SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 17 submissions in the queue.
SoylentNews
Richard Dawkins is responding to what he called the "stirring towards atheism" in some Islamic countries with a programme to make free downloads of his books available in Arabic, Urdu, Farsi and Indonesian.
The scientist and atheist said he was "greatly encouraged" to learn that the unofficial Arabic pdf of the book had been downloaded 13m times. Dawkins writes in The God Delusion about his wish that the "open-minded people" who read it will "break free of the vice of religion altogether". It has sold 3.3m copies worldwide since it was published in 2006 – far fewer than the number of Arabic copies that Dawkins believes to have been downloaded illegally.
Richard Dawkins to give away copies of The God Delusion in Islamic countries
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Richard Dawkins to Give Away Copies of the God Delusion in Islamic Countries
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 76 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so.
-- John Donne
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:18AM (16 children)
Isn't he trying a bit to hard to become the next Salman Rushdie. Perhaps they should have a chat first. His new target audience has slight issues with people having and expressing opinions about their religion. The Fatwa can't be to far off if he starts to push his book, even in a digital version. At least there won't be much fodder for the eventual book-burnings.
(Score: 5, Informative) by turgid on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:25AM (5 children)
You miss the point. It isn't "their religion" it's "all religion." And he's quite right to challenge blind belief. There's still too much of it in this supposedly modern world and the religious have too much power, foisting their superstitions on the rest of us. [theguardian.com]
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:19PM (4 children)
I don't think that I do. While his book and idea might be about ALL religion, if you make official translations into Arabic, Urdu, Farsi and Indonesian then it's not about ALL religion anymore, in that particular case it really does become all about one specific religion and not all of them.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday March 25 2018, @03:28PM (1 child)
Wrong. Can't you see the problem with that line of reasoning? And have you read any of Dawkins' work?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday March 25 2018, @05:42PM
I have. But we are talking about two completely different things here. You are talking about Dawkins, his idea(s) and his book(s). I'm talking about the translation to specific languages that are quite clearly targeting a specific population and I do believe it is going to be problematic. There are not a lot of Christians, Hindus or Buddhists that are going to read the Arabic translation of The God Delusion or River out of Eden. So my point was that perhaps he should have a chat with Rushdie before going down this path, I don't believe that living under a death threat for the last 30 odd years was what he had in mind when he wrote it. The targeted audience clearly take this a bit more serious then the rest of us.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:06PM (1 child)
I disagree. While I'm not very high on proselytizing of any sort, your argument implies that since this book is published in the languages used by adherents of Abrahamic religions [wikipedia.org], that Dawkins' book is aimed at Abrahamism, not just Islam.
Also, the book has been published in languages used by Christians for quite a bit longer than it has been published in languages used by Muslims.
If Dawkins' book was aimed at ALL religions, it would also be translated into Hindi, Mandarin, Japanese, Swahili, Amharic, Yoruba, etc., etc., etc. as well.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday March 25 2018, @10:34PM
@RichardDawkins [twitter.com] says "the most evil religion in the world has to be Islam.” That's so true, isn't it? But believe me, there's no love lost between him and @VP [twitter.com] Pence!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:27AM (9 children)
And while you mention it, we shouldn't live in a world where people are "sentenced to death" merely for criticising a religion. Dawkins is very brave standing up to these people. With developments in communication such as the Internet and low cost travel, people mix more and share ideas. It won't be long until the religious fascists are defeated.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @12:56PM (4 children)
I completely agree. Living in the Balcans in an area where more and more religious influence seems to be spreading and active propaganda towards the young people is increasing, I say fuck you to those people who think religion is harmless in general and Islam in particular. It is bullshit. I have witnessed the building of new mosques everywhere. I have seen how people now identify mosques and areas around them as places where you had better keep your opinions to yourselves. I know a lot of people, some of them muslims who go to mosques themselves, who differentiate between mosques and will tell you about that and that mosque where the audience is particularly violent and extremist, people resembling bedouins in clothing and beards and hijabs everywhere while you could die from the stink if they walked past you nearby. I have it in the same neighbourhood both worlds, the world where atheism is dominant and the world where religion is dominant. If anyone thinks atheists are intolerant, they should try religion for real, not speak from the position of someone living in a laic society, allowed to bark all sort of nonsense and not taken seriously. It is when the nonsense is taken seriously when the problems start.
Religion is poison for the mind.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Sunday March 25 2018, @07:58PM (3 children)
I'm reminded that the Balkans have been killing each other over religion (and just about everything else) for longer than my country has existed.
Certainly hasn't solved the problem.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 26 2018, @01:33AM
For those who don't know the history of the Balkans, they threw off the Ottoman yoke by being more depraved than the Muslim rulers. Vlad the Impaler, for instance, impaled 20,000 of his own men, women, and children along the path of the oncoming Ottoman army, and the Turks were so appalled that they turned around and went home.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @11:04AM (1 child)
I'm reminded that Americans are soft, living in a protected land, where Muslims don't routinely march over their dead children and neighbors. Western Europe has also gotten pretty soft - it's been centuries since the Muslims marched over their dead bodies. Maybe that was Hitler's real purpose in life. Distract his fellow Europeans, so they forget how horrible Islam is.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Monday March 26 2018, @04:07PM
I'm reminded of many previous groups blathering about "the harsh realities" that justify places like Sarajevo, Prijedor and the camp at Omarska.
Don't worry, I also know about Orahovac and others committed just as gleefully by the KLA, etc.
And, yes, I stand guilty of being a "soft American" who knows nothing about reality (being a physics type, I have a different idea of what that means, but regardless I, like all humans, am profoundly ignorant about reality). However, that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
You're not alone in that sort of thinking. Just go ask the Indians about the Pakistanis and vice verse. Amazing that PhD level scholars can fall back to that base level of base human visceral hatred. (A quote from one of them: "Kyle, you don't understand what low people the Pakistanis are and you can't unless you were there." And yes, Kyle is my RL first name, and this was someone that I liked and otherwise thought a pretty good person.)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tonyPick on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:13PM (3 children)
I used to believe that if we gave people access to information and the means to communicate that whole swathes of idiocy would be a thing of the past.
The last time I looked at an unfiltered youtube feed it was Flat Earthers, anti-Vaxxers, and an array of crazy conspiracy theories. I won't be holding my breath waiting for access to information to bring down religion any time soon.
It seems that the true believers aren't being fooled by anyone but themselves, and belief is just a way to hold on to the things they *want* to be true, regardless of how many times reality proves them wrong. All the communication in the world won't fix that.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:57PM
True, kind of, but we also have more opportunities to challenge them.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:01PM
Back in the day, the recent invention of television was regarded as a very promising way to bring education to everyone.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by srobert on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:31PM
The true believing religious fascists won't change their minds. (I'm not saying that all believers are in that category). But their children and grand children exposed to other ways of thinking don't usually opt for the extreme versions that previous generations practice. In short, easier access to outside ways of thinking will eventually lead to a triumph truth, greater freedom and tolerance worldwide. But probably not in my lifetime. And there is likely to be reactive backfire in the short run. Look for even more intolerance in the next few decades.