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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, 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.

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  • (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.