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Richard Dawkins Quotes about Atheist

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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,

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 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)

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

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.

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)

Religious people are atheists about all other gods, atheists only take it one god further.

Richard Dawkins
Religious, Atheist, People

An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh the way any decent Christian feels about Thor or Baal or the golden calf. We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

Richard Dawkins
God, Christian, Atheist
"Militant Atheism". TED Talk, www.ted.com. February 2002.

I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Flying, Monsters
Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.77, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think.

Richard Dawkins
Faith, Atheist, Thinking

If children understand that beliefs should be substantiated with evidence, as opposed to tradition, authority, revelation or faith, they will automatically work out for themselves that they are atheists.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Children, Work Out
"Richard Dawkins's backwards logic over atheist schooling" by Andrew Brown, www.theguardian.com. June 29, 2010.

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

Richard Dawkins
Faith, Atheist, Thinking
Richard Dawkins' Speech at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (April 15, 1992); quoted in "EDITORIAL: A scientist's case against God", "The Independent"(London), (p. 17), April 20, 1992.

Being an atheist frees you up to live this life properly, happily, and fully.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, This Life

There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.

Richard Dawkins
Meaningful, Atheist, Responsibility
"The God Delusion". Book by Richard Dawkins, October 2, 2006.

If you have a faith, it is statistically overwhelmingly likely that it is the same faith as your parents and grandparents had. No doubt soaring cathedrals, stirring music, moving stories and parables, help a bit. But by far the most important variable determining your religion is the accident of birth. The convictions that you so passionately believe would have been a completely different, and largely contradictory, set of convictions, if only you had happened to be born in a different place.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Believe, Moving
"Viruses of the Mind". Book by Richard Dawkins, 1993.

We who are atheists are also a-fairyists, a-teapotists, and a-unicornists, but we don't have to bother saying so.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Religion, Atheism

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

Certainly I see the scientific view of the world as incompatible with religion, but that is not what is interesting about it. It is also incompatible with magic, but that also is not worth stressing. What is interesting about the scientific world view is that it is true, inspiring, remarkable and that it unites a whole lot of phenomena under a single heading.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Stress, Views
"Going the whole hog". www.timeshighereducation.com. April 28, 1995.

Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Religion, Atheism
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.18, W. W. Norton & Company

I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca-or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame, the Shwe Dagon, the temples of Kyoto or, of course, the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Believe, Kyoto

Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Understanding, Religion
Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.151, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I've been reading an Alabama newspaper that one man shot another man because he beat him in a Bible-quoting competition.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Reading, Men

The list of things about which we strictly have to be agnostic doesn't stop at tooth fairies and celestial teapots. It is infinite. If you want to believe in a particular one of them - teapots, unicorns, or tooth fairies, Thor or Yahweh - the onus is on you to say why you believe in it. The onus is not on the rest of us to say why we do not. We who are atheists are also a-fairyists, a-teapotists, and a-unicornists, but we don't have to bother saying so.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Believe, Want

If you're an atheist, you know, you believe, this is the only life you're going to get. It's a precious life. It's a beautiful life. Its something we should live to the full, to the end of our days. Where if you're religious and you believe in another life somehow, that means you don't live this life to the full because you think you're going to get another one. That's an awfully negative way to live a life. Being a atheist frees you up to live this life properly, happily and fully

Richard Dawkins
Beautiful, Religious, Atheist

There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?

Richard Dawkins
Respect, Atheist, Learning
Speech at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, April 15, 1992.