Well I dunno about who got banned for what and really find it none of my business; but I agree that what persons like Richard Dawkins are writing is the business of many Muslims. It is our business simply because he is so well known that his point of veiw holds sway over a large extent of the population whom might otherwise be able to consider why so many amply intelligent folk are Muslim.
and Salam (that I forgot at the start of the post because it seems odd often to be amid an already existing conversation and post with a formal Assalamu Alaikum)
What is in my mind in respect of Richard Dawkins is what my Father has told me. My father is agnostic but a very highly intelligent scientist. He was raised Christian by a strict and devout mother, whom is equally highly intelligent, but after He married my mother my mother discovered that He was not able to manifest Faith in Jesus simply because He has no active scientific evidence of Isa's ressurection or that such is possible; and so my mother made Him stop taking communion. So now he is agnostic. Whether or not He sustains theism in mind of constant intent, seems to be the case to my self as his daughter, but I can not be certain since he never says so. Now my Dad reads Richard Dawkins. He reads Richard Dawkins very critically as he reads any such texts. As a scientist alone he points to the fact that Richard Dawkins is lacking in a scientific approach to his writing. But he also has pointed out some really valuable scientific knowledge within Richard Dawkins work that Dawkins is reporting upon, and thus making available to a large group of people.
Now I must take from that the fact that any body with a truly scientific mind will read Richard Dawkins critically and observe that he is placing an ill frame of misinformed associations around much decent scientific research, and then utilising that to place an ill frame around Religion.
Therefore we can comprehend that Science is not against Religion if we are clever in placing our own Islamic frame of truth and realism around the entire set of facts which is inclusive of many of the facts Richard Dawkins reports upon. We need a frame which breaks the many wrong associations in Richard Dawkins work and provides a form of modelling of mental associations within which new associations can correctly form to the scientifically recorded facts.
My father has also mentioned that the subject matter Richard Dawkins writes about is intensely interesting and that there are other authors which write much more consistently coherently within the logic of science to the same facts.
Perhaps what we are needing is for a school among Muslims to commit to making the work of modelling the mental associations of a scientific mind into a pattern in which those persons, like my father, whom are engaged by Richard Dawkins, are better enabled to perceive the ultimate loss to their own being if they ever imagine any atheist point of veiw.
It is all too easy for all self decent Muslims to only ignore the work of people like Richard Dawkins, but some of what he reports to may well be able to be recycled into Islamic based literature. We can all know that Richard Dawkins own account makes grave assumptions to a hostile agenda: and then also know that he has researched the field of what is available in science well enough to use his source material for proving Allah.
My father pointed me to one single page in a Richard Dawkins book which mentions a phenomena called Major Histo-compatiblity Complex or MHC for short. MHC is a group of molecules on the surface of the skin which are studied in the field of immuno-genetics, and are proven in mice to be scientific evidence of the beneficience of the rules of ancient marriage systems still adhered to by many of the worlds surviving cultures and Religions. With that information in hand an effective search can begin among the scientists for the source material which can be presented through the popular media as equitably as Richard Dawkins has used the popular media to present the facts.
Now what we need to know is that occultists whom govern many so called christian based belief structures, but whom truly have not Faith in God, tend to only support the presentation of certain scientific facts through acts of black magic which askew the facts as is demonstrated by Richard Dawkins. Usually there is a simple essential fact not being presented. Once that fact is put back in the picture then the real science actually always proves One God. The grave assumptions are one portion of what needs to be changed in any work like his, but also that tracing to source of his material and finding the missing fact. It is that there are often two different acts of black magic converging in the publishing of many books. That of The Behemoth and that of The Levithan. The Behemoth's trick leaves out a tangible fact. The Levithan's includes something intangible as though fact. The only way to sort through what is and what is not suitable for popular literature and the mass thought about evolution is to go through each fact reported and source the science, also seeking the essential companion facts.
As Muslims whom are required to believe in Angels and the unseen ; and to whom belief in the unseen and belief in Angels is proven scientifically: we have the obvious upper hand so long as we are accessing the actual scientific facts. We need sometimes to let ourselves become aligned with the likes of Richard Dawkins so as to extract those facts, simply because the persons whom are funded to find the facts are very often funded by occultists wants. That is, most of the modern funding for scientific research is being controlled through the black magic of occultists. Yet truly what they are learning is worthy. Therefore we must understand that among those scientists doing the research are many good men like my father, whom sustain only an "I do not know" position, and hide their faith in science. If there were no true believers among the scientists whose research Richard Dawkins often leans upon, why would anybody read. So our task is to find those people and connect with, then find avenues by which to validate our common comprehension.
Basically what I am saying is that eventually it will not enough to say: Richard Dawkins is wrong, but I am going to read him anyway. So begin to read within this context. Read while making notes about what could be worthy of your own investigation. Then you will have no need of returning to Richard Dawkins texts. Because the more often his malformations of mental processing are read, the more susceptible our minds are to the black magic supporting such malformations.
The solution is as simple as knowing that Quantum mechanics can prove God, as well as having split a few too many atoms. But hang on, wait a minute, is not any atomic explosion proof in Allah?
Please be careful in reading work that aligns itself so ill; read it to unmake its ill.
Any atheist read the book yet? I just bought it, and sounds promising. What I dont get is why is a scientist trying to disprove something that is not observable? There are entities beyond our mere five senses that exists. Any person with moderate philosophical knowlege knows that existance is primary while conscience is secondary.
I hope I can make a little constructive criticism of this portion of a paragraph that Quran_Studies posted; but by deconstructing it as a example of how critically we need to be able to read the likes of Richard Dawkins.
First of all when you find he is faulted do not find that his fault is for your pleasure without an actualisable intention in Allah. But that might need not be spelt out. Yet as well as identifying the atheists whom are reading such texts as the folk whom will be of food to be found in Jehannam, to become ourselves deserving of such food we need to give of. So dismantle such texts and the persons whom support. Dismember their comprehension of what it is to be a Human being. But in so deconstructing such texts by learning them piecemeal yourself, (try reading the chapters out of the sequences they are published in is the best), sort the small pieces of relevant data that can be so obtained into groups by which they are more readily re-available. At least, if not following perhaps one set of such data back through its original sources to find the missing facts. This is a way that Muslims can work in the environment of authors like Richard Dawkins effectively and in efforts in Allah to earn alone our own merit.
Qur'an_Studies: what you don't get is that scientists are not trying to disprove something that is
NOT observable, but rather are trying to disprove something that
IS observable. Allah is observable as the vitalising force in every living cell.
Also find evidence of this: every entity that is observable beyond the five senses is also observable by the five senses combined when those five senses are working in perfection. Such is the means of every Prophet, may Peace be forever theirs. It is a task of worthy merit in science to find persons whose five senses are able to work perfectly and study such comparatively to other brain processing; but the fact is that such work is not being undertaken. Apparently they did some limited study of Buddhist Monks brain chemistry, but only found that the Buddhist have perfected being happy by any means possible. Where is the science proving that other brains can reconcile certain substances in to happy making brain chemistry, but by according to their own self some physical hardship?
Finally, yes it is clear and I agree: existing is primary to conscience, which is feeling; but, . . . but there is a but.
Existing at what expense and at whose expense is existance without conscience?
There is science for this, and those whom have the means to prove to all of us that we ought all be in more fear in Allah of any sin, will never get out of Jehannam.
Good on the fishers of such persons since when they are fished and thoroughly examined, we all learn that there is a way through and past their ills.
Salam Alaikum rvq
The latest "buzz" in the athiest world is Richard Dawkin's latest book "The God Delusion." 
