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posted by mrpg on Sunday March 25 2018, @10:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the stay-tuned dept.

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


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:37AM (22 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:37AM (#657864) Journal

    As long as even one person self-identifies as a religious person there is a need for enlightenment.

    Why?

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by knarf on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:59AM (20 children)

    by knarf (2042) on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:59AM (#657867)

    Going so far as to feel the need to convince the last person on earth self-identifying as religious is taking it a bit too far but in my eyes it is clear that organised religion is a net negative which the world would be better off without.

    Look around the world. Look at trouble spots. Notice how religion often plays a key role in turning those spots into trouble spots. Notice also how religion never seems to do the opposite, turning trouble spots into havens of peace.

    You can get the benefits of religion without needing to resort to sky fairies. Doing away with those does away with one of the biggest negatives about religion, the fact that anyone can claim to 'know' what their god(s) want their followers to do.

    • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @12:56PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @12:56PM (#657875)

      > Look around the world. Look at trouble spots. Notice how religion often plays a key role in turning those spots into trouble spots.

      My suspicion is that the cause and effect are often times the opposite. Since their reality is terrible, people in trouble spots turn to religion. Not even necessarily religion; any belief system that promises "it's all for a greater purpose" and "you will be richly rewarded in the future" has enormous appeal for the suffering masses. Historically that's been religion, but there were also other examples. E.g., communist revolutions, while non-religious, exhibit very similar characteristics to religious strife.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by knarf on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:13PM (4 children)

        by knarf (2042) on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:13PM (#657879)

        Given the fact that most conflicts arise between groups which differ mostly - or sometimes only - in which religion they profess, and given the fact that these people professed their religion before the conflicts arose this is provably false. Once a conflict between religious groups arises those groups do tend to increase their religious fervour, reducing the chance of reconciliation.

        You mention communism as a non-religious movement. In reality communism is very close to a religion in their dogma, the difference between the two being that communism's deities are mortal and of recent origin. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, the Kim dynasty in 'Juche' North-Korea, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Castro in Cuba, all of them were raised to the level of demi-gods by their organisations. Communism never did away with religion, the doctrine pulls the same strings but to a different tune.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:39PM (2 children)

          by bzipitidoo (4388) on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:39PM (#657912) Journal

          As you observe, dogma is not exclusive to religion, unless you want to lump religion and politics together, which some do, saying they're pretty much the same thing. The US suffers from Free Market Dogma, excessive faith in capitalism and free markets. The market is a big game, and a big problem is, some players keep insisting we don't need referees or certain rules (so they can cheat and get away with it, of course), while spinning their agenda as a drive to make the free market freer. Other rules, such as copyright and patent law, they wish to use selectively, slandering copying as "stealing", but only when it suits them, ie, when they're positioned to play the victim of the alleged theft.

          Closely related is Competition Dogma, aka Might Makes Right. The followers of this "faith", when they think about it at all, insist that the world is a perfect, indestructible stage, perhaps because God made it and God is perfect that way, upon which the eternal conflict between Us and Them can be played out. Form your teams, breed more players than Them, then send the boys forth to fight for and take those scarce resources that They don't deserve, because They are morally inferior. A religion is merely fodder for moral justification for this approach to life.

          Most importantly, note how selectively the "followers" use religion. They conveniently ignore everything in it that goes against their agenda. The so-called Christian fundamentalist is very loud and large with the Bible thumping and the Cross on their sleeves, but their real agendas are a vicious patriarchic lifestyle, with women barefoot and pregnant, and an indecent eagerness for a Clash of Civilizations with Islam particularly since the mostly Christian West looks a whole lot militarily stronger than the Islamic world these days. They also seek to suppress education, as it's a threat to their control. There's a whole lot about that thinking that is definitely not Christian. Where's the love for thy neighbor? The Christian Charity? Happy are the Peacemakers?

          There is also US Constitution Dogma, a form of nationalism that while not entirely exclusive to the US, is perhaps most evident with the 2nd Amendment fanaticism.

          Perhaps what's really needed is better religion, not less religion. Extremely difficult to formulate a philosophy that can't be twisted into justifying murder, war, and oppression. Just look at Social Darwinism, for instance. But it's worth a try. Surely with our much greater knowledge compared to our Iron Age ancestors, we can do better.

