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Richard Dawkins to Give Away Copies of the God Delusion in Islamic Countries

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

An Anonymous Coward writes:

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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Original Submission

• Re:Atheism Re:Atheism (Score: 2) by turgid on Monday March 26 2018, @07:37AM (3 children)

  by turgid (4318) on Monday March 26 2018, @07:37AM (#658274) Journal

  Stalin trained as a priest. Religious and political extremism have a lot in common. Keep having fun with your witty trolls equating athiesm with tyranny and dictators. Gott mitt uns.

  --
  I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].

  Parent

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• Re:Atheism Re:Atheism (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @06:27PM (2 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @06:27PM (#659074)

  Stalin trained as a priest. Religious and political extremism have a lot in common.

  Where's your intellectual honesty, logic and objectivity? He was an atheist when he initiated acts of genocide. You're behaving like one of those religious bunch with their "No True Scotsman" BS, going "No he can't be a member of my faith because he did all those evil stuff".

  He was probably already an atheist while training as a priest when he said "You know, they are fooling us, there is no God. ": https://www.marxists.org/archive/murphy-jt/1945/stalin/01.htm [marxists.org]

  If he doesn't count as an atheist then neither do many atheists who abandon religion and say "there is no God".

  All reasonable evidence points to Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot being atheists.

  Whatever they were, it's far more likely they were atheists than Christians or Buddhists.

  Stalin wasn't following nor promoting the example of Jesus when he was promoting anti religious campaigns:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR_anti-religious_campaign_(1928%E2%80%931941) [wikipedia.org]

  The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labour camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited.[1] More than 85,000 Orthodox priests were shot in 1937 alone.[2] Only a twelfth of the Russian Orthodox Church's priests were left functioning in their parishes by 1941.[3]

  Nor was Pol Pot following or promoting the examples of the Buddhas by having his regime kill thousands of buddhist monks:

  The Khmer Rouge also classified people based on their religious and ethnic backgrounds. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge had a policy of state atheism. All religions were banned, and the repression of adherents of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism was extensive. Nearly 25,000 Buddhist monks were massacred by the regime.

  Seems far more likely they were following and promoting the precepts of Marxism. Marxism promotes violence and atheism see the communist manifesto, etc: http://www.stephenhicks.org/2012/10/08/marxists-and-violence/ [stephenhicks.org]

  If you're going to claim that Marxism is another religion in disguise then you should then go past that stage and accept that millions of humans will follow some sort of "religion" whatever you do, so the real solution might not be no religion but better religions or better interpretations.

  Don't fall for or promote the Dawkinists "New Atheism" religion with their disingenuous apologetics. They're a cure worse than some of the diseases.

  Parent

  • Re:Atheism Re:Atheism (Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday March 29 2018, @08:54PM (1 child)

    by turgid (4318) on Thursday March 29 2018, @08:54PM (#660189) Journal

    You really don't get it.

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    I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].

    Parent

    • Re:Atheism (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 06 2018, @02:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 06 2018, @02:41PM (#663433)

      Are you denying that Stalin was an atheist when he initiated acts of genocide?
      
      Can't handle the truth? Are you like those religious people when confronted with truths that disagree with their faith?

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