You have to realize that, with regard to mormonism, there's a big cultural aspect to it as well. Some people are mormons, their family are mormons, and their community and the people they know are mormons. So someone might not believe a thing about it and still choose to continue to take part in the church proceedings. This goes for just about any religion—it's never difficult to point out that there's no rational basis for believing in it, but you're sort of missing the point if that's your determination. That doesn't necessarily mean they're unfortunate prisoners of the expectations of their peers. That's something to keep in mind. When you criticize someone's religion, you're criticizing some of the very core aspects of their being.

I can understand that, particularly since there are always a lot of forces trying to capitalize on people's beliefs. In the US it's extreme.

Don't even get me started on pastel colors

Islam I know little about other than what I see in the news, I'll leave it at that.

The amount of blatant racism in the media against Muslims is staggering. Some of the stuff being said is reminiscent of Der Stürmer, the anti-Semitic propaganda being pushed before and during Hitler's reign. And that's no exaggeration.

Lately it's been particularly painful because of the riots that are currently going on in response to an offensive Youtube video. The commentary is just plain dimwitted. And I'm not talking about right-wing conservatives, but about liberals too (like Richard Dawkins, who pounced on the opportunity). Nobody actually checks whether they know anything about the Arab world at all before they open their mouth. The analyses I've seen don't go further than "look at how stupid those people are for rioting in response to a Youtube video made by a nobody".

I'd advise you to take what's said with a grain of salt. If you're interested, you can read a good explanation of the riots here. Another good relevant article is here (Counterpunch rules).

On that note, I find people like Richard Dawkins to be far less tolerable than, say, Rush Limbaugh. Yes, Limbaugh is a massive thug; everybody knows that. But Dawkins supposedly stands for freedom from oppression, for human and civil rights and for the inherent and inalienable rights to happiness. He supposedly has those values, and yet his response to these riots is utter glee. He's not passing up on the opportunity to remind everybody of just how stupid you are if you're religious, pointing to the riots as an example of what that leads to. And suddenly he has a great deal more media access than before—who doesn't want a self-proclaimed liberal to come on and vindicate the deep-seated racism against Muslims that the mainstream exhibits?

When I read his tweets on the matter, I'm reminded of my time in primary school. Specifically the school playground, where groups of kids would coalesce and reinforce group cohesion by attacking other groups. Dawkins is the kid yelling provocative slurs across the field, to whichever kids are unfortunate enough to be part of unacceptable minority demographic. His level of discourse is hardly more thoughtful and substantial than that of a 5 year old.

It's a quality he shares with the late Christopher Hitchens, another famous racist New School atheist, who extolled his euphoria at the thought of finally being able to move in and do more "humanitarian" meddling in the affairs of Arab countries as he watched the World Trade Center smolder. This is someone who was perfectly aware of the massive atrocities that US forces commit when they invade and occupy a country, as he had extensively written on the topic and called for Henry Kissinger to be tried as a war criminal. Yet he was not just supportive for reasons of necessity, but happy to see the day the US went after those awful Muslims. Fellow ideologue Sam Harris was glad to assist and did so in writing and in public. One might notice that I've kept to three of the so-called "Four Horsemen" of New School atheism. The tendency towards support for US imperialism seems to be a built-in quality of the ideology.

We should be careful not to confuse these people as fighters for rationality and peace. These super-hypocrites who claim to be fighting religion for the general good of mankind have no concept of their own privilege and are frighteningly unaware of history and reality. The decision by Dawkins to use recent events as an opportunity to lob childish insults at people on the other side of the planet expose him as a complete intellectual fraud, particularly since his commentary is so completely decontextualized from important facts about Western influence on the region that help reveal what's really going on. Of course he can't begin to explain: it would flatly remove his ability to slander the followers of the one religion he most strongly loves to hate. Not only is imperialism built into his philosophy, but also intellectual dishonesty and shortsightedness. Dawkins knows that if you look deeply enough, religion is never the underlying reason for anything—not even for the Crusades or the Inquisitions. He resolves this dissonance by simply never looking very deeply into any matter that permits him to attack religion.

Dawkins is a complete fraud, and somehow it's types like him that make me far more sick to my stomach than the ultra-right.

South Park is horrible btw