Dicky wants to convert Turkey. Remembers he's an Atheist.

[Beorn]

Professor Richard Dawkins wants to convert Islamic world to evolution

The 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.”

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.”

Source

[Freomæg]

He's an arrogant sort, and I don't necesarily agree with his message, but anything that serves to weaken Islam is fine by me.

[Beorn]

but anything that serves to weaken Islam is fine by me.

Would that be the 'weakening of Islam' in Europe or the 'weakening of Islam' outside of our concern?

[Loddfafner]

Turkey is cursed with an exceptionally aggressive and well-funded Creationist campaign built around the premise that any resemblance between contemporary species and fossilized ones somehow refutes Darwin.

[Skandi]

weakening Islam anywhere would be good I think. those that are here hold fast to it because it is constantly reinforced outwith our borders.

Teach them chemistry and physics and then let them go and date rocks.

[Absinthe]

He shouldn't have much difficulty 'reaching out' in Turkey.

From my recent "research" there, the percentage of people in higher education, that speak english and that are non-religious, must be higher that in the average European country.

It is mostly the old people as well as the lower socioeconomic strata that are religious, and to the average Turk aged 25-35, the mosques and daily prayers are simply folklore.

Kemal made the Turks technocrats, practical-minded, go - getters and (surprisingly enough) more disciplined and hard-working than their average southeastern European counterparts.

Atheism, science and practicality in all aspects are flourishing in Turkey.

Turkey is no backward Islamic country no more...which is awesome for them, but for us, should they *ever* granted access in the EU, we should be afraid, be very afraid.

[Lutiferre]

I was tempted to call Dawkins the Grand Inquisitor of scientistic reductionism. But I was wrong. Not only that. It turns out he's the Grand Crusader.

[Poltergeist]

He wants -supposedly - to "convert" them to evolution or to atheism?

[Beorn]

I was tempted to call Dawkins the Grand Inquisitor of scientistic reductionism. But I was wrong. Not only that. It turns out he's the Grand Crusader.

There is a delicious irony to the man.

[Lutiferre]

If Dawkins was just truly of the noble intention of furthering scientific knowledge (evolution) among all people of all faiths, including Muslims, not to mention Christians, he would not present it to them in a book entitled "The God Delusion".

That is obviously not going to work to the favour of spreading scientific knowledge, but to the contrary .. will only work to damage science and misrepresent science as ideological dogmatism, associating scientific theories with virulent and militant antitheism and reductionism.