Turkish court bans Dawkins' website

Ankara now worse than Anchorage

Unless Palin gets her way.

Definition: Freedom of Speech

We are not against freedom of speech or expression but you cannot insult people. We found the comments hurtful. It was not a scientific discussion. There was a line and the limit has been passed."

I've never met anyone who was *violently* opposed to me saying something they agreed with or paying them a compliment. Freedom of speech *is* the freedom to insult and hurt feelings. That's the point.

Now, having clarified that, if you don't agree with the idea then feel free to come out and say you are against freedom of speech. You won't find me calling for your imprisonment or execution, but please don't pretend that you are on my side. That's dishonesty, and no human culture has ever defended the right to be dishonest.

legality

Insulting someone or there beliefs is not the same as inciting hatred against a person/group. Followers of islam are allowed to incite hatred against women being treated as equals, but I don't see anyone clamoring to take care of that. As long as it's in that community, then the rest of the country (includes my good ol' U.S. of A) doesn't seem to care. What needs to occur, is that the followers of islam need to be told they don't get to violate the rights of those in their community, simply because they belong to a particular faith. It shouldn't be seen as an excuse anymore. No one in England is going to arrest an iman for telling his followers it's o.k. to remove the clitoris on a girl, they can beat their wives into submission, kill their daughter because their honor was tarnished or that women should have to wear a burka, even though it falls under the same category. There should already be laws on the books covering discrimination and violent acts against people. To start making laws against speech, and by extension thought, doesn't make a lot of sense. Aside from our Bill of Rights in the states protecting free speech, we've already started down this stupid road of punishing people just because they hurt someone's feelings.

hmm....

i don't remember any threatening language in Dawkin's books.

religious hatred

the "religious hatred" law has been in place for decades, and was enforced countless times throughout Europe, allbeit in the guise of "anti semitism" witch hunts.

Insults?

His press assistant, Seda Aral, added: "We are not against freedom of speech or expression but you cannot insult people."

Erm, yes you can! You'd have to ban 99% of the internet if you wanted to remove all the insults.

Eh?

Dawkins, the UK's leading biologist? Ten or fifteen years ago, when he was actually writing about biology, maybe, but not now. These days he is just a shouty angry reactionist who is more of a rent-a-rant for TV "science" programs and the press.

2 minute hate anyone?

whilst Dawkins has a direct approach that some find offensive to their delusion of choice it is usually backed up by some form of theory and conclusion rather than "i don't know so it must be diety/ies" .. and they want to be admitted to the EU. yeah right. I can see them signing the Human rights act...

Dogma is dogma, whatever the religion

It used to be Catholics who'd denounce, then torture you.

Our latest dogmatic, ignorant pawn is either the fanatical so-called "muslim" or the equally moronic and dangerous gun-toting, Bible-bashing neo-Con.

In short: same ol', same ol'. It's just that the number of people they affect has grown.

Missionary position required ;-)

No intelligence needed or assumed, only acquiescence.

Ban it all... burn the books, execute the infidels and ignore science.

If it floats it's a witch.

Atheism is about as inspiring as celibacy...

...so I'm also thinking about starting a new religion. It will be based on the figure of the trickster - Bugs Bunny, Brer Rabbit, Loki, Coyote, Puck, Maui, Roger Irrelevant and Spike Milligan to name a few - and the only commandment will be not to take it seriously.

May the Farce be with you.

@Aram

Exactly. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Dawkins explained

@ Stefan:

"If Dawkins is so smart, why does he aggravate the very people he's trying to convert?"

Because he hates people. He hates people who disagree with his particular view of the world.

There would be no "Intelligent Design movement" without Dawkins: he created it as the sustenance he needs to keep going as a small minded, anti-human bigot.

As for Dawkins the biologist: er... he's never actually been any kind of scientist. Dawkins has never done any research. (The boring stuff in labs with mice and petri dishes).

He has done forty years of serious media time mouthing off about how people are less enlightened than Richard Dawkins. But, er... that's about it.

