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Richard Dawkins Quotes - Page 23

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Religion is unusual among divisive labels in being spectacularly unnecessary. If religious beliefs had any evidence going for them, we might have to respect them in spite of their concomitant unpleasantness. But there

Religion is unusual among divisive labels in being spectacularly unnecessary. If religious beliefs had any evidence going for them, we might have to respect them in spite of their concomitant unpleasantness. But there is no such evidence. To label people as death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real world politics is bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a delusional world inhabited by archangels, demons and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic.

Richard Dawkins
Religious, Real, People

I think the written word is probably the best medium of communication because you have time to reflect, you have time to choose your words, to get your sentences exactly right. Whereas when you're being interviewed, say, you have to talk on the fly, you have to improvise, you can change sentences around, and they're not exactly right.

Richard Dawkins
Communication, Thinking, Mediums

I had always been scrupulously careful to avoid the smallest suggestion of infant indoctrination, which I think is ultimately responsible for much of the evil in the world. Others, less close to her, showed no such scruples, which upset me, as I very much wanted her, as I want all children, to make up her own mind freely when she became old enough to do so. I would encourage her to think, without telling her what to think.

Richard Dawkins
Children, Thinking, Evil
Richard Dawkins (2004). “A Devil's Chaplain”, p.241, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

There does seem to be a sense in which physics has gone beyond what human intuition can understand. We shouldn't be too surprised about that because we're evolved to understand things that move at a medium pace at a medium scale. We can't cope with the very tiny scale of quantum physics or the very large scale of relativity.

Richard Dawkins
Moving, Intuition, Doe
"Of mind and matter: David Attenborough meets Richard Dawkins". The Guardian Interview, www.theguardian.com. September 10, 2010.

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.

Richard Dawkins
Might, Should, Evidence
Source: inters.org

I don't understand why so many people who are sophisticated in science go on believing in God. I wish I did.

Richard Dawkins
Believe, People, Wish
"Faith and Reason" Interview, www.pbs.org.

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.

Richard Dawkins
Events, Investigation, Camps
Source: inters.org

Maybe scientists are fundamentalist when it comes to defining in some abstract way what is meant by 'truth'. But so is everybody else. I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it.

Richard Dawkins
Believe, Support, Southern

Segregation has no place in the education system.

Richard Dawkins
Segregation, Education System
"Richard Dawkins: Beyond belief". Interview with John Crace, www.theguardian.com. January 9, 2006.

All animals are minor variations on a very particular theme.

Richard Dawkins
Animal, Variation, Theme
Richard Dawkins (2004). “The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution”, p.424, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I have often said that I am a passionate Darwinian when it comes to explaining why we exist.

Richard Dawkins
Passionate, Said, Explaining
"Religion and Atheism". "Q&A" with Tony Jones, www.abc.net.au. April 9, 2012.

Anybody who objects to cloning on principle has to answer to all the identical twins in the world who might be insulted by the thought that there is something offensive about their very existence. Clones are simply identical twins.

Richard Dawkins
Principles, Cloning, Answers

God is an idea that people believe in and I spend time arguing with people that subscribe to that idea(man made idea).

Richard Dawkins
Believe, Men, Ideas
Source: www.nairaland.com

Most of the ones [Nobel prizes] that have gone to Muslims have been peace prizes, and the [number of Muslims] who have gotten them for scientific work is exceedingly low. But in Jews, it is exceedingly high.

Richard Dawkins
Numbers, Gone, Nobel
Source: newrepublic.com

There is something wrong with using faith - belief without evidence - as a political weapon. I wouldn't say there is something similar about using science. Science - or the products of science like technology - is just a way of achieving something real, something that happens, something that works.

Richard Dawkins
Real, Technology, Political
"Interview: Richard Dawkins Keeps Making New Enemies". Interview with Isaac Chotiner, newrepublic.com. October 29, 2013.

I think that [Paul] Bloom's approach - and others who take it - is not so much that there is a precise genetic basis to faith. But there is a genetic basis to a psychological predisposition that manifests itself as faith and religion under the right conditions.

Richard Dawkins
Thinking, Psychological, Approach
Source: newrepublic.com

Islamic myths are mostly actually plagiarized from the Christian ones, both biblically and in terms of modern creationism. If you read Islamic creationist literature, it's pretty much lifted from American evangelical literature.

Richard Dawkins
Christian, Islamic, Literature
Source: www.macleans.ca

I hate the neologism "owned" for "scored a victory over". I have no intention of owning anyone, and nobody will ever own me.

Richard Dawkins
Hate, Victory, I Hate
Richard Dawkins‏ @RichardDawkins, twitter.com. May 19, 2013.

It is quite true that many scientists, many physicists, maintain that the physical constants, the half dozen or so numbers that physicists have to simply assume in order to derive the rest of their understanding ... have to be assumed. You can't provide a rationale for why those numbers are there. Physicists have calculated that if any of these numbers was a little bit different, the universe as we know it wouldn't exist.

Richard Dawkins
Numbers, Order, Understanding

Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.

Richard Dawkins
Design, Evolution, Universe
"Thinkers Lay Out the Beliefs They Can't Prove". "Talk of The Nation" with Neal Conan, www.npr.org. March 9, 2006.

Superficially it's a problem if homosexuality is genetic - if the difference between people's sexual preferences is genetic - because at least a pure homosexual would be unlikely to reproduce and therefore pass on the genes. So the first question you ask is, is it actually genetic, and the answer is probably to some extent yes.

Richard Dawkins
Differences, People, Would Be
"The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy" with John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley, www.lightspeedmagazine.com. December 2011.

We cannot prove that there is no God, but we can safely conclude the He is very, very improbable indeed.

Richard Dawkins
Atheism, There Is No God, Prove

St. Augustine explicitly warns against a very narrow perspective that will put our faith at risk of looking ridiculous. If you step back from that one narrow interpretation, what the Bible describes is very consistent with the Big Bang.

Richard Dawkins
Perspective, Risk, Bangs
Source: inters.org

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.

Richard Dawkins
Views, Special, Kind
"People say I'm strident" by Decca Aitkenhead, www.theguardian.com. October 24, 2008.

Scientists can have their judgment clouded by their professional aspirations. And the pure truth of faith, which you can think of as this clear spiritual water, is poured into rusty vessels called human beings, and so sometimes the benevolent principles of faith can get distorted as positions are hardened.

Richard Dawkins
Spiritual, Thinking, Water
Source: inters.org