1. Alan Clark: Happy Birthday from Liverpool

Happy Birthday Professor!

from Alan Clark in Liverpool

2. Anne & Archie Robertson: Happy Birthday from UK

This is a tribute from our animals (and us) with a few funny (we hope) captions.

Click to open PDF

3. Ari: Happy Birthday

4. Brad Faegre: Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday, Richard! I was hoping I had an image to share that might be appropriate for the occasion. Unfortunately, this work doesn't celebrate your birthday (March 26, 1956 is mine, by the way), but, created a few years back, it does speak to the problem you addressed in The God Delusion: the 'attractiveness' of a faithful-base vision for those who prefer putting their heads in the sand. Keep up the fine work.

Warm regards,
Brad

Brad Faegre Fine Art
www.faegrefineart.com
brad@faegrefineart.com

5. Brights: Germany, Andreas Müller: Happy Birthday from Germany

6. Cheryl Daubney: Happy Birthday from UK

Hi there

I took these photos at 2 separate solar eclipses. I hope Professor Dawkins likes them and has a great birthday ;-)

Regards
Cheryl Daubney

7. Chris Davis: Happy Birthday from UK

8. Chris Frank: Happy Birthday

Dear Prof Dawkins

Heres the way I felt after reading the God Delusion.

I'm now planning to break into the Sistine chapel .....but I'm currently having a little trouble in smuggling the scaffolding through the security system.

Have a wonderful day and Thanks for changing my brain...

Regards

Chris Frank

PS Its an "original" ....1000mm by 700mm oil on canvas and I'd love you to have it..

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9. Chris R. Wright: Happy Birthday from UK, www.chrisrwright.co.uk

10. Craig Seger: Happy Birthday

Have a HEALTHY and wonderful birthday. Your book so eloquently expresses what I have thought for so many years. I teach in a rural PA school and am becoming more daring in encouraging my kids to think independently. (The book buning church down the road is not too fond of me.....) The group below had a dicussion last week about my ongoing discussion of evolution.

Peace
Craig Seger

11. David: Happy Birthday

Richard probably doesn't know about the Jesus and Mo comic, but he has featured in a couple of past strips and I am a big fan of his work. So I've made the boys sing him Happy Birthday



In case you're interested, here are the strips in which RD has been mentioned before:

http://jesusandmo.net/2007/02/01/next/

http://jesusandmo.net/2006/11/15/hard/

Best regards,
David
(author, Jesus and Mo)

12. David Dillistone: Happy Birthday from UK

In this case, the question is:- "What for?"

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13. Dennis Russell: Happy Birthday from Arizona USA

Don't go into the light! Stay away from my kitchen light! Happy Birthday Richard.

Regards, Janine in Arizona USA aka the isocratic infidel.

14. Don Toonen: Happy Birthday

Best wishes
Don Toonen
Inverness

15. Ellen Going: Happy Birthday from Burlingame, CA

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16. Erifily: Happy Birthday

17. Erin Rudnik: Happy Birthday from Michigan

Professor Dawkins,
You are my hero! I am deeply grateful for all the work you have done and for speaking up for atheists around the world. You make a lot of sense and I wish the world would listen.
Thank you for all you do, Happy Birthday!

Erin Rudnik
Science teacher, Michigan

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18. Gemetzel Sixtynine: Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday! Dawkins Battle Card:

19. Gerald de Jong, Darwin at Home: Happy Birthday

I hope that Professor Dawkins can receive this image for his birthday. His work has inspired me for years, and The God Delusion could not have come at a better time!

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20. gvlaw@ucalgary.ca: Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Richard

21. Hussain: Happy Birthday from Netherlands

Dear Richard Dawkins,

If there was a god, there would be a 100% different scenario for all of us.
Happy birthday, wishing you the best.

Peace, Hussain

22. Iain Forbes: Happy Birthday from SE London

To Professor Dawkins

Happy Birthday, I hope you like the image I have made. I thoroughly enjoyed your book "The God Delusion" and it convinced me to abandon a position of "fence sitting".

Many Thanks
Iain Forbes

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23. Jennifer Mullan: Happy Birthday from Puerto Ayora in the Galapagos Islands

Happy birthday from Charles Darwin and Friends (Puerto Ayora in the Galapagos Islands)

24. Jennifer Mullan: Happy Birthday

Darwin's friends wish Professor Dawkins a very Happy Birthday!

