Teen blogger totally takes down “profoundly stupid” Telegraph article
22.11.09 | bob |
Ed West (“journalist and social commentator who specialises in politics, religion and low culture” – and believe me his article is ‘low’ all right) writes in the Telegraph thus:
The Richard Dawkins-led anti-religious movement in many way resembles the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, on both Left and Right, which hated religion as rival sources of loyalties, and sought to drive it out.
Ohhhh, he went there. Never mind that Hitler did use religion when it suited; never mind that Dawkins has never advocated any kind of genocidal Solution; never mind that the very making of this comparison utterly over-exaggerates the message and most importantly, that it offensively downplays the true horrors that occured under actual 20th century totalitarian regimes. Never mind all that, Ed West went there anyway. Reductio ad Hitlerum. Godwin’s law holds true again.
This teen atheist blogger (that’s a self-description, obviously!) should be given Ed West’s job. Or Ed West’s editor’s job.
Who could possibly find anything to complain about in such a message?
Well, Ed West did in this profoundly stupid article at the Telegraph, where he makes any number of dumbass errors and assumptions in between being a general twit in his November 18 article, entitled ‘Stay away from my kids, Richard Dawkins’. … Barely a single paragraph in, and already the equating of a peaceful message about not unfairly labeling kids to fascism has begun. Talk about getting to the point – and saying something stupid – in record time.
Go Joé! Read his piece here.
November 22nd, 2009 at 20:11
I feel like I need to thank you for spreading my little post around like that. Grateful, bashful teen, here. =)
December 9th, 2009 at 20:21
Can we apply Godwin’s law to Ed West’s article? By the way, the name rings bells, didn’t he write something else before, about the atheist bus, that was loaded with fallacies and ad hominem arguments?
February 16th, 2010 at 16:33
It’s interesting to note his ‘quotation’ of Jurgen Habermas, which is in fact a misquotation and widely reported as such. I’m not sure where he gets the notion that Habermas is an ‘atheist philosopher’ he was brought up a Protestant. His father was director of a seminary and – Habermas says – pro-Nazi. Luckily this did not make him a Nazi child, or if it did he grew out of it.