Professorships are cheap these days. Anyone can buy one.

@Stop right there

>>"I am Turkish, and I don't believe in the non-sense evolution theory."

Assuming for a few seconds you're not just a troll, then I pity either your lack of education or your miseducation, your dogmatic resistance to learning, or your inability to understand a remarkably simple theory.

>>"Lastly, evolution is a theory, has never been proven, will never be proven, because it is a stupid non-sense theory that was made up, so that who doesn't believe in God can have something to believe in."

Of course. How obvious it all is, now you point it out.

And I suppose meteorology was just made up to give people who didn't believe in [deity] crying rain and throwing thunderbolts something to believe in, medicine was made up to give people who don't believe in [deity] miraculously healing people something to believe in, astronomy was just made up to give people who don't believe in [deity] painting stars on the inside of some nearby black dome something to believe in, geology was just made up to give people who didn't believe in the earth just being willed into existence something to believe in, and so on.

@Paul M and Stefan

Dawkins isn't an idiot, you two are. Dawkins can back up his claims with his research, he's written books not just ignorant comments on a comments section.

"If Dawkins is so smart, why does he aggravate the very people he's trying to convert?"

He's not trying to convert anyone. He's pointing out the stupidity of believing in something that you only believe in because someone else told you it existed.

"Because he hates people. He hates people who disagree with his particular view of the world."

Hmmm, where have i seen that attitude come from before...let me think...hmm...ah, religions! That's where.

No-one is trying to convert you. Those rational enough to see through all the nonsense (no hyphen) also realise you're all too far gone to ever come back to the land of the thinking.

@Stop right there

"Lastly, evolution is a theory, has never been proven, will never be proven, because it is a stupid non-sense theory that was made up, so that who doesn't believe in God can have something to believe in."

Yes, evolution is a theory, as are quantum electrodynamics, gravity and that 2 plus 2 equals 4.

But more and more bits of the theory are being proved in the lab. We now have experimental proof that mutation can produce new species and that selection can cause that new species to replace the old one. The work was done in bacteria, as waiting 30,000 generations can be a bit tedious otherwise, but it shows all the elements of Darwinian evolution work.

Of course, it doesn't prove that WE evolved from something else - creationists can still claim that some divine being assembled us from a flatpack kit if they wish - but they can no longer claim that "evolution doesn't work".

@paul m

>>"There would be no "Intelligent Design movement" without Dawkins: he created it as the sustenance he needs to keep going as a small minded, anti-human bigot."

Bollocks. ID is simply a US-based attempt to get round US prohibitions on teaching creationism, the latest round in a struggle between science and ignorance that's been going on in the US since before the Scopes Trial

About the only influence Dawkins might have had is in educating some people about what evolution is through his science writing.

>>"As for Dawkins the biologist: er... he's never actually been any kind of scientist. Dawkins has never done any research. (The boring stuff in labs with mice and petri dishes)."

Science is about more than just experimentation, and anyway, isn't labwork the kind of thing many people get their students to do while they're busy thinking, lecturing, and applying for the next round of grant money?

>>"He has done forty years of serious media time mouthing off about how people are less enlightened than Richard Dawkins. But, er... that's about it."

So the media were interested in him a decade *before* he published his first book?

He must have been a pretty impressive public speaker.

>>"Professorships are cheap these days. Anyone can buy one."

Do I hear the sound of petulant little feet stamping on sour grapes?

No doubt everyone can be a bestselling science writer as well, at least in their dreams.

@David Wilson

Dont feed the troll - hell he even posted anonymously, obviously isnt too proud of his beliefs.

I think we need to have a course entitled "Evolution for Creationists - Ten Things You Didnt Know"

I can think of a few topics.....

1. Abiogenesis, Evolution, and the Big Bang Theory, and how they have nothing at all to do with each other. Also covers why Abiogenesis != Evolution (very common mistake, ask my local Baptist Church).

2. Evolution is a fact - it happens. The Theory of Evolution attempts to explain why and how it happens. It is, as you might have guessed, a theory.