25. Jeremy Kerner: Happy Birthday

26. Jo Swannell Owen: Happy Birthday from Pembrokeshire

(Image copyright Jo Swannell Owen)

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27. Jonathan & Lynn Beesley: Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Richard,

My artist wife, Lynn, did this painting recently after reading The God Delusion. If you're going to believe in a deity of some kind, she says, then why not Professor Um of Rupert Bear fame?



To see more details of the painting, please go to www.beautifulart.co.nz

Have a great day, Jonathan & Lynn Beesley

28. Jonathan Higgs: Happy Birthday

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To Professor Dawkins,

My contribution to your multi-source birthday bundle is this picture. In accompaniment, I'd like also to offer the following highfalutin (but quite genuine) reasons for doing so:

- It's my own work, though some credit should also be given to evolution. This strikes me as something you could say about your books, making this in some miniscule way an equivalent (though in no regard equal!) offering.

- Whilst the photograph was taken in northern Tanzania rather than Kenya, it's not so very far – as the vulture flies – from Nairobi, giving it a geographical aptness for your birthday. Moreover, it's bang within the East African cradle of our origins as a species, which remembers the link between your own appearance in the world and the work you have done in helping us all to understand our own.

- The thing pictured – two lions lying almost hidden in the long grass of the Serengeti – is one example of the myriad variations of life that your work has, over the last few decades, explored and illuminated.

- Whilst the photograph is largely unfiddled-with, the hues and contrast have obviously been skewed. The result – although the result of some idle messing about rather than years of diligent work – recalls what has, for me, been the greatest value of your work: the presentation of what, in The Extended Phenotype, you simply called 'a particular way of looking at animals and plants'. The reason for the colour change is simply that it seemed, by happy accident, to accentuate everything that I remember being striking about the moment at which the photograph was taken: two enormous predators who have evolved a breathtaking ability to disappear behind blades of grass; the searing heat and glare of their hunting ground and the piercing gaze with which they scan it; the sense of their phenomenal power, presently relaxed, potentially to be unleashed without warning. Through all your hard work and skilful communication, you have given us a perspective on the natural world that makes sense of it in a way we would not have touched otherwise. You suggest what to look at and how to look at it, and give us an almost physical feeling of what all that amounts to. The effect on how the world appears is a good deal more profound than anything I can pull off in Photoshop.

- Lastly – and perhaps putting the greatest strain on the powers of metaphor – the picture can represent (to the imaginative) the importance of your most recent work. The God Delusion, A Devil's Chaplain and Unweaving the Rainbow impress upon us not only the awe and beauty of the world clearly looked-at, but also the sharp-toothed dangers that lie in wait for us if we choose to wander through the grass with our eyes half closed.

Anyway, it's just a photo. Probably all the above verbiage just goes to show that it's damned near impossible to encapsulate the significance of everything you have given to the many of us who don't have anything like your understanding of the natural world, but who are keen to learn.

Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins, and thanks for everything you've given us. Many happy returns.

Jonathan Higgs

29. Jose Nunez: Happy Birthday

Happy Bday Mr. Dawkins!!

30. Karen Owens: Happy Birthday

A peek at oldies but goodies of RD through the years from the private album.
Karen

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31. kier fredrickson: Happy Birthday

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32. Liz: Happy Birthday

33. Mark Moore, MD: Happy Birthday from Kirkland, WA

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Happy Birthday Professor Dawkins!

Thank you so much for your straightforward and uncompromising stance against religion.

I truly appreciate your efforts at battling religious apologists and cultural relativists in the media. I am also very grateful for your wonderful new website. I visit the site everyday and have found it to be incredibly useful, with up-to-date articles and media clips that have helped me to better understand many issues relevant to the battle against theism.

Your writings have been an inspiration to me over the years. "The Blind Watchmaker" sparked my interest in evolutionary biology many years ago. Though my career is devoted to medicine, I try to find as much time as possible to keep up on the latest thinking on this topic. I owe this to you! Reading your current work on religion has been like a breath of fresh air. I frequently find myself saying under my breath, "Finally somebody gets it!" You are one of the few people who recognizes that we must undercut religious beliefs altogether, rather than work within the context of religions to shape them into more benign forms. I am energized by this approach and your ability to express it so eloquently.

I enjoyed reading "The God Delusion" earlier this fall and am currently finishing up "River Out of Eden". Needless to say, I am eagerly awaiting your next project.

Keep up the hard work Professor Dawkins! You are making a real difference.

I wish you all the best on your birthday.

Sincerely,
Mark Moore

PS - I hope you enjoy the Dawkins/Harris campaign sign image. That's one ticket I would be excited to vote for.