          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 25 2018, @03:57PM

            by fyngyrz (6567) on Sunday March 25 2018, @03:57PM (#657946) Journal

            There is also US Constitution Dogma, a form of nationalism that while not entirely exclusive to the US, is perhaps most evident with the 2nd Amendment fanaticism.

            You were doing okay until you wrote that.

            The US constitution provides (well, was intended to provide) a legal framework that variously enables and limits the government, the limits being incorporated specifically so that government abuses known at the time of its authoring would be forestalled or outright prevented.

            The 2nd amendment, as part of that constitution, issues an unequivocal instruction to government, along with a single (and obviously incomplete... at the time, hunting was critical to many people's survival, and self-defense wasn't too far down the list either) rationale, which in turn does nothing at all to modify the actual instruction WRT arms, so it really doesn't matter that it is incomplete.

            Assuming that we can agree that the 2nd is no longer appropriate for our current society (I'm on board with that, by the way... I can give several examples of why it needs to be changed, and not just the ones most people would think of first, either), there are exactly two paths to deal with this, with two very different sets of consequences:

            1. (Continue to) ignore the instruction, (by continuing to) legislate outside of constitutional bounds. Consequence: The constitution is (further) treated as, at best, only advisory, and as such government is now in possession of (another) precedent to ignore the rest of the constitution. Before you decide this is a good idea, please (re-?)read the rest of the constitution. Do you want it to be ignored?
            2. Amend the constitution using the article 5 process (or amend the article 5 process itself, then use the result to make changes.) Consequence: The constitution retains whatever power and authority it had left as an actual curb on government over-reach. Yes, sadly, we're already well into eroding it... we should definitely stop doing that.

            It seems to me that the latter is a far better path than the former; and that in dismissing those who wish the government to obey the constitution as dogmatic, the implication being that they're doing the wrong thing due to rote or nationalist character, is shallow and simpleminded in and of itself.

            I will also stipulate that it's a more difficult path. I would submit to anyone thinking about this that the level of difficulty was intentional, and in no way a mistake.

            TL;DR: Asserting that the government must obey the constitution is, if you accept that constitutionally limited government is a good thing, is also a good thing. The appropriate fix when the constitution doesn't serve us well is to update the constitution. Not to ignore it. Hence, requiring the government to obey the 2nd amendment is also a good thing, despite the fact that the 2nd amendment itself may now not be a good thing. Fix it – there's aprocess for that. Use it. Don't screw everything else up over this. Our society's problems with arms are worthy of our directed attention and derived efforts to ameliorate. But they are not worthy of wrecking the entire basis for our government's legitimacy.

          • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday March 25 2018, @09:53PM

            by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Sunday March 25 2018, @09:53PM (#658090)

            As you observe, dogma is not exclusive to religion, unless you want to lump religion and politics together, which some do, saying they're pretty much the same thing.

            I think this is the problem. As soon as one claims to support a religion, they are identifying with a political organization of supposed spiritual beliefs. As such, a group think takes over from any individual search for truth and enlightenment. This almost invariably means that seeking dominion for one's religion takes precedence over any individual growth.
            I believe spirituality is a search that can help a person learn more about themselves and their relationship to the world. Whether that search takes place as taking LSD, or pursuing perfect mathematical formulas, or wandering around in the wilderness, reading religious or science or historical texts, watching Monty Python skits, or whatever, whether amongst a group or alone, it does not matter. What matters is keeping it ultimately as a private, personal, individual search.

        • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Sunday March 25 2018, @06:06PM

          by vux984 (5045) on Sunday March 25 2018, @06:06PM (#657997)

          Given the fact that most conflicts arise between groups which differ mostly - or sometimes only - in which religion they profess

          I don't take that as a given at all.
          I would say that most conflicts arise over resource scarcity. Usually linked a political grab for power (often linked to controlling those resources).

          And the difference in religion is more incidental to the far more important difference -- that "they" have the resource "we" want. Religion is a scapegoat, and a useful rationale. It's far easier to motivate someone to kill an 'enemy' because God commands you destroy the unbelievers or something than it is because your leader wants to increase his tax base, or because he wants to sack a neighboring city state to pay off his debts, or whatever the real reason is.

    • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:04PM (5 children)

      by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:04PM (#657894) Homepage Journal

      You must be unfamiliar with the Portland Rescue Mission and CityTeam Ministries.

      While Oldtown Portland is still a rough place to have to live in, the Rescue Mission and CityTeam contribute greatly to making it a haven of peace.

