Underseer
Contributor
We've all run into variations on this argument from Christians and Muslims.
Islam notoriously mistreats people who leave Islam. In some few parts of the Muslim world, people who leave the religion are killed. If a few parts of the Muslim world are actively killing people who leave Islam, we can assume that there are a larger number of places in the Muslim world where ex-Muslims are treated badly in ways that stop short of actual murder/execution.
While it is hard to find solid numbers on atheism in the Muslim world because most ex-Muslim atheists are deep in the closet, I don't think it is a stretch to assume that if we measured it, we would find that among people living in Muslim-majority countries, Muslims are happier than ex-Muslims.
Does this argument prove that being a Muslim will make you happier and that therefore we should all find the truth claims of Islam to be true?
Of course this argument is an appeal to consequences fallacy. Most atheists stop there when encountering this argument from Christians or Muslims. It is a valid criticism of the argument and should not be ignored, but even if we ignore this fallacy, there is something uglier going on with this category of argument.f
I think that some percentage of the Muslim population in Muslim-majority countries are causing misery among ex-Muslims.
That means people who make this argument are part of a group who are causing the misery of others, then pointing at the comparative lack of misery in themselves as evidence that they are right.
This argument is not merely wrong in the sense of being bad logic that fails to support the conclusion, but also wrong in the sense of being moraly reprehensible.
Christians are much less likely to murder ex-Christian atheists, but we all have heard stories of people losing their families, their friends, and/or their jobs because they made the mistake of coming out of the closet and being honest about what they believe while living in a Christian-majority community. The fact that Christians can make this argument in Christian-majority countries is not much better than a similar argument from Muslims. It really isn't.
Islam notoriously mistreats people who leave Islam. In some few parts of the Muslim world, people who leave the religion are killed. If a few parts of the Muslim world are actively killing people who leave Islam, we can assume that there are a larger number of places in the Muslim world where ex-Muslims are treated badly in ways that stop short of actual murder/execution.
While it is hard to find solid numbers on atheism in the Muslim world because most ex-Muslim atheists are deep in the closet, I don't think it is a stretch to assume that if we measured it, we would find that among people living in Muslim-majority countries, Muslims are happier than ex-Muslims.
Does this argument prove that being a Muslim will make you happier and that therefore we should all find the truth claims of Islam to be true?
Of course this argument is an appeal to consequences fallacy. Most atheists stop there when encountering this argument from Christians or Muslims. It is a valid criticism of the argument and should not be ignored, but even if we ignore this fallacy, there is something uglier going on with this category of argument.f
I think that some percentage of the Muslim population in Muslim-majority countries are causing misery among ex-Muslims.
That means people who make this argument are part of a group who are causing the misery of others, then pointing at the comparative lack of misery in themselves as evidence that they are right.
This argument is not merely wrong in the sense of being bad logic that fails to support the conclusion, but also wrong in the sense of being moraly reprehensible.
Christians are much less likely to murder ex-Christian atheists, but we all have heard stories of people losing their families, their friends, and/or their jobs because they made the mistake of coming out of the closet and being honest about what they believe while living in a Christian-majority community. The fact that Christians can make this argument in Christian-majority countries is not much better than a similar argument from Muslims. It really isn't.