The Arabic Translation of The God Delusion Has Reportedly Been Downloaded 10 Million Times

[FLPanhandle]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/05/11/the-arabic-translation-of-the-god-delusion-has-reportedly-been-downloaded-10-million-times/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook



I’m not sure about the legality, but if Richard Dawkins isn’t bothered by the copyright ramifications, then neither am I.

An unauthorized PDF translation of Dawkin’s The God Delusion, by Iraqi emigrant Bassam Al-Baghdadi, who lives in Sweden, has reportedly been dowloaded ten million times,

… with 30 percent going to Saudi Arabia. Bassam said that there were over 1,000 downloads on the very first day after he uploaded it, and the numbers only climbed as the translation was picked up and shared on the blogs, websites and forums of prominent Arab atheists. The book has prompted unprecedented controversy and debate in the Arab and Islamic worlds.

The translator received death threats and accusations of conspiring with the Zionists to corrupt the youth. He was forced to close his social media accounts and stop posting for a while. …

In the Arabic translation of The God Delusion, under the title, Bassam added the words: “This book is banned in Islamic countries.” It is fortunate and wonderful that the banning of books in the Arab and Islamic worlds is no longer feasible in our new age of information. I was able to read the book while I was still in Morocco, where I was born. Some atheist friends even managed to get hold of the book in Saudi Arabia. The dark times of censorship, in which knowledge for the people was confined to carefully curated books and resources, are gone and will never return.

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Good to see 10 million inquiring minds despite the Islamic culture and insecurity that bans any questioning of their religion.

[Arugula Latte]

1. Fantastic.

The Internet really can be a tool to do a lot of good on this planet of ours.

[whatthehey]

2. It's a start. It will take a long time

Atheism in Western Europe was still unacceptable both socially and often legally until just after WW1 (it's perhaps intuitive to see how losing a good chunk of an entire generation of males to total warfare which insanely combined tactics unchanged since medieval times with 20th century weaponry in what was essentially a four year dick measuring contest about the size of the German navy might cause some nagging doubts about an all knowing and all loving God). It didn't become truly openly accepted in mainstream society, especially for public figures, until maybe the 80s. In the US, we are only just now entering the "not quite completely unacceptable as long as you are careful" stage that most of Europe was in by perhaps 1950. If Saudis are willing to listen but still only in secret, they are even if they get the same rate of progress (and they are starting from a far more oppressive point) perhaps 30-40 years away from having atheists merely marginalized and reviled but not officially criminalized like they are in the US, and then another 40 years, just like we are right now, from true European style full social equality.

IOW maybe atheism will be truly accepted in the US by about 2055, and in Saudi Arabia about 2090. If we see linear progress and avoid theocatic backlashes which are quite likely in both places.

[FLPanhandle]

3. I live in the bible belt

Being an atheist here is still something you don't advertise but it is improving.

A secular world by 2100 would be great, but you are dead on about backlash. Iran is a great example of a backlash country.