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Richard Dawkins Quotes - Page 7

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If you're willing to answer yes to a God outside of nature, then there's nothing inconsistent with God on rare occasions choosing to invade the natural world in a way that appears miraculous.

If you're willing to answer yes to a God outside of nature, then there's nothing inconsistent with God on rare occasions choosing to invade the natural world in a way that appears miraculous.

Richard Dawkins
Answers, Rare Occasion, World
Source: inters.org

There is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over.

Richard Dawkins
Cells, Encyclopedia Britannica, Three
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.118, W. W. Norton & Company

Secularism is categorically not saying that the religious may not speak out publicly or have a say in public life. It is about saying that religion alone should not confer a privileged say in public life, or greater influence on it. It really is as simple as that.

Richard Dawkins
Religious, Simple, Speaks Out
"What is the proper place for religion in Britain's public life?", www.theguardian.com. February 18, 2012.

If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.

Richard Dawkins
Thinking, Years, Doubt
Richard Dawkins (2009). “The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution”, p.85, Simon and Schuster

Our brains are separate and independent enough from our genes to rebel against them.. we do so in a small way everytime we use contraception. There is no reason why we should not rebel in a large way too.

Richard Dawkins
Independent, Brain, Reason Why
Richard Dawkins (2006). “The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition”, p.332, OUP Oxford

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?

Richard Dawkins
Inspiration, People, Moral
"The God Delusion". Book by Richard Dawkins, www.abc.net.au. 2006.

The whole point of religious faith, its strength and chief glory, is that it does not depend on rational justification. The rest of us are expected to defend our prejudices. But ask a religious person to justify their faith and you infringe 'religious liberty'.

Richard Dawkins
Faith, Religious, Liberty
Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.45, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch.

Richard Dawkins
Children, Mean, Scratches
Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.45, Oxford University Press

However brief our time in the sun, if we waste a second of it, or complain that it is dull or barren or (like a child) boring, couldn't this be seen as a callous insult to those unborn trillions who will never even be offered life in the first place?

Richard Dawkins
Children, Complaining, Dull

The beauty of evolution is that it does provide an explanation of how you can get complexity out of simplicity. It does it by slow, gradual degree. At no point are you postulating the sudden coming into existence of a complicated being.

Richard Dawkins
Simplicity, Degrees, Doe
Source: www.macleans.ca

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." The adage is true as long as you don't really believe the words. But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, really believe, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that a woman is the property of her husband), it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds.

Richard Dawkins
Teacher, Hurt, Husband

I am persuaded that 'child abuse' is no exaggeration when used to describe what teachers and priests are doing to children whom they encourage to believe in something like...eternal hell.

Richard Dawkins
Teacher, Children, Believe

I once wrote that anybody who believes the world is only 6,000 years old is either ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked.

Richard Dawkins
Stupid, Believe, Years

Organizing atheists is a bit like herding cats; They are on the whole too intelligent and independent minded to lend themselves to being herded.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Cat, Independent

Unfortunately, however much we may deplore something, it does not stop being true.

Richard Dawkins
Doe, May, Being True
Richard Dawkins (2006). “The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition”, p.32, OUP Oxford

The Bishop goes on to the human eye, asking rhetorically, and with the implication that there is no answer, 'How could an organ so complex evolve?' This is not an argument, it is simply an affirmation of incredulity.

Richard Dawkins
Eye, Religion, Bishops
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.48, W. W. Norton & Company

I do believe that nice religious people make the world safe for extremists by teaching us [...] that faith is a virtue, teaching us that there's something good about holding beliefs without any substantiating evidence. Once you buy into that, [...] then the door is opened to extremists who defend their extremism by saying, 'Oh well, it's my faith, you can't touch it, you can't criticise my faith, I don't even need to defend it because faith is faith.'

Richard Dawkins
Religious, Nice, Believe
"Richard Dawkins at the Sydney Writers' Festival". Interview with Robyn Williams, www.abc.net.au. September 8, 2007.

A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence.

Richard Dawkins
Believe, People, Delusion
"The atheist". Interview with Gordy Slack, www.salon.com. April 30, 2005.

People who believe the earth was created 6000 years ago, when it's actually 4.5 billion years old, should also believe the width of North America is 8 yards. That is the scale of the error.

Richard Dawkins
Believe, Science, Errors

If any remedy is tested under controlled scientific conditions and proved to be effective, it will cease to be alternative and will simply become medicine. So-called alternative medicine either hasn't been tested or it has failed its tests.

Richard Dawkins
Medicine, Alternatives, Tests
"The Enemies of Reason". Documentary, 2007.

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.

Richard Dawkins
Doubt, Window, Gravity

Science is interesting, and if you don't agree, you can fvck off.

Richard Dawkins
Interesting, Agree, Ifs

Scientific and technological progress themselves are value-neutral. They are just very good at doing what they do. If you want to do selfish, greedy, intolerant and violent things, scientific technology will provide you with by far the most efficient way of doing so. But if you want to do good, to solve the world's problems, to progress in the best value-laden sense, once again, there is no better means to those ends than the scientific way.

Richard Dawkins
Selfish, Mean, Science
"The Evolutionary Future of Man". The Economist, Septermber 11, 1993.

By dislaiming the idea of a next life, we can take more excitement in this one!

Richard Dawkins
Ideas, Next, Excitement

When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly half way between. It is possible for one side simply to be wrong.

Richard Dawkins
Lying, Views, Opposites
"One side can be wrong" by Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, www.theguardian.com. September 1, 2005.