Dan Broadbent
Trending on Twitter: ‘We Demand The Killing of Atheists’
Many of us in the US take it for granted that we are able to openly share our views on nearly any topic without fear of the government holding us accountable.
However, there are still countries where atheism is punishable by death. Countries like Saudi Arabia have imprisoned atheists for sharing their views as well. For being “the religion of peace,” it seems a bit hypocritical that the hashtag نطالب_بقتل_الملحدين# appeared on Twitter this week. According to my friend Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, this translates as “We demand the killing of the Atheists.”
Clearly, people using this hashtag are extremists. But at the same time, when has an atheist hashtag calling for violence been a trending topic on Twitter?
So it’s important for us to continue our positive message encouraging critical thinking and free thought for those who literally are in fear of their lives. Stop using confusing terms that blur the lines like “Humanism” or “Agnosticism.” As David Silverman says in his book Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World:
Hiding behind other labels is yielding to bigotry. When atheists use identifiers such as humanist, freethinker, or secular, they are effectively saying very little because, again, nobody knows what those words mean. The bigotry goes unchallenged, the teaching opportunity is missed, and the lie that atheists are rare persists. But it’s easy, so a lot of people do it, which in my opinion is wrong on many levels.
Religions deserve to die, not people.
If your ideology is so threatened by a few simple questions, then perhaps you should change your belief system.
The silver lining? Since Islam subjugates women, some women and men are responding with the hashtag #TitsOutForIslam (the Twitter link is totally NSFW).