3. Scientific Theories, and why their name does not mean scientists are in doubt about them.

4. How Scientific Theories, including evolution, are refined and changed over time.

5. Why the Flying Spaghetti Monster is infinitely superior to your own religion (stripper factory and beer volcano, can you top that?).

@Stop right there

And don't forget archeology. Dinosaurs were here before humans.

Huh!?

Don't know anything about the law and I won't state my religious opinion or anything the likes (well, ok, I'll state that I think that religious/xenophobe rants are a waste of time and energy and pretty much only show the repressed frustrations of the ranters, whichever religion/area in the world they're coming from...), but I am on a conference in Istanbul (which is in Turkey..) at the moment and as a matter of fact the website is beautifully accessible via different open wlans (wifi-heaven, here, btw!), other than e.g. youtube (access forbidden, due to: "Access to this web site is banned by "TELEKOMÜNİKASYON İLETİŞİM BAŞKANLIĞI" according to the order of: Ankara 1. Sulh Ceza Mahkemesi, 05/05/2008 of 2008/402.")

So I guess it is an interesting read and good to raise awareness, but the real world seems to differ..

my 2 ytl,

thorsten

@Stefan

Hate to burst your bubble, but no belief was around before belief. Someone had to come up with the idea of an outside force acting on them. I'd almost bet that since they didn't have the means/ability to LOGICALLY reason it out, they just made something up that made sense to themselves. Then they had to go about convincing others. I'd bet that someone in the group thought that it was a load of BS.

In addition:

You could remove every atheist on this planet and, within a generation, you'd end up with atheists again. You'd end up with them even if you removed every document that suggested a dis-belief in religion. Religion has CONSISTENTLY changed it's god(s) over time. Atheism is still the same... the lack of belief in a person's claim of a god(s).

@Paul M

You clearly know nothing of Richard Dawkin. To describe him has misanthropic is simply ridiculous. He certainly loathes the nonsense that many of the indroctinators spout about but, everybody who knows him describes him as a humane, liberal human being. There's certainly nothing in any of his books which indicates any hate for humanity - just the inane, stupid, blind statements and actions that are carried out by a good many in the name of faith.

As far as him inventing ID - well that's a joke too. It's a fig-leaf invented by some Christian fundamentalists to pretend oin some way that this "theory" is scientific - which it isn't as it is founded despite the evidence. It is unscientific in the sense that it produces not predictions which can be tested, and where there is voluminous evidence that contradicts some interpretations (such as the "young Earth" creationists believe) then this is ignored or discounted on spurious grounds. To detest the spreading of such ideas which are in direct conflict to rationality is no more to hate human beings then to detest the ideas of the eugenics movement of the early 20th century.

To espouse enlightened rationalism over authoritarian dogma is not to be misanthropic. It's a final recognition of the nature of human beings, what makes us unique. Like it or not, our own sense of social responsibility, ethics, behaviour and sense to what is right and wrong is a consequence of the way humans and our socities evolved. It's not due to some dictats on slabs of stone or the endless prophets and chosen ones that litter history and pre-history.

@Dawkins explained

Are you sure about that? A significant number of Dawkins' observations/arguments/examples are taken from the field of behavioural ecology. No mice, petri dishes or labs required. And you can't really accuse anyone that studied under Tinbergen of not being a biologist.

's funny, but...

I thought that this was a 'freedom of speech' story, as opposed to a 'my God's better than your God / no God' story.

I actually feel sorry for Adnan Oktar. Clearly here is a man with a 'theory' that he believes is, or should be, true. His mediocre intellect is far too feeble to withstand criticism of his viewpoint, so he resorts to the tactics of attempting to suppress any opinion contrary or detrimental to his own.

A 'Creation Mythology' exists within all (AFAIK) human cultures, varying in details, but all with similar themes (mankind created by a 'supreme being', everything else created for his use/consumption/pleasure). This Mythology, like most mythology, fails to stand up to scientific scrutiny, particularly in the face of the evidence gathered, verified and accepted as 'true' over the last 150-200 years.

