The point is not simply that Sam Harris once said something genocidal. Rather, it is that this man who has said something awful remains a respected figure in Atheist circles. Atheists continue to buy his books. They go to conferences where he speaks. He is asked for interviews. In other words, because they share a common view about religion, they fail to denounce someone who should in fact be denounced. Thus, this is not about the failing of one man but about the failings of many in an entire movement.

To me, a more parsimonious explanation of racism than teleology is the human tendency to divide the world into “us” and “them.” While this may be teleological, it does not have to be.

This tendency to see a zero-sum conflict between groups is an extension of a basic sociobiological idea that organisms function in ways to perpetuate their genes. Thus, we are more likely to trust and help those who are genetically similar to us than those who are genetically different. It is the reason why step children are more likely to be abused than biological children, even if they are of the same race and religion, why lion and monkey alpha males often kill infants fathered by other males or why chimpanzees have been observed to commit genocide against rival bands, wiping out the males and saving the females to breed with.

Since lions and monkeys do not hold teleological concepts, their mass murders can’t be blamed on it.

If humans behave similarly to monkeys and lions, why do we need to introduce the concept of teleology or religious belief to explain the same phenomena?

You state that Trump’s immigration policies are genocidal and fault Christians for voting for a racist and genocidal president.

Well, compared to Trump, Hillary Clinton and Biden are far more genocidal. The explanation can be summed up in one word: Iraq.

Clinton: voted for the 2002 Iraq war and before the war, when she was in the Senate, remained silent on the cruel sanctions that killed 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5. These are United Nations figures. A Columbia U study found 350,000 child deaths from sanctions. TWO UN officials tasked with overseeing the oil for food program resigned in protest, calling the sanctions genocidal.

Here is the kicker: During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law defected and was extensively debriefed by the CIA in Jordan. He told his debriefers that SH had destroyed his chemical and biological weapons. Before the 2002 vote to invade Iraq, Senator Bob Graham, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, urged her to read a classified document hat cast substantial doubt on the WMD story. She did not. SHE KNEW she was voting for a war based on lies, yet she did.

Then, there was the Libya debacle, that destroyed the country and led to a great increase in civilian deaths *after* Qadhafi fell from power.

Biden was calling for “boot on the ground” in Iraq in 1998. He remained silent about the terrible toll that sanctions took on Iraqis. He voted for war in 2002.

The Iraq war seems to have killed over 1 million people. While not all of that killing was done by American soldiers, the fact that we overthrew a government and failed to secure the country means that part of the blame is on us. The minimum number of Iraqis killed by coalition forces is at least 100,000 and that appears to be a chronic undercount.

The UN estimates that there are at least 800,000 orphans and approximately as many widows.

Depleted uranium has led to a huge increase in severe birth defects. The DU will remain in the environment for generations.

The shortage of men means that many women will never marry or have children. Sanctions meant that Iraqi doctors could not participate in international medical conferences and learn more, thus handicapping Iraqi medical care for a long time.

All of this is far closer to genocide than a refusal to let undocumented migrants into the country.

Incidentally, two political scientists, Kriner and Shen, found that those counties that switched from Obama to Trump in 2016 had above average combat casualties in Iraq than did those counties that di d not switch.

So, yes, some people voted for Trump for racist reasons. But many voted for him because they believed he was less likely to start a war than “Killery” Clinton.

While Trump did increase the number of air strikes in certain parts of the world, he was the first president since Jimmy Carter not to involve the US in a new war. Consequently, fewer US soldiers have died in combat than in any administration after Carter.

Thus, the religious Trump voters you disagree with actually voted for the less murderous choice based on the past history of the other candidates.