      --
      Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:16PM (4 children)

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:16PM (#657899) Journal

        You must be unfamiliar with the Portland Rescue Mission and CityTeam Ministries.

        Peace/charity minded folks can create "havens of peace" without recourse to superstitious nonsense.

        There are many charitable operations that do so.

        Don't confuse religion with charity. Just because some religious people do charity, doesn't mean that charity requires religion.

        Any time charity is dispensed with the condition/accompaniment of religious indoctrination (which the term "Ministries" clearly implies), its good is significantly diluted. It's bad enough that people are in extremis. Adding disingenuous (or stupid) lies to the situation is a very bad idea; reality is what it is. Learn to face it or descend (further) into disfunction. The former is a step forward; the latter is a step backward.

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:28PM (3 children)

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:28PM (#657906) Journal

          Just because some religious people do conflict, doesn't mean that conflict requires religion.

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:57PM (2 children)

            by fyngyrz (6567) on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:57PM (#657915) Journal

            Just because some religious people do conflict, doesn't mean that conflict requires religion.

            Agreed. Initiation/seeding of conflict generally only requires failure of reason. Superstition is definitely not the only source of that. On the other hand, it's definitely a common source of that, which is not particularly surprising, as it is a failure of reason in and of itself.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @07:24PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @07:24PM (#658027)

              to be fair, conflict does not always require reason to fail, but it is often caused by rational actors fighting over finite resources. I realize this observation is slightly out of context, but I wanted to make sure you weren't assuming all conflict is generated by irrational behavior.

              example: two rational people on a south pole research center thingy. accident happens, food is now only available for 3 person months, but help can only get there in 2 months. I assume a rational protocol would be to flip a coin, one commits suicide, and then the other can survive. I the loser of the coin flip kills the other person, they are unfair, but certainly not irrational.

              • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 25 2018, @09:21PM

                by fyngyrz (6567) on Sunday March 25 2018, @09:21PM (#658075) Journal

                I wanted to make sure you weren't assuming all conflict is generated by irrational behavior.

                Certainly not. Glad you brought it up.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:20PM (6 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:20PM (#657961) Journal

      Look around the world. Look at trouble spots. Notice how religion often plays a key role in turning those spots into trouble spots. Notice also how religion never seems to do the opposite, turning trouble spots into havens of peace.

      Such as counterexamples Europe and the US? Sorry, it's confirmation bias.

      • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 25 2018, @09:31PM (5 children)

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Sunday March 25 2018, @09:31PM (#658078) Journal

        Such as counterexamples Europe and the US? Sorry, it's confirmation bias.

        Wait, what?

        Both Europe (mostly as independent countries, as the EU hasn't been a thing that long... although plenty of religious violence and just-sub-violent malfuckery has happened since then) and the US have numerous, bloody, reprehensible histories of being religious trouble spots, as well as continuous and significant levels of highly unfortunate religious meddling in civil matters. They also have histories of going along relatively quietly for a time, then blowing up all over again. I can't imagine why you think they serve as reasonable counterexamples. What are you talking about?

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:16PM (4 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 25 2018, @11:16PM (#658117) Journal

          Both Europe (mostly as independent countries, as the EU hasn't been a thing that long... although plenty of religious violence and just-sub-violent malfuckery has happened since then) and the US have numerous, bloody, reprehensible histories of being religious trouble spots, as well as continuous and significant levels of highly unfortunate rI'eligious meddling in civil matters. They also have histories of going along relatively quietly for a time, then blowing up all over again. I can't imagine why you think they serve as reasonable counterexamples. What are you talking about?

          And yet, neither has had any major wars since the Second World War.

          • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday March 26 2018, @12:23AM (3 children)

            by fyngyrz (6567) on Monday March 26 2018, @12:23AM (#658151) Journal

            And yet, neither has had any major declared wars since the Second World War.

            FTFY

            For the US, certainly Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq II were major wars. And there's whole slew of brush-fire level ones as well, many with religious causative factors of one kind or another.

            Also, it doesn't take a war for one group to cause major harm to another, either in large, individual events / legislation, or in the aggregation of many small events.

            From where I sit, everything from "illegal to buy beer on Sunday" to "atheists can't hold public office" to bibles in courtrooms and public official swearing-in ceremonies to abortion clinic bombings to 9/11-class religotardisms fall into this specific class of "trouble."

            Methinks a considerably broader brush than "major wars" is called for here when the criteria is "trouble spots." We've got trouble. We've got lots of very bloody serious trouble.

