a) burn it
b) read it and get outraged

That being said, my main point is to question whether Dawkins himself would have the guts to go to Turkey and testify to help those who have worked to make money for him.

Chomsky went to Turkey at least twice, once in the 90s and most recently in 2002, to testify on behalf of those who were censured for publishing his works in Turkish. His presence in both instances resulted in acquittal. Lets hope Dawkins can take a few moments from railing against American fundamentalists to leave Oxford and go defends his views when they are actually under attack.

Links about Chomsky visiting in 2002 to aid his publishers:
http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/international/noamchomsky_020802.html

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/02/15/turkey5825.htm

It’s easy to go after fundamentalists, because they are dumb enough to try to apply their supernatural concepts to the natural world, thereby cheapening both, but most believers are rational people who find some meaning or joy in their delu… I mean beliefs without doing things like trying to ban the teaching of science in schools and replace it with ancient literature.

Watch Dawkins’ “The Root of All Evil” (not his idea for the title) to see the guy be a complete ass, over and over again. Ted Haggard is indeed a lunatic and a hypocrite (although we didn’t know that when the film was made), but you don’t walk up to a guy who has just led like 1,000 people in a totally peaceful, ecstatic, joyful, revelatory celebration of their made-up god and go, “It reminded me a bit of the Nuremberg rallies.” –And then he wondered why Haggard got pissed off and threw him out at the end of the interview.

Hell, in Haggard’s defense, I thought he handled the situation very professionally for a long time. When the “interview” started out that way, I would have said, “Okaaay! Time’s up. Enjoy your time in Colorado. I’ve got things to do.”

Dawkins is just another kind of fundamentalist. “Taking no shit” is exactly why we don’t like Christian and Muslim fundamentalists. It’s not a virtue. It’s a vice. And in the case of Dawkins, I think it’s a pretty serious character flaw.

(i kid, i kid.)

But it’s also funny since there is another book published in Turkey about this stuff, Jean Meslier‘s LE BON SENS, which is translated to Turkish like “Common Sense : Guide to Godlessness”. The funny side is, the book was translated to Turkish in 1928 by the special request of the founder of The Turkish Republic Atatürk.

The book, which has personal notes of Atatürk himself on them, is in the Presidency Library of Turkiye.

I have no idea about this book, but there is two possibilities in this situation;

Either the book is really aggressive, or we are started to getting screwed by our own government. (which got %42 vote on the previous elections)

[I would want if it was the first one, but i think it's the latter, since the new government's root is coming from a fundamentalist base]

That would be great since The God Delusion is a must read.

@1: I honestly believe that if those folk had their way, there would be televised hangings of vocal atheists at least once a week. Probably on Sunday.

@4: to be fair, IMO the biggest thing which will keep Turkey out of the EU is a bad case of regional Islamophobia, although this will certainly not help the situation.

It’s good but dawkins can be a jerk when it comes to stuff like that, hitchens lacks finesse as well. Its hard because that stuff pisses you off so easily. its hard not to rant.

I think the best author to handle the issue firmly, but without being too comabative is Sam Harris.

In any case, I would recommend that anyone who’s read Dawkins’s specifically anti-religious works also check out his science writing. He has a marvelous style and a sharp mind. Harris and Hitchens lack in that department, actually contributing to the fuel behind their fire – a rational, scientific view of the world.

the End of Faith was great. Yet the last 2 time i have seen Sam Harris if he had been any more combative he would have caught a case.

In the larger scheme of things, though, mostly the current crop of pop-sci atheism comes across to me as just so many attempts to rephrase Bertrand Russell for profit. Russell managed to be both entertaining and extremely thought-provoking–and accessible on many different levels. The current group, however, appeals to people who don’t have a thorough background in philosophy, and who were probably looking for some sort of authoritarian validation for the budding atheism which was in them already but which had not yet found expression. There is a sense of that need for belonging in this brand of atheism which is (not-surprisingly) similar to that which drives much of organized religion. I don’t think any of this advances the cause for or against religion, but a good deal of money is being made in the process.