Chapel Hill shooting: Hicks may be an atheist, but don't blame atheism. Not yet

A man killed three Muslims in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. From his Facebook posts, we come to know that he was an atheist to the point of being anti-theist. Though the investigations are in their preliminary stage, the conclusion is that Craig Hicks killed the three students who lived near where he lived because he wanted to rid the world of religious people. The evidence cited are the Likes on his Facebook profile: Richard Dawkins and random quotes from atheist groups.

What followed was a surfeit of tweets and other social media posts blaming atheism for this terrorist attack. This is a terrorist attack, for sure, irrespective of the conservative US media not calling it one. But the theist rush to immediately create a moral equivalence is as tenuous as the equivalence, because there is none. Atheists do not kill people in the name of atheism, even if we conclude that Hicks did so in the name of atheism. You cannot generalise it. Not yet. Even if he killed in the name of atheism, atheists have no book that endorses killing of religious people. There's no 'book' in the first place. Stalin was an atheist. He got hundreds of thousands executed. Some blame it on atheism, ignoring that it was his political belief that led to the executions.

After #chapelhillshooting, will there now be loads of piece re need for atheism to 'reform' & a call for 'moderate' atheists? #justasking

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 11, 2015

I can understand the excitement, though. Atheists blame so many ills of the world on religion, mostly the murderous streak in the religious right wing, that believers have found one 'You too do it' excuse to point the finger back. The fact is this is just one horrific incident they can pin on atheists. Atheists can't keep a count of religious murders that take place in a day. No equivalence, numerical or moral.

Even if I doubt it has to do with atheism, I wouldn't claim this has nothing to do with atheism like a religious apologist. We do not have books to quote verses from, verses that absolve the faith of most horrendous crimes. No. But a multiple murder like that takes more than non-belief. The perception that relentless media depiction of Muslims in the US creates cannot be ignored. The image has led to attacks on Sikhs because they looked like Muslims. Imagine the plight of Muslims! From Hollywood films to Fox News faux debates, Muslims happen to find space only in negative roles. America's involvement in the Middle East pushes Middle East news to prime time and we all know what news comes from the Middle East.

University of North Alabama professor Mohamad Elmasry wrote on the media portrayals of Muslims and media scholar Jack Shaheen's study of Hollywood. "Shaheen examined 900 Hollywood films and discovered that they portrayed Arabs and Muslims as brutal, heartless, uncivilised religious fanatics and money-mad cultural 'others' bent on terrorising civilised Westerners, especially Christians and Jews". The war on terrorism is perceived to be a war on Islam by many in what is called Middle America. Islamophobia is a problem acknowledged by the West without understanding that it is fuelled by the perception created by images in the media.

Am I obfuscating and trying to deflect the blame? You may think so. But consider this: Atheism does not mean Islamophobia. It treats all religions with equal disdain. If you follow atheists on Twitter, you may get an impression that it targets Islam more than other religions. Now, see that in the global context. The amount of attention that Islamic terrorist acts, mostly targeting Muslims, gets is not proportional to the attention the acts of other religious violence get. Social media reacts to the mainstream media. Atheists target Islam like they target other religions, as absurdities in a modern world. To the extent that some atheists would proclaim they hate Islam, Christianity and other religions. But not Muslims, Christians and other believers. Atheism does not think of people as enemies, but they do conclude that religion is a problem.

Religious right-wing violence is too common. You are numbed. That you and I are so shocked by this act of violence by an atheist itself explains why. Atheists are atheists precisely because they do not understand why one would kill in the name of a belief or non-belief. Hicks only shows there are mad men among atheists. You will not find an atheist who will justify the murders, except the murderer. Can you say the same about religion-inspired murders?