Professor Richard Dawkins wThe author of The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene, whose new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, is serialised in The Times next week, has topped bestseller lists all over the world but never in a predominantly Muslim country.
None of Professor Dawkins’ books, on evolution as well as religion, has ever been translated into Arabic, and his work has been heavily censored in Turkey. In an interview with The Times, he said that popularising evolution in the Islamic world, where creationist beliefs are strong, was a challenge he is keen to take up. “To be a bestseller in a Muslim country would be a personal triumph,” he said.
“I would like to see my books translated into Arabic. They haven’t been. They are all translated into Hebrew. Persian, I’m not sure. My books are translated into Turkish and they regularly get censored and suppressed.
“The experience of my Turkish publisher of The God Delusion was that he was threatened with arrest for blasphemy. He may even have been arrested, and my website has been banned in Turkey. I feel amused really. There’s something to be said for being suppressed, it makes people want to read you.”
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While most non-fundamentalist Christian traditions have largely accepted evolution, Islam was still much more hostile, he said. “It’s the fact that Islam teaches the Koran is the literal word of God, unlike most Christian sects, which say the Bible is largely symbolic. That could well be the cause.”
Professor Dawkins added that Islamic influence is the likely explanation for the growing popularity of creationist beliefs in Britain, where a recent poll found that 30 per cent of teenagers accept the rebranded idea of “intelligent design”.
“I think that’s pretty clear,” he said. “I hear that from colleagues at the coalface of teaching. There has been a sharp upturn in hostility to teaching of evolution in the classroom and it’s mostly coming from Islamic students.
“It is nothing like as serious as it is in America, where the hostility comes from Christians, but the consequence can be very poor scientific education. When I go to schools, as I occasionally do, I do get depressed when I see children coming out as evolution deniers. I don’t think they would have 30 years ago.”
Professor Dawkins’ new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, brings together the scientific evidence that shows the theory of evolution to be true. He hopes to convince those who espouse creationism because they are ignorant of science.
“I suppose anybody who reads it should no longer be capable of thinking that the world is 6,000 years old, should no longer be capable of thinking evolution isn’t a fact,” he said. “I’d like to think there’s got to be something wrong with people who finish the book and don’t think that.”
Creationists, he said, were ignorant about evolution in the same sense in which he admits to being ignorant about football. “Ignorant is just a factual statement. I’m ignorant about football and all sorts of things. And I don’t think you’d take it as an insult if I said you seem to know anything about football. It’s actually just a factual statement, it means you don’t know anything about it.
“I know quite a lot about evolution, and there are plenty of people out there who know nothing about evolution and who probably would enjoy learning something about evolution. Perhaps they can teach me about football.”
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lloyd dettering wrote:
He said to Nicodemus, "The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound; but you do not know whence it comes and whither it goes; such is every man who is born of the Spirit." (and we all are, or we couldn't be here!). Some believe that he meant that you have to have some water poured on your head and then claim that you are a born-again Christian. Ignorant superstition! Even an otherwise intelligent ex-President (Jimmy Carter) professes to be a born-again 'Christian'.
If the, like the wind, where the Spirit comes from and where it goes, we do not know, how could Jesus have ever taught about Hell? This was inserted and attributed to Jesus to keep people in fear.
Jesus told Nicodemus that he had to be born again of water and the Spirit. (see John 3 : 1-12). The unfertilised egg is passed as the female's menstruation. The unsuccessful sperm dies and becomes liquid. The Spirit enters the union of sperm and egg at the time they are united (that is, at conception). How could it enter before they were united? Why would it enter after the fetus exits the womb? If so, who directs the development of the fetus in the womb? The sperm is like a tadpole - big head, encasing the brain, and a propelling tail with which it propels itself towards the egg. When the Spirit enters the union of egg and sperm, it direct the development of the fetus through the brain. The tail becomes the spine, out of which grows 'branches' we call arms and legs, etc. The Tree of Life in Genesis is the human body. The story of the Creation and Adam, etc., was just an analogy. There was NO Adam or Eve. Jesus said, "....before Abraham was born, I was". Note that he did not say before Adam, but "Before Abraham was born, I was!" I was, am, and will always be! for there is NO death, just a separate recycling of body and spirit!
"I am the way and the truth and the life; no man comes to my Father except by me." Not by Jesus, but by realizing that you are a spiri
October 9, 2009 7:20 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? Report Abuse Permalink
lloyd dettering wrote:
Yet the so-called 'Vicar of Christ' in Rome, the Big Fraud of Paul, claims that reincarnation is cruel. As compared to what? Hell? Then Hell must be a training school for masochists!
