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In 2006 his publishers sent out 10,000 copies of the Atlas of Creation, a lavish 800-page rejection of evolution. Dawkins, one of the recipients, described the book as “preposterous”. On his website the British biologist and popular science writer said he was at “a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the ‘breathtaking inanity’ of the content.”
In August 2007 Oktar persuaded a court to block access to WordPress.com. His lawyers argued that blogs on WordPress.com contained libelous material that the company was unwilling to remove.
Last April, he made a libel complaint about Google Groups, which was subsequently blocked.
Ain’t theocracies wonderful?
Of course, Turkey is supposed to be a secular state and a democracy. Has anyone notified their courts?
I can´t believe the blocked the views on the website because of one man!! .. is there not something wrong with that?? I believe so… people will find other ways to view the content – I´m sure there are unofficial sites and plenty of books 🙂
While I’m all for showing religion to be the idiocy it is, this situation seems to be more about the libel laws in Turkey. Seems they edge more towards the English model than the USA model. Hard to say without more details, but yes, free speech would not gain a majority of votes in a referendum–not even the USA.
Waiting to see you post the same kind of story — only from the UK. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4749183.ece
“Of course, Turkey is supposed to be a secular state and a democracy. Has anyone notified their courts?”
Pffft, so’s the USA and see what eight years of christian ruling has done to the nation.
If the American Religious Right had their way, do you think the Dawkins web site would be allowed in the US?
I seriously doubt it.
(And, for that matter, if the supremacist atheists like Dawkins were in charge, I doubt that fundamentalist Muslim web sites would be allowed, either. )
Faith is the enemy of Truth.
>> Faith is the enemy of Truth.
No. Self-service is the enemy of truth.
For example, communist countries were run by atheists from top-to-bottom and they were a gigantic pack of liars.
#8 No, faith itself is the enemy of truth since faith is based on believing something someone told you rather than getting you off your butt to go test it yourself.
Certainly self-service is similar, sometimes, but –just believe me on this– it’s that faith stuff that is the enemy of truth.
#4, Mark,
I don’t understand your point. Your link goes to a report that one Arbitration Court in Britain is run by Muslims. The same thing is legal in most western countries that allow legal arbitration. As long as both parties agree and the conduct is not outrageous, there is no problem. Hell, most large Christian churches have an internal court set-up for church matters.
>> Buzz said,
>> #8 No, faith itself is the enemy of truth since faith is based on believing something someone told you rather than getting you off your butt to go test it yourself.
So, you have tested the theory of evolution yourself, personally?
Have you actually researched that George Washington was IN FACT the first president of the United States? Or that Chester A. Arthur was the 21st president?
The reality is, all of us pretty-much live faith-based lives about pretty much everything we “know.”
Atheists are no different, even as they have constructed their own mythology of superiority.
Glad to know that my fellow EU nation is taking the principles of freedom as seriously as the rest of the union….
#11–Greg–religion has a lot more wrong with it than merely having all its facts wrong.
Religion is also logically inconsistent. God is the author of all things but somehow human free will remains? God is all merciful, but he has hell for those who don’t believe? And so forth.
Religion is also morally flawed. Take god for whatever you think he is. As a thinking moral person myself, however limited by comparison that might be, there is no reason I should be subjected to gods will. He should leave me alone, not judge me.
If you want to think G Washington was not the first president of the USA, you are free to do so. That is what I believe to==all based on “the best evidence.”
Silly person.
Greg So, you have tested the theory of evolution yourself, personally?
Have you actually researched that George Washington was IN FACT the first president of the United States? Or that Chester A. Arthur was the 21st president?
Ah, okay Greg, I think you are confusion faith with reason…. it is reasonable enough to assume that evolution is fact not based on an understanding of the theory itself, but based on an understanding how the principle of scientific research works. Similarly, it is quite reasonable to assume that Washington was indeed the illegitimate ruler of Her Majesty’s colonies in the lower half of North America based not on any of us being there, but simple because it is reasonable to assume that there has been any historical falsification.
Faith, on the other hand, is believing in something even if reason defies it …
Damn, I meant to say “but simple because it is reasonable to assume that there has not been any historical falsification.”
Wait, seriously? Out of all the reasons to ban his website, they do it because one turkish guy had his feelings hurt? Why not just go for the most obvious? Because Dawkins is a$$. His views about religion and evolution aside, the man has no respect for others view points.
#11, Greg,
Normally I try to stay away from challenging your comments out of respect. Here however, I feel I must take you to task.
If I were challenged on whether Washington crossed the Delaware River standing in the bow of a small boat with bits of ice in the river there is historical references I can go to. They may be accurate or they may be distorted. But a picture can be distilled from the facts of how he crossed the river. While Washington’s supposed myths such as the Cherry tree incident or encouraging Betsy Ross to make the first flag have been dispelled, others do hold some kernel truth. These historical tidbits can be validated.