34. merlijn jonker: Happy Birthday

35. Morry & Liesl Leyland: Happy Birthday from Down Under

Hi Richard

Happy Birthday from Morry & Liesl Leyland for the 26th March.

I am a great fan of yours and keep up the good work for our

side , I can't wait to get more of your books that I have ordered.

After reading "The God Delusion " which was brilliant , I think you

pretty well drove the last nail in the coffin of those deluded believers

with your arguments against religion in general.

I've included some pic's of one of our closest friends, returning home

after a late night out , notice the blurry and swollen eyes, a sure sign

of a heavy night foraging.

They live in a tree near our carport.

Regards from Morry William Leyland (From Down Under )



Possum Pic #1
Possum Pic #2
Possum Pic #3
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Possum Pic #5
Possum Pic #6

36. Niki Pollock: Happy Birthday from Sydney, Australia

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Happy Birthday Richard from Niki in Sydney, Australia.

I love your book. It didn't convert or change me, I was already there, but it said all the things I have wanted to say for a very long time but never had the right words for (I just get angry).
I am very excited (and relieved) that someone like you is writing books like The God Delusion. I bought the book because of Roger Waters - yes, Pink Floyd fame! I went to see him recently in Sydney and afterwards was searching the Internet for the names of the musicians in his band. I stumbled across a short interview written for a Sydney newspaper and it was titled Faith Still Eludes Roger Waters. When I read the interview, Roger had two books on the table in his hotel room, one was The End Of Faith (Sam Harris) which he said he had just finished, and the other was The God Delusion which he was just about to start. I instantly put both books on my reading list. I have almost finished The God Delusion and am just about to start Letter To A Christian Nation, I'm waiting for the bookshops here to get The End Of Faith on the shelves.
Thanks Richard and have a brilliant birthday - Sydney Harbour salutes you:-)

37. Ole Petter Chr. Røtnes: Happy Birthday from Bergen (the local bible belt), Norway

Happy birthday, you're an inspiration to us all.

Regards,
Ole Petter Chr. Røtnes
Bergen (the local bible belt), Norway

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38. patons02@student.uwa.edu.au: Happy Birthday

Here's just a few small pictures in a zip file. It's not much, and there are no pictures of me.

Click here for the PDF

39. Patricia Huesken and John Perkins: Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday!

I don't have a web-cam or anything like that, but I have attached a picture of our beautiful village, taken from a viewpoint on one of me and my wife's favourite hikes.

John Perkins (FORUM username - perkyjay)

40. Paul and Jane Taylor: Happy Birthday

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41. Paul du Moulin: Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Richard.

This is an image I created shortly after reading ' The Blind
Watchmaker'. I have since read (and re-read) all your books. They have
had a profound effect on my vision of the world and the art I make
about it. It is called 'The Tools of Trade'.



Kind Regards
Paul du Moulin
http://www.dumoulin.com.au

42. Peter and Susan Munro: Happy Birthday from Congleton

Happy birthday Richard from Peter and Susan Munro in Congleton.

43. Peter Sandiford: Happy Birthday from New Zealand

Happy Birthday Richard!

I can't give you the boat but I'd be glad to take you fishing next time
you're in NZ



Peter Sandiford

44. Peter Vanderkam: Happy Birthday

For Richard Dawkins on his birthday

I am becoming more and more impressed by the image of the relational matrix as described by Diarmuid 0'Murchu!

Keep writing and thank you for your ideas

Peter

www.shekinah-jwh.ca

45. Richard: Happy Birthday from fla

46. Ruthann Cohn: Happy Birthday

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47. Samer Mansoor: Happy Birthday

48. silke: Happy Birthday

This is a video i published on youtube for the blasphemy challenge. it has a little tribute to the god delusion in it, so i thought maybe you'd like it..

hope you'll be having one hell of a birthday party! :)
silke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GofmvbReFKY

49. Simon Coleman-Smith: Happy Birthday from Winchester, Hampshire

Simon Coleman-Smith
('Oolon Colluphid' online)
Winchester, Hampshire

50. Steve Norley: Happy Birthday

51. Terry Broadworth: Happy Birthday from Abbotsford, BC Canada

Here's a Birthday Scratch Photo to wish you a very Happy and Successful Year. From David and Terry in Abbotsford, BC, Canada

52. TIMOTHY JONES: Happy Birthday

Meerkats....cute and Bright ? All best to RD and the cause.
Physicus
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53. Tristan Tempest: Happy Birthday

Just a small picture I made to show appreciation!

Tristan Tempest