From Skeptic Ink:
In the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, many are asking how we should fight terrorism. I think this is an important question and I have a really good answer for it.
First, let us be clear here. While obviously not all Muslims are terrorists, the fact is that the terrorists that attacked Paris were Muslims and when we think about terrorism around the world today, most people are thinking about Muslim terrorists (i.e. terrorists claiming to be inspired my the religion of Islam). Republicans and hawkish Democrats want to wage war on the Arab world. The conventional wisdom is to use drone strikes, train foreign fighters, put boots on the ground, and create no-fly zones. Some have even promoted the idea of torturing Muslims for information (Dick Cheney, I'm looking at you).
I think all of those things are bad ideas. They are strategies that have proven not only ineffective, but counter-productive. Those courses of action have only created more extremists and have pushed moderates into joining the cause of extremism. These are the very strategies that created the Islamic State (ISIS) and have allowed them to recruit less extremists to their extremist cause.
What I am suggesting is to take the gloves off. I don't mean that we should let loose with military might, but instead to let loose with the might of logic and reason. We can't be afraid to spread the reality that Allah is imaginary and that Mohammad was not a prophet. Instead of dropping bombs, we should be dropping facts about reality. We should be out there pointing out the scientific and logical problems with the Muslim religion.
But we can't do that because if we point out the absurdity of the Muslim religion, we would also be pointing out the absurdity of the Christian and Jewish religions. I'm fine with that, but most of the people in our country are not. As a result, we are forced to wear kid gloves and not offend our own population. This prevents us from using our best weapon against terrorism.
The fact is that terrorists around the world would be far less likely to be terrorists if they were no longer religious. In fact, atheism is the cure not just for terrorism, but for a lot of social problems here in America too. There would be far less homophobia and bigotry in America if Christians stopped being Christian. Issues like Climate Change, women's rights, etc. are all propagated by religion. We could drastically reduce the opposition to these issues if we just got religious believers to stop believing in religion.
So here we have a cure not only for many of society's problems but also the current wave of terrorism around the globe. All we have to do is convince people that their deity of choice is imaginary and that their ancient superstitions don't match up with reality. Unfortunately, because of the superstitious beliefs of many in our own country, we are prevented from even trying.