This 'difference of opinion' is undoubtedly creating heated debate, particularly the aspect of teaching "Creationism" in schools. Schools, I believe, should teach as broad a range of subject matter as possible, including 'Creation Mythology', along with all the other scientifically unproven mythological works, as part of human history or anthropology. "Creationism", however, is a fundamentalist viewpoint that takes the 'mythology' expounded in the Bible, the Qur'an et al and cites it as an unquestionable truth. This is not education, this is indoctrination, and should not be allowed. IMHO, all STATE SPONSORED education should be strictly secular in nature. Any parent wishing their child to have a religiously biased education, of any 'flavour', should either stump up for it, or persuade the requisite religious body to fund it.

No-one of sound mind should give even a moment's thought to the religious 'persuasions' of anyone else. It's THEIR business what they choose to believe (or not to believe) in, not mine/yours.

I may not believe in what you say/believe, but I accept your right to say/believe what you will, provided you respect my right to the same position (slander & libel notwithstanding).

Right, that's my tuppence worth.

@ stop right there

"Lastly, evolution is a theory, has never been proven, will never be proven, because it is a stupid non-sense theory that was made up, so that who doesn't believe in God can have something to believe in."

You do realise that Charles Darwin was a committed Christian ?

And he had great internal worries regarding his discoveries ?

Notice the word "discoveries" ?

That is because by OBSERVING the world around him, he actually found EVIDENCE that life EVOLVES, that is to say, the organisms change over time. He didn't invent anything, he just reported on what he had found, and tried to explain it.

Religion doesn't observe the world around them, they have no evidence and they very very rarely change their opinions based on what happens in the real world.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck and flies like a duck, god botherers like to call it a pigeon. Because God said so.

BTW, I don't have to believe in evolution, because I can check it out for myself. The evidence is there for all to see. Unfortunately, religion depends on there being no evidence, so you HAVE to believe.

What do you trust ? Something you can see and touch, or an ancient fairy story that has killed more people than any other thing in the history of humanity ?

I have no problems with people using religion as a guide to their conduct in life. I object to them forcing their unfounded opinions on others. God is merely a concept. The word Good serves just as well. Of course it's nice to be nice to your neighbour, and not kill people and not steal. The easiest way to convince the largely stupid public is to create a story where an all powerful God enforces these rules. When this story was created, stories were the main way of spreading information - it had to be easy to remember and worth remembering. In modern reality, we can choose to be good by ourselves, we don't need the threat of divine intervention to enforce reasonable behaviour.

So which are you ? Ignorant fool who does as he is told, or enlightened thinker who does what is right BECAUSE it is right ?

I think you answered my question already.

Richard Dawkins has taken on a thankless task here, and more power to him for doing so. He has set himself up to be a lightening rod for the religious maniacs to aim at. He is doing it on our behalf. If science has to stand for anything, it must stand up to religion, and if nobody stands up then science loses by default. Then we all lose.

Amazing how the application of SCIENCE allows religious nutters to post ludicrous comments to websites on the other side of the world, while criticizing the very mechanism that allows them to do it ! I'm praying a private message to Mr Anon right now - let me know when you get it.

@dervheid

> I actually feel sorry for Adnan Oktar.

I don't; with due respect you really should be a little more careful over handing out The Golden Order of The Mediocre Intelllect. L. Ron Hubberd was not a particularly stupid man, and I'm certain a whole plethora of so-called zealots are made in His Image.

I don't know Adnan Oktar; but I'm willing to bet that you don't either.

Just sayin'

@Eric

>>"I'd almost bet that since they didn't have the means/ability to LOGICALLY reason it out, they just made something up that made sense to themselves"

I'd have thought it fairly likely that some religious mythologies developed as a result of parents inventing tales to get curious children to shut up, rather than to satisfy themselves.

Once the germ of an idea of an invisible god was there, it's a bit too tempting to use it when a kid is asking "But *WHY* does it rain???", "What happens when Grandpa dies???", "Why ARE there cows???", etc

Even if most kids grow out of believing, they can still end up telling the same or similar stories to their children, the way we do with folk tales and fairly stories, and eventually it can start to stick.

