Ironclad wrote:That is fucking monstrous
Is this a religious thing?

murshid wrote:

Ironclad wrote:That is fucking monstrous
Is this a religious thing?

Yes, it is. He had been getting death threats from Islamic militants for some time.

murshid wrote:This is the country I have to live in. This is so fucking frustrating!

“Abhijit Roy lives in America and so, it is not possible to kill him right now. He will be murdered when he comes back.”

These were the words of an Islamist activist referring to Avijit (or Abhijit) Roy early last year. The man making the threat, who is well-known to the authorities, has repeatedly and openly talked about wanting to see secular and freethought writers dead, and those under threat have complained that authorities have ignored his threats and incitement, despite his credible links to Islamist extremists and similar murders taking place.

U.S.-Based Blogger Hacked To Death By Assailants In Bangladesh

Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi humanist blogger, and his wife were attacked with machetes by unidentified assailants while returning from a book fair in Bangladesh.

Avijit wrote:Dear Sir,
I am an engineer by profession and maintain a Bengali site named mukto-mona (http://www.mukto-mona.com). I am also the author of several Bengali best -selling books on science and philosophy. Recently two articles namely “Islamic legacy of cardiology: Inspirations from the holy sources” (doi:10.1016/j.ijcard.2009.09.470) and “The heart and cardiovascular system in the Qur’an and Hadeeth” (doi:10.1016/j.ijcard.2009.05.011) appearing online in the International Journal of Cardiology , published by Elsevier, caught my attention. I request that you to investigate on these two papers from a neutral stand point.

I sent a letter to the International Journal of Cardiology which can bee seen from here:

http://www.talkreason.org/articles/roy.cfm

Here is the excerpt of my letter :

Sir,
I am an engineer by profession (having a PhD in biomedical engineering) and maintain a Bengali freethinker's site named mukto-mona. I am also the author of several Bengali best -selling books on science and philosophy. I recently came across a very controversial paper named, The heart and cardiovascular system in the Qur'an and Hadeeth (authored by Marios Loukas, Yousuf Saad, R. Shane Tubbs and Mohamadali M. Shojawhich) claimed to be peer reviewed and accepted for publication by the Editorial Board of your journal.

I am disappointed to see a reputed journal publishing, or even accepting a cleverly crafted religious propaganda. Careful study of Qur'an, Hadeeth and other Islamic resources for years, I know that like other ancient books, these scriptures also contain lot of errors and weird misconceptions in embryology, biology and medicine. For example, in one verse of Qur'an it clearly declares that sperm originates between the back and the ribs (sura At-Tariq 86:6-7) i.e, it comes from the kidneys! Note that, Greek physician Hippocrates theorized this wrong idea long before Muhammad that sperm passed through the kidneys into the penis. For centuries this was an accepted (and incorrect) belief of the origins of sperm. Aristotle though correctly described the function of the umbilical cord, also amusingly believed that sperm testicles functioned as weights to keep the seminal passages open during sexual intercourse. Not only this, Qur'an, as a whole, has a whole lot of ambiguity and meaningless statements. For example, occasionally it tells that we are created from earth (11:61), sometimes it claims from dry clay (15:26,28,33, 17:61, 32:7), sometimes "from nothing" (19:67), sometimes "NOT from nothing" (52:35), sometimes from wet earth (23:12), or from mire (38:71), sometimes from water (25:54, 21:30, 24:45), sometimes from dust ( 3:59, 30:20, 35:11) or even sometimes from dead (30:19, 39:6) etc.. So which one is true? Those contradictory ambiguous statements actually do not reveal any scientific facts regarding either how we created or what exactly we are made of. If we go forward we will see - according to Qur'an and Hadeeth, Allah’s Angels 'take charge' while sperm enters a woman’s womb (see Sahih Bukhari 1.6.315, 4.54.430, Sahih Bukhari, 8.73.17, 18, Sahih Muslim, 33.6392 etc.), Human limbs can 'carry Islamic Sins' (Sunaan Nasai, 1.149), or Human organs can even talk like a human being (41:20, 41:21, 36:65, 24:24 etc). These are becoming simply meaningless and entirely laughable if we consider the knowledge of today's context ... (The rest of my letter you can read from here)




The letter has been analyzed in Panda's Thumb web blog :

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2010/02 ... and-c.html

where Dr. Matt Young, Senior Lecturer Department of Physics Colorado School of Mines Golden, wrote:

...Roy, an engineer, details a number of misconceptions in the Koran (the preferred spelling, according to Merriam-Webster) and argues that the paper should never have been published in a scientific journal. According to a cc of an e-mail I received from a third party, Roy complained to the editor of IJC and was told that he could submit his own rebuttal for peer review. I read the article, though not carefully, and I could certainly see Roy’s point. ... (complete post of Matt can be read from here)




The letter was widely circulated in various news group, web sites and Online magazines (see for example: here, here, and here) and in scientific community, and many fellow scientists sent me personal protest which I have kept in the following link of my site:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=793

Yet, till now the International Journal of Cardiology did not take any action on this serious issue. Please note that the paper was submitted to the journal on May 7, 2009 and accepted within five days on May 12. It is quite surprising to me. I myself wrote journal papers during my academic years; and I know that acceptance of a paper in reputed biomedical science journals takes at least three/four months. Why the International Journal of Cardiology is so eager to accept for final publication such a non scientific paper within five days in a scientific journal, is beyond my understanding.

Kindly investigate the issue and let everyone know what is "really "going inside.
Image

Hope this post will inspire you to make similar protest, if you have not done so:

Please write your protest note here. Please click on the following link:

Contact the Editor of the International Journal of Cardiology

Kindly fill up the first name, last name, email address, and subject. In the subject box, you may copy paste: Opinion on the paper - 'The heart and cardiovascular system in the Qur'an and Hadeeth'. Then paste your message to the editor of the journal and press submit button

Animavore wrote:According to Nats on Facebook this guy used to post on RD.net a few times. Does anyone remember him there?