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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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Richard Dawkins to Give Away Copies of the God Delusion in Islamic Countries
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The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 5, Insightful) by knarf on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:13PM (4 children)
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)
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
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:
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
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
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.