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Old 01-31-2009, 10:49 PM   #391
ShortNCuddlyAm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amgoforth View Post
What if it had been a book that critical of Islam, Or Gays. That will never happen because we are so sensitive to their feelings. Well how about a little respect for christians? However I have no problem with that book. If that book hurts someone's faith they are little short on brains.
The God Delusion isn't specifically anti-Christian. Anti-religion would be a much better phrase to use. The book posits that there almost certainly isn't a supernatural creator - or "god", if you prefer. Now the last I checked Jews, Muslims and Hindus, to name a few, also believe in a god or gods - it's not a belief that's limited to Christians. So pulling the rather old and very tiresome argument "what if it had been anti-Muslim" is a bit of an own goal in this case.

I highlighted "almost certainly" in the paragraph above, as people seem to miss this point. Whatever Dawkins own views are, the book doesn't go as far as to state there is definitely no god, just that there is probably no god.

I don't find it in the least bit odd that Sony put a sample chapter from a bestseller on some devices. I wouldn't claim that Sony believed in the lizard men if they put a sample chapter from a David Icke book on there (although I a) have no idea (and don't wish to know, either) if any of his stuff is available as ebooks, or b) know if he's ever been in the best sellers list).

But really it seems rather disingenuous to say that Sony are pursuing an anti-religious agenda by including this sample chapter on some devices. Generally (I say generally because I really don't know if this is the case for single-religion bookshops), bookshops don't endorse the views of every single author they stock (they'd be a pretty confused bunch of they did...). They don't even endorse the views of authors whose work appears in the little freebie samplers you sometimes get. Nor do the publishers neccesarily, for that matter (some smaller publishing houses might possibly, or small imprints of the larger ones).

Now it may just be because it's 3:45 here, and I've spent most of the day in a heavily smoky atmosphere - neither of which are conducive to clear headedness, but there seems to be a subtext in some of these "Sony shouldn't have done it" posts which seems to be suggesting that because it might offend some people it should maybe never have been published at all. Which is something I find rather frightening. I've waffled on long enough here, so I'll leave it at that for now, but I may come back to it when I'm less tired.

Last edited by ShortNCuddlyAm; 01-31-2009 at 10:50 PM. Reason: The quoting had got confused somehow
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