they believe it’s the word of God while not really following it. Since the Qur’an, according to many, has to be read in Arabic, I wonder how many Muslims believe it’s the word of God because they read it in the Qur’an and how many believe it for similar reasons that Christians believe the Bible is the word of God, due to the tradition in the religion. (Personally, I learned to read the Qur’an in Arabic, but never knew what it said until recently when I started reading an English translation. I read a book by Irshad Manji called “The Trouble with Islam Today” in which she says she had a similar experience and has heard from many other Muslims who don’t even understand what their own holy book says.)
One thing I have often wondered about, when considering how likely it is that Islam can be reformed, is this: Do the religious people who accept science, support secularism, believe in equal rights, etc. do so because they’ve come up with a different interpretation of their holy book or because they are ignoring what it says? My impression (and I could be mistaken) is that there are some religious leaders, religious studies people, and studious believers who may put in the time to come up with some different interpretation, but the vast majority of people just ignore what the book says. The people in this latter group will sometimes just quote a different nicer passage in response to criticism about a horrible passage, and don’t really have an alternative explanation for the horrible passage.
As you wrote, there is still a problem with Christianity despite it having gone through the Enlightenment, and I think this is a problem that will be faced by Islam as well, if it does get to that point. (Muslim apologetics and Christian apologetics sound frustratingly similar.) Because of the actual contents of these books, while I think there is hope for reform, I always doubt to what extent it can be achieved and if fundamentalism will continue to come up, the way that Christian fundamentalism keeps coming up even after people proclaim the “death of God”. People don’t always read the whole book, but they’ll hear small sections of it and feel that those parts must be defended and must be literally true.
There is a time constraint now that there wasn’t in the past, when considering advanced weaponry and its ability to do great amounts of damage. What frightens me about that is the fact that it only takes a few people to cause large amounts of devastation. Whereas before, the leader of a country would have to gather up an army, now one weapon can cause great devastation. This is one of the reasons why the continued fundamentalism that you mentioned is a problem; even if the vast majority of people of all different religious beliefs and other ideologies become moderate, even just a few can cause great devastation.
@Deen: “And Christians complain that atheists only target Christians and virtually never Muslims, because Christians are easier or safer targets. Which is it?”
Good point.
Ani (#16). Good points, all of them, I think. What struck my attention were two things:
How very true — and this frightens me, because you can see Islam and Christianity bonding together somewhat to defeat the anti-religious foe. There have already been signs of this.
The second thing has to do with the apocalyptic weaponry. As you say, nowadays it only takes a small number to cause apocalyptic devastation. And religion is such a great motivator of hatred. Take a political division, mix in a bit of religion, and that’s enough in itself to set off a bomb. It’s a frightening danger.
Egbert, what makes you think Winston tried to be balanced? Her article uses loaded language and it’s inaccurate in ways that favor the anti-atheist “side.” I see very little that looks like an attempt to be balanced. What am I missing?
Ophelia, the article is full of inaccuracies, but she adds positives among the negatives, although not in her own voice. For example: “Many laud their defense of what they see as a truthful but unpopular stance.” They are there, sprinkled in. But is balance a good thing? I don’t think so, I think balance is dishonesty and the agenda of moderates.
Pingback: Two Mistakes, Similarities Between Christianity and Islam, and the Potential for Religious Reform: three comments I wrote on an entry at Choice in Dying « The Eternal Bookshelf
Yet another opportunity to mention xkcd! (Also cited on WEIT and Pharyngula in the past few days.)
/@
“A personal religion is impossible under an inquisition,” says Maryam Namazie and describes islam as spearheading just such an inquisition, which explains why the naming of teddy bears and publishing cartoons become matters of life and death. Although several commentators here think there are differences in the fundamentalism of followers of Mohammed, which is certainly true, my argument is that there is no such difference in the religion of islam itself. This is not a minor point and it makes islam different from and far more lethal a theology to secular Enlightenment values than other religions. We forget or excuse or trivialize this difference at our peril.
Pingback: Articles. « Loftier Musings