Richard Dawkins Quotes
Who will say with confidence that sexual abuse is more permanently damaging to children than threatening them with the eternal and unquenchable fires of hell?
Things exist either because they have recently come into existence or because they have qualities that made them unlikely to be destroyed in the past.
When I say that human beings are just gene machines, one shouldn't put too much emphasis on the word 'just.' There is a very great deal of complication, and indeed beauty in being a gene machine.
Nothing is wrong with peace and love. It is all the more regrettable that so many of Christ's followers seem to disagree.
I might respect you as a brilliant intellect, runner, musician or juggler. But respect your BELIEFS? Only if they're supported by evidence.
We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully 'designed' to have come into existence by chance.
Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil.
Yes, testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next.
There are very interesting controversies within evolution; however, whether evolution occurs is not one of them. It definitely does.
It can be consoling to think your children are in heaven. You have got to understand that that doesn't make it true. Many people cannot understand that distinction.
I think a fundamentalist is somebody who believes something unshakably and isn't going to change their mind.
The physicist's problem is the problem of ultimate origins and ultimate natural laws. The biologist's problem is the problem of complexity.
It has been convincingly demonstrated that countries where there are high rates of poverty, or high rates of economic inequality, are the countries with the highest rates of religious beliefs.
Gravity is not a version of the truth. It is the truth. Anyone who doubts it is invited to jump out a tenth-storey window.
Religions do make claims about the universe--the same kinds of claims that scientists make, except they're usually false.
Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to moral rectitude have the slightest notion of what is actually written in it?
Religion is a powerful weapon that can be used because it persuades people to do things. And thus it can be used for good or ill. But it should not be a powerful weapon at all.
Blindness to suffering is an inherent consequence of natural selection. Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent.
We have this one life, let's enjoy it, let's live it to the full and don't get so worked up about don't identify yourself so passionately with this business called religion.
After sleeping through a hundred million centuries, we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life.
In the case of Stalinism, people actually distorted science, because it was for the good of the Communist Party.
There are people in the world who desperately want not to have to believe in Darwinism .
If people think God is interesting, the onus is on them to show that there is anything there to talk about. Otherwise they should just shut up about it.
If we ever talk to aliens, their civilisation will be far more advanced than ours (because of distances involved). They won't be religious!
I do disapprove very strongly of labelling children, especially young children, as something like 'Catholic children' or 'Protestant children' or 'Islamic children.'
Certainly science should continue to see whether we can find evidence for multiverses that might explain why our own universe seems to be so finely tuned.
Atheists sometimes come across as a bit arrogant in this regard, and characterizing faith as something only an idiot would attach themselves to.
If you are in the camp I am, one place where science and faith could touch each other is in the investigation of supposedly miraculous events.
I have often said that I am a passionate Darwinian when it comes to explaining why we exist.
God is an idea that people believe in and I spend time arguing with people that subscribe to that idea(man made idea).
Our subjective judgment of what seems like a good bet is irrelevant to what is actually a good bet.
I hate the neologism "owned" for "scored a victory over". I have no intention of owning anyone, and nobody will ever own me.
We've all been brought up with the view that religion has some kind of special privileged status. You're not allowed to criticise it.
Evil…doesn’t mean doing things that have bad consequences for people. It means private thoughts and actions that are not to “the Christian majority’s” private liking.
You can't understand European history at all other than through religion, or English literature either if you can't recognise biblical allusions.
Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle.
I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.
It is a virtue to admit ignorance when you don't know, but not to wallow in ignorance as an end in itself. People say if we don't believe god is watching over us, we abandon morality. Are they right?
Religious people split into three main groups when faced with science. I shall label them the "know-nothings", the "know-alls", and the "no-contests."