The Feb. 10 killing in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, of three Arab-American students, allegedly by atheist Craig Stephen Hicks has led some to compare militant atheism to Islamic militancy. Atheists are not happy with the comparison. “The deluge of claims of equivalence between this crime and the Charlie Hebdo atrocity and the daily behavior of a group like ISIS [an acronym for another name for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL] has been astonishing to witness,” noted atheist author and writer Sam Harris said on a recent podcast. He denied any link between atheism and Hicks’ actions. Harris insists that the comparison was unwarranted and atheists’ crimes have nothing to do with their beliefs, not least because there exists “no atheist scripture or doctrine.” Hicks said he was a fan of New Atheists such as Harris and Cambridge University professor Richard Dawkins. Harris’ efforts to distance atheism from violent acts committed by individual atheists exposes his hypocrisy toward Muslims and Islam, which he routinely portrays as being distinctively violent. While individual violent overtures may not be reflective of atheism, Harris’ assertion that no one commits violent acts in the name of atheism is simply inaccurate. For example, in February a court in France sentenced a 69-year-old man to prison for throwing plaster grenades and shooting at a mosque in western France. “I am a republican, an atheist, and what happened at Charlie Hebdo infuriated me,” the attacker told authorities.

China’s crackdown on religion

By defending atheism after the actions of an ideological fanatic like Craig Stephen Hicks, even when they treat Islam as the key factor behind the actions of Muslim extremists, atheists expose their biases.

New Atheists could rightly argue that CPC’s atheist rhetoric is a cover for maintaining the party’s grip on power and for buying influence within the ruling elite. Yet their failure to recognize similar external and political influences behind acts of terrorism committed by individual Muslims is hypocritical. For example, Chérif Kouachi and Saïd Kouachi, the brothers who attacked the Charlie Hebdo offices, came from the lower classes of French society, had little education and worked menial jobs. They were recruited and radicalized by a congregation member, Farid Benyettou, who, among other things, showed them videos of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. The images included photos showing the notorious Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, which was a catalyst for anger among Muslims around the world. “It was everything I saw on the television, the torture at Abu Ghraib prison, all that, that motivated me,” Chérif Kouachi told his lawyer. By contrast, prominent Muslim leaders and organizations routinely condemn terrorist activities carried out in the name of Islam. Several Muslim organizations expressed outrage over the Charlie Hebdo tragedy. But this did not stop Harris or Dawkins from blaming Islam for the attacks. After the Paris shootings, Dawkins steered clear of any rational analysis and shared a series of defamatory, anti-Islam tweets. Similarly, he was quick to emphasize the faux explanation that the Chapel Hill killings concerned a parking dispute. Harris has blamed the Quran for the horror of the ISIL. “Belief in martyrdom, a hatred of infidels and a commitment to violent jihad are not fringe phenomena in the Muslim world,” Harris wrote in September. “These preoccupations are supported by the Koran and numerous hadith.” An account from a former ISIL captive contradicts this claim. French journalist Didier François, who spent more than 10 months in ISIL’s hands, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour last month that he never saw an ISIL fighter read a Quran or talk about religion. The group was rather obsessed with more secular matters and apparently never forced any of its hostages to convert to Islam. “We didn’t even have the Quran. They didn’t want even to give us a Quran,” François said. “There was never really discussion about texts or — it was not a religious discussion. It was a political discussion.” In generalizing about and singling out Muslims, Harris and other New Atheists make ISIL’s work easier. “When Westerners start talking about Islam as a uniquely or inherently violent faith that is fundamentally different from other religions,” wrote Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir, “They stumble into the trap laid for them by the fundamentalists, who tell their followers that Muslims are uniquely hated and uniquely persecuted by the West.” Neither Muslims nor atheists have a monopoly on violence. People of all backgrounds and faiths engage in violent activities. As such, it is unfair to categorize attacks by Muslims as a reflection of Islam while actions of adherents of other faiths get the lone-wolf label. By defending atheism after the actions of an ideological fanatic such as Hicks, even when they treat Islam as the key factor behind the actions of Muslim extremists, atheists such as Dawkins and Harris expose their biases. Harris now claims to fear for his life — an unfortunate predicament he certainly doesn’t deserve. Yet he must realize that his often one-dimensional conclusions about Islam have caused many Muslims anxiety over fears of humiliation, hate campaigns and outright violence against them.