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Richard Dawkins Quotes - Page 4

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People will say, You're never going to convince me that something as complicated as an eye could come about by sheer chance. And the answer is that natural selection is the very opposite of sheer chance. Natural

People will say, "You're never going to convince me that something as complicated as an eye could come about by sheer chance." And the answer is that natural selection is the very opposite of sheer chance. Natural selection is a non-random process.

Richard Dawkins
Eye, Opposites, People
Source: www.macleans.ca

The truth is more magical - in the best and most exciting sense of the word - than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic: the magic of reality.

Richard Dawkins
Reality, Miracle, Magic
Richard Dawkins (2011). “The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True”, p.266, Simon and Schuster

Mutation is random; natural selection is the very opposite of random.

Richard Dawkins
Selfish, Opposites, Society
"The Blind Watchmaker". Book by Richard Dawkins, 1986.

Atheism is not a religion. Abstinence is not a sex position.

Richard Dawkins
Sex, Religion, Atheism

All religious beliefs seem weird to people not brought up in them.

Richard Dawkins
Religious, People, Religion

Two religions cannot both be right, because they contradict each other, yet they can both be wrong.

Richard Dawkins
Two, Religion, Two Religions

I don't think God is an explanation at all. It's simply redescribing the problem.

Richard Dawkins
Thinking, Atheism, Problem

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all species are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

Richard Dawkins
Running, Animal, Years
"River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life". Book by Richard Dawkins, 1995.

Religion has been a powerful weapon in the hands of governments, in the hands of priests, in the hands of kings who have used it as a weapon to keep down the populace. It is a wonderful way of disciplining people and making them do what you want, to tell them that if they don't do what you want they will, for example, go to Hell.

Richard Dawkins
Kings, Powerful, Government
"Richard Dawkins at the Sydney Writers' Festival". "Science Show" with Robyn Williams, www.abc.net.au. September 8, 2007.

Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime.

Richard Dawkins
Crime, Blasphemy
Twitter post from Aug 28, 2013

DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.

Richard Dawkins
Dna, Care, Knows
River Out of Eden ch. 4 (1995)

As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.

Richard Dawkins
Philosophical, Fundamentalist Religion, Mind

Religion: Together we can find the cure.

Richard Dawkins
Together We Can, Religion, Together
Twitter post from Feb 26, 2013

We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realize that we are apes.

Richard Dawkins
Orangutans, Apes, Evolution
Richard Dawkins (2004). “A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love”, p.22, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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.

Richard Dawkins
Enjoy
Interview with George Negus, www.sbs.com.au. March 7, 2010.

If you don't understand how something works, never mind: just give up and say God did it. You don't know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don't understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don't go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God.

Richard Dawkins
Giving Up, Memories, Brain

Beliefs. Once entrenched in a culture, they persist, evolve and diverge, in a manner reminiscent of biological evolution.

Richard Dawkins
Culture, Belief, Evolution
Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.219, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Creationism: God's gift to the ignorant.

Richard Dawkins
Ignorant, Religion, Atheism
"Creationism: God’s gift to the ignorant" by Richard Dawkins, The Times (London), May 21, 2005.

Presumably what happened to Jesus was what happens to all of us when we die. We decompose. Accounts of Jesus's resurrection and ascension are about as well-documented as Jack and the Beanstalk.

Richard Dawkins
Jesus, Ascension, Resurrection

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose

Richard Dawkins
Giving, Purpose, Study
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.13, W. W. Norton & Company

It is raining DNA outside. On the bank of the Oxford canal at the bottom of my garden is a large willow tree, and it is pumping downy seeds into the air. ... spreading DNA whose coded characters spell out specific instructions for building willow trees that will shed a new generation of downy seeds. ... It is raining instructions out there; it's raining programs; it's raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading, algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth. It couldn't be any plainer if it were raining floppy discs.

Richard Dawkins
Rain, Character, Garden
"The Blind Watchmaker". Book by Richard Dawkins, 1986.

Having a debate with a modern Christian is like punching a sponge.

Richard Dawkins
Christian, Religion, Punching

It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).

Richard Dawkins
Stupid, Believe, Ignorant
"Should Science Speak to Faith? (Extended version)". Interview with Lawrence M. Krauss, www.scientificamerican.com. June 19, 2007.

In medieval times, the Church used to sell 'indulgences' for money. This amounted to paying for some number of days' remission from purgatory, and the Church literally (and with breathtaking presumption) issued signed certificates specifying the number of days off that had been purchased. . . . And of all its money-making rip-offs, the selling of indulgences must surely rank among the greatest con tricks in history. . . .

Richard Dawkins
Rip, Numbers, Religion

Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read Qur'an. You don't have to read Mein Kampf to have an opinion about Nazism.

Richard Dawkins
Islam, Mein Kampf, Nazism
Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins, twitter.com. March 25, 2013.