Also, in some communities (hunter/gatherers, etc), the just-so stories might be a good way of remembering things (which plants are poisonous, how to deal with certain animals, etc), and so retain a use into adulthood.

@ David Wilson

Good point. I'd forgotten about some of that. Been a while since I'd taken anthropology.

- e -

@Stefan

>>"Before belief you will find thousands of years of tribal warfare. No gods were necessary, just the protection of blood lines. Your own family was OK and helped, and your own tribe was OK, but anyone else was fair game."

Then civilisation upgrades to religion, and land-grabbing and genocide become things of the past, as can be seen from a quick glance at the Old Testament.

>>"in human history, religion was the once force that could unite disparate tribes, under the symbol of an imaginary god, and allow them to come together as a larger social unit"

...and go and massacre a different large social unit, but now ostensibly for worshipping the wrong god, rather than people having the honesty to admit it was for personal greed and revenge.

Anyway, was Europe a haven of peace when it was all united under the Church of Rome?

Did the people in power actually pay much attention to religion, or just to power?

Personally, I'd have thought that trade was a fairly significant factor uniting different tribes. When communities specialise in one or other form of production, perhaps initially for reasons of geography, and later by tradition, and they can mutually benefit by swapping objects, then they can become worth more to each other alive than dead.

If you don't know how to make a desirable product, you have an incentive not to kill the person who does know.

tribes

@ David:

"Anyway, was Europe a haven of peace when it was all united under the Church of Rome?

Personally, I'd have thought that trade was a fairly significant factor uniting different tribes. When communities specialise in one or other form of production, perhaps initially for reasons of geography, and later by tradition, and they can mutually benefit by swapping objects, then they can become worth more to each other alive than dead."

World peace didn't happen under non-religious regimes either... the point is that we are slowly forming larger and larger social groups. Tribes were united by religion, then they formed nation states, which also proceeded to try to kill each other, major world wars, and so on, and now we are trying to unite nation states into some sort of planetary unity, the united nations being one of the first (and failing) attempts to do that. Would you say that we should abolish nation states because they have caused millions of dead in the space of a few years? No we recognise that the social grouping is large and allows industry and commerce on massive scales.

I'm not saying we're wrong to go beyond religion, just that for many parts of the world that are still feudal, like Pakistan, Darfur, and so on, religion is actually a step up for them, and guess what, religion is very popular in these places, because that's just what the people need and want. We as westerners have to be careful not to imagine that these parts of the world are just like us... I've lived in africa, so maybe it is easier to see.

For example, there was an interview with some women folk in a village in an african country that was about to get its first democratic vote. They asked her whom she would vote for to be president, and she said that her tribal king was the leader so he should be president. She would not accept as president any other tribe's king. We in the west are so far removed from that mentality, and our own history, that we find it hard to imagine how anyone would think that way--but just go there and find out. Likewise female circumcision. It's not something invented by religion, it is much earlier, it is a tribal thing. There are parts of africa where the christian missionaries complain that the locals are not rational enough, because they are still going to the witch doctor. Imagine that, a christian missionary complaining that the locals are not rational enough.

Trade is all very well once you have peace between tribes. As soon as difficulties arise, the tribal loyalty and blood lines resurface with a vengeance... Darfur was a massive tribal blood bath.

You need stable nation states united under one god before you can even begin to wonder about world peace between nations. Going back to Dawkins, he just doesn't know this stuff so he continues his anti-religious diatribes, sitting in the comforts of his safe British nation state, where we have government sanctioned tolerance between races and food on the shelves. It's fine to detest religion, once you are past needing it yourself. It is wrong to try to demolish it though, as it is a necessary step in many parts of the world. Demolish it and you just leave people at the tribal level, and that is closer to nature, and closer to the monkeys, who often kill each other's babies by bashing heads into rocks, to protect blood lines.

Sorry this is a long comment but it needs some examples to get across.