October 9, 2009 7:18 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? Report Abuse Permalink
lloyd dettering wrote:
Jesus taught reincarnation. He asked his disciples who men said he was. They told him, Elisha or Elijah, two prophets who were long dead. He told Nicodemus he had to be born again of water and the Spirit. When Nicodemus didn't understand, Jesus asked him how was it that he, Nicodemusm a leader of the people, didn't understand what he meant when he said that he had to be born again of water and the Spirit. The unfertilized egg of the female human becomes liquid or 'water'. So does the unsuccessful sperm of the male human. The Spirit enters at the time of Conception when egg and sperm are united. How could it enter before when they were separate? Why would it enter after the fetus exits the womb? In which case, who directs the development of the fetus? The sperm is like a tadpole : large head (encasing the brain) and a propelling tail with which the sperm makes its way to the egg. When the Spirit enters the unison of egg and sperm, It instructs through the brain the tail to become the spine out of which grows 'branches' we call arms and legs. We are as trees that have learned to walk upside down on our 'branches'/ The Tree of Life in Genesis is the human body. The story is just an anology. Note that Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am!" Not before Adam. I am, was and will always be! There is NO death! Just a constant (separate) recycling of body and spiriy! The body does not 'die'. It nerely changes its form back into the earth which maintained it when the spirit was in residence. If the material body merely changes its form, how can the intangible spirit die? Is the material body, the tool, of greater import than its user, the spirit?
Jesus taught reincarnation. He asked his disciples who men claimed he was. The response was "Elijah" or "Jeremiah" or one of the prophets who had lived and died long before Jesus was born (see Matthew 17 : 13-17). Therefore, this shows that the people of Jesus' time believed in reincarnation.
Yet the
October 9, 2009 7:18 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? Report Abuse Permalink
lloyd dettering wrote:
Dawkins is a money-grubbing materialist in the tradition of the immature Christopher Hitchens! Evolution does no disprove God. Consider :
The physicists tell us that there was a Big Bang when an infinitessimally small 'speck' (atom, whatever) suddenly exploded or expanded to create this universe, and that this universe is accelerating in its expansion until there will be, some time in the future, billions of years from now, a Big Crunch when it will contract and be once more infinitessimally small again. Then there could possibly be another expansion again. Therefore, there could have been expansions (and contractions) prior to the one that created this universe.
There are only two entities in the universe! The material universe, which, naturally, includes our bodies (brains intact), and Consciousness. There can be no material world without a Consciousness of it! There can be no Consciousness without the material world to be consciousness of. That Consciousness is Jesus' God, a Spirit, which I call the Great Universal Spirit (G.U.S.; which the native Amerindians called the Great Spirit). The brain is only the tool of Consciousness, of which our individual consciousness is a part. All life is a manifestation of Consciousness or God, which uses the material for its manifestation. The Supreme Consciousness (Jesus' God, a Spirit, which is NOT the Jewish tribal man-made god, Jehovah) has always existed and will always exist regardless of any expansions or contractions of the material universe!
Evolution does not disprove Jesus' God! It only disproves the man-made tribal god of the Jews, Jahweh or Jehovah, most of whom, today, are descended from the Khazars who adopted Judaism long after Mohammed's and Islam's conquests. (See Koestler's book, "The Thirteenth Tribe")There is no mention of 'blue eyes' or 'blond hair' anywhere in the Bible. Neither in the Old nor the New Testament! (Check any Biblical Concordance). Abraham (or Abram) came out of Ur of the Chalde
October 9, 2009 7:16 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? Report Abuse Permalink
ali ali wrote:
Im from the middle east and used to be muslim, but not anymore. I became an atheist after I read some websites showing the scientific errors in the Quran. I have read 'the god delusion' and just bought 'the greatest show on earth'. I would love to see his work to be translated to Arabic, however they wont sell in the middle east and most people there do not read.
September 10, 2009 10:56 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (7) Report Abuse Permalink
Jayil al-Qaeda wrote:
The lectionary readings from last Sunday illustrate nicely the Christian's approach to arbitrary rules and love for one's fellow man incidentally.
August 31, 2009 3:05 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (2) Report Abuse Permalink
Jayil al-Qaeda wrote:
Gerald, do you actually know what I and many other Christians believe? Apparently not. Have you ever read the Sermon on the Mount?
August 31, 2009 12:23 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (1) Report Abuse Permalink
Jayil al-Qaeda wrote:
Matthew, you claim that certain values come naturally. Do you have any proof of this?
August 31, 2009 12:20 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (1) Report Abuse Permalink
Jayil al-Qaeda wrote:
Michael, you're still not getting what I'm saying. Could you point out exactly what's impossible about the Christian faith? If something is impossible, it should be easy to demonstrate this. I think you like many atheists don't actually understand what Christians and other faiths believe and why.
August 31, 2009 12:19 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (1) Report Abuse Permalink
Jayil al-Qaeda wrote:
These comments just show the prejudice amongst some atheists, prejudice which is as irrational and dangerous as any of the believers they claim superiority to lol! Some atheists dislike people with faith being reasonable as it spoils their arguments, and these responses indicate this.
August 31, 2009 12:17 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (2) Report Abuse Permalink
ants to convert Islamic world to evolution
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