Wajahat Ali
For many Americans, the rise of religious fundamentalism rides shotgun in the Republican bandwagon. The Evangelical movement, in particular, has emerged as an influential and lucrative voice throwing considerable weight in the political arena. To appease concerns that a politician lacks “piety,” both Republicans and Democrats, including McCain and Obama, stress their “faith” and “Christian values.” Recently, a growing wave of “anti-religious” texts, most notably those authored by Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, has emerged to combat the arrogance of religiosity while making a case for atheism and secularism. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author, Chris Hedges, who received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism, has spent several years researching both groups and concludes that although their ideologies differ, their shared elitism, ignorance and reactionary rhetoric is soaked in bigotry, racism and exclusivity. In his book American Fascists, Hedges tackles the poisonous marriage of extremist, right wing religious narrative with big money politics. In his latest work, I Don’t Believe in Atheists, Hedges condemns the “new fundamentalists,” such as Hitchens and Harris, as profiteers who “trade absurdity [religious extremism] for absurdity [fundamentalist secularism]” and justify foreign invasions, the Iraq War, and racism under the guise of secular enlightenment. I discussed these issues in detail with Hedges in this exclusive interview. Continue reading
GOATMILK: An intellectual playground 