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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: 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.

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  • (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.