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Richard Dawkins Quotes

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Faith is belief without evidence and reason; coincidentally that's also the definition of delusion.

Faith is belief without evidence and reason; coincidentally that's also the definition of delusion.

Richard Dawkins
Faith, Definitions, Belief

Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense.

Richard Dawkins
Love, Hope, Wisdom
The Selfish Gene ch. 1 (1976)

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Richard Dawkins
God, Religious, Atheist
Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

Richard Dawkins
Education, Atheist, Children
Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.300, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The less you think, the more you believe.

Richard Dawkins
Believe, Thinking, Doubt

Evolution is just a theory? Well, so is gravity and I don't see you jumping out of buildings.

Richard Dawkins
Jumping, Evolution, Building

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

Richard Dawkins
Funny, Sarcastic, Atheist
River Out of Eden ch. 4 (1995)

How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one.

Richard Dawkins
Thoughtful, Matter, Born
Twitter post from May 22, 2014

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die, because they are never going to be born. The number of people who could be here, in my place, out number the sand grains in the Sahara. If you think about all the different ways in which our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here. The number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist... we are privileged to be alive and nd we should make the most of our time on this world.

Richard Dawkins
Inspirational, Thinking, Numbers
Unweaving the Rainbow ch. 1 (1998)

If something is true, no amount of wishful thinking will change it.

Richard Dawkins
Thinking, Wishful Thinking, Ifs
"The selfish gene's birthday" by Sue Blackmore, www.theguardian.com. March 17, 2006.

Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.

Richard Dawkins
Atheism, Nonsense, Ends
Richard Dawkins (2017). “Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist”, p.237, Random House

Offense is what people take when they can't take argument.

Richard Dawkins
People, Argument, Offense

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.

Richard Dawkins
Design, Waiting, Come Up
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.17, W. W. Norton & Company

Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous-indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

Richard Dawkins
Nature, Learning, Science
Richard Dawkins (1995). “River out of eden: a Darwinian view of life”, Basic Books (AZ)

Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

Richard Dawkins
Mad Cow Disease, Evil, Religion
"Is Science a Religion?". Humanist, www.skeptical-science.com. January/February 1997.

Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view. Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Views, Design
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.31, W. W. Norton & Company

It's a truly disgusting idea that the creator of the universe - capable of inventing the laws of physics and designing the evolutionary process - that this protégé of supernatural intellect couldn't think of a better way to forgive our sins than to have himself tortured to death.

Richard Dawkins
Thinking, Law, Ideas
Interview with Chip Rowe, www.playboy.com. August 20, 2012.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

Richard Dawkins
Death, Atheist, Learning
"The Two Types of Faith" by Greg Cootsona, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 17, 2016.

To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries

Richard Dawkins
Biblical, Editors, Evil
Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.268, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice their incompatibility, and let them draw their own conclusions about the consequences of that incompatibility. As for whether they are ‘valid,’ let them make up their own minds when they are old enough to do so.

Richard Dawkins
Children, Mind, Different

I am not an enthusiast for diversity of opinion where facts are concerned.

Richard Dawkins
Diversity, Facts, Opinion

We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. ... This is exactly what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object's sole reason for living.

Richard Dawkins
Life, Science, Dna

Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Belief, Results
Richard Dawkins (1995). “River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life”, Basic Books (AZ)

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

Richard Dawkins
Selfish, Philosophical, Thought Provoking
Richard Dawkins (2006). “The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition”, p.9, OUP Oxford

It's a horrible idea that God, this paragon of wisdom and knowledge, power, couldn't think of a better way to forgive us our sins than to come down to Earth in his alter ego as his son and have himself hideously tortured and executed so that he could forgive himself.

Richard Dawkins
Son, Thinking, Ideas
"Religion and Atheism". "Q&A" with Tony Jones, www.abc.net.au. April 9, 2012.