As for most religious texts, supernatural credit can not be validated. Other stories make no sense and under our current societal norms are antithetical. Normal happening in the Old Testament, such as stoning, are regular happenings even though Jesus preached against them in the New Testament. Yet the Old Testament is still held as a backbone of Christianity.
When I read a Stephan Ambrose or Pierre Berton authored book I know it is well researched and I can trust the information. If I need more more information or wish to verify what they wrote I can check it out myself. Is that faith or is it trust because of proven veracity?
Greg…Greg! You really need to educate yourself before you just start ranting. Everybody’s heard the tired anti-evolution, anti-atheist, anti-everything-that-doesn’t-fit-your-world-view stuff you’re posting. I understand you would just like to make accusations and engage in character assassination without reference to any facts. It is a favorite tactic of people who can’t or won’t enter into a legitimate discussion. Do yourself a favor — go read Dawkins’ book “The God Delusion” (You don’t have to buy it — it will be in your public library). You will find that most of your naive arguments have been addressed, explained and thoroughly dismissed. Read it with an open mind (hard, I know) but make notes and then you can come back with perhaps something new to add to the discussion. As Shih Tzu would say, “Study your enemy well if you hope to defeat him.”
I haven’t personally tested evolution… but I could, and you could too. Get some fruit flies and some DDT, gradually expose the flies to more and more DDT over time, and in a matter of months the survivors evolve to tolerate DDT levels far in excess of previously lethal levels. Search for “Drosophila DDT” to find details of the research.
Or, go to a dirty hospital and contract MRSA, a strain of Staphylococcus that has evolved in response to overuse of antibiotics. Evolution can be a real bitch…
Ya sure, but, Brian T, can you show me every fossils between the original flu virus and MRSA*? If not, the maybe it wasn’t evolution after all, maybe it was God or intelligent design or, as I’ve always suspected, a collaborative effort between Bobbo and Mr. Mustard.
-Ben
*Note: I have not idea is MRSA actually started out as a flu virus…. I just made that part up to sound smart and because it made the joke more funny.
This is really turning into a family feud.
Saw an interesting show last week about how AIDS was spread in Africa from contaminated Smallpox vacine that was made from Chimpanzee tissue.
Turns out the white man really did try to kill off all the blacks. Purely by accident of course.
Lets see. Would Dawkins really want to ban all the crazy religious sites? I kinda doubt it. On most religious issues he shows very little interest except when they try to oust science as to well established facts.
Greg–you really should bump your game up a bunch, a whole bunch. There are sophisticated ways to argue for religion. Read your history, even the interwebitudes have good sites. Go for the faith and value issues, the mysteries, god in the cracks. Going head on against science and facts only qualifies you to be a politician.
# 20
Just as well you said you were joking because the idea of MRSA evolving from a ‘flu virus actually sounds kinda stupid.
#20 – I certainly hope you were joking about MRSA evolving from a virus… So why would it be incumbent on me to show you the evolution of MRSA? Try Google. The point is that evolution does happen, under our noses. It’s not some made-up claim based on fossils alone.
Your comment could be read as a claim that your god created MRSA… is that the kind of god you’d want to be worshipping? Maybe it’s another one of those “tests of faith”, like the Black Death or the Holocaust.
medieval times, we welcome ye back!
pj
God made me an athiest
brian t Your comment could be read as a claim that your god created MRSA
It could be read that way, but then you’d be missing the punchline of my joke (if you read closely, you can tell it was a joke because I included “and because it made the joke more funny.”), which was meant more to be at the expense of people who insist that evolution has not been proven because there is not an unbroken record of fossils.
is that the kind of god you’d want to be worshipping?
If I was given a choice, I think I’d worship either Odin the Norse God of Wine, Poetry and War or maybe the Greek God of Wine, Dionysus.
As final note, for all your anoraks out there, MRSA could have not evolved from the flu virus, because MRSA is a bacteria and the flu is a virus. Google taught me that, and I feel like I am a better person for it.
Damn… tough crowd… if keeps up I am going to pull a Cramer from Sinfield and start making weird, off colour jokes about minorities…..
Speaking of evolution, it is ironic that one of the kingpins of the science, was a man of the cloth, Abbot Gregor Mendel, an Austrian priest, who demonstrated evolution through selective breeding of peas.
#28, Canuck,
Wrong.
Mendel’s experiments have nothing to do with evolution. It demonstrates genetics and how genes are passed down to future generations.
Ain’t theocracies wonderful?
Well, you’ll be finding out soon, won’t you now.