            Not that formal religious war or terrorism would be excepted, in-country or international. Just more fucktards being... fucktards.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 26 2018, @03:43AM (2 children)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 26 2018, @03:43AM (#658213) Journal

              For the US, certainly Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq II were major wars.

              Not in the US or Europe.

              Also, it doesn't take a war for one group to cause major harm to another, either in large, individual events / legislation, or in the aggregation of many small events.

              [...whine about blue laws and other minor shit ...] I think given your weak examples, maybe it does take a war.

              • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday March 26 2018, @03:25PM (1 child)

                by fyngyrz (6567) on Monday March 26 2018, @03:25PM (#658475) Journal

                For the US, certainly Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq II were major wars.

                Not in the US or Europe.

                That is both pedantic and wrongheaded. Here are the "it didn't happen here" US-only statistics for the Vietnam war:

                • 58,318 KIA or non-combat deaths (including the missing & deaths in captivity)
                • 1,602 MIA (originally 2,646)
                • 153,303 WIA (excluding 150,332 persons not requiring hospital care)
                • 766–778 POW (652–662 freed/escaped, 114–116 died in captivity)

                Then there was the financial impact. And the social impact. And the business impact. And the international relations impact.

                The US "felt" that war (and the Korean war, etc.) in the classic painful way: our soldiers died and suffered, their families and friends suffered, society changed under enormous pressure. That's as just "it happened here" as it is when you live in NYC and LA gets bombed. Just because it didn't happen right on your doorstep doesn't mean we weren't "in" a war or that the war wasn't "in" this country.

                [...whine about blue laws and other minor shit ...]

                Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile. As we have seen. No US government legislation or enforcement should be undertaken backing a specifically religious position. Ever. That's important. If you can't see it, that's a problem with your cognitive process, not a problem with "whining about blue laws."

                I think given your weak examples, maybe it does take a war.

                No, you're not thinking. You're just arguing. Poorly. I expected more from you. Sometimes you present very well thought out arguments. Here, you're not even trying.

                Some other time, then.

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 26 2018, @04:32PM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 26 2018, @04:32PM (#658504) Journal

                  Here are the "it didn't happen here" US-only statistics for the Vietnam war:

                  Vietnam is not in North America or Europe.

                  Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile. As we have seen. No US government legislation or enforcement should be undertaken backing a specifically religious position. Ever. That's important. If you can't see it, that's a problem with your cognitive process, not a problem with "whining about blue laws."

                  They didn't get that mile. Most blue laws have been overturned. Same goes for the other stuff.

                  No, you're not thinking. You're just arguing. Poorly. I expected more from you. Sometimes you present very well thought out arguments. Here, you're not even trying.

                  Maybe you ought to address the beam in thy own eye first.

                  Let me elaborate. First, as I already noted, Europe and North America have been peaceful for a number of decades. Wars outside of those regions don't count, because they're not in those regions. And of the wars of the past (up to the Second World War) most were due to rival ideologies like Communism, Fascism, and French/German Nationalism. Second, the Christianity of the region has come up with some pretty cool ideas like science, academic culture, just war and the Western take on pacifism, modern Western art, and well over a thousand years of advancement in Western philosophy and ideas.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @08:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @08:06PM (#658042)

      Religion fills a void. We've evolved to be religious.

      Fill that void with something mild, or it'll be filled with something horrible.

      Do you want smallpox? The vaccine is cowpox. Choose wisely.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:36PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:36PM (#657909) Journal

    I see the problem as "religious people who were brought up with that religion but have not REALLY thought about it": those people REALLY need to look at WHY they believe what they believe.
    Do they believe it because they have thought about it A LOT and have come to their own conclusions or do they believe because of family/peer/priest pressure and that's how they were raised so that's what they've been taught to think.

    Too much of religion is not "Talk to God, decide for yourself" but "This is what you are supposed to think...because priest man tells you to think that way."

    Stop and think.
    WHY do you think there is a God?
    WHY do you believe the bible is something you should take as fact?
    AAAANNNDD have you stopped to think why you have to go to church like your parents/priest want you to when you could just sit outside and talk to God all on your own? Is it because in the church they can CONTROL the way you think and what you think (and collect money from you).

    Why do you need someone else telling you what you should think? Why not think about it and come to your OWN THOUGHTS?

    Before strapping a bomb to yourself, ask why the person telling you to do it isn't doing it themselves.

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---