Richard Dawkins Quotes

A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different. So the most basic claims of religion are scientific. Religion is a scientific theory.
But perhaps the rest of us could have separate classes in science appreciation, the wonder of science, scientific ways of thinking, and the history of scientific ideas, rather than laboratory experience.
By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Complex, statistically improbable things are by their nature more difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable things.
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.
For the first half of geological time our ancestors were bacteria. Most creatures still are bacteria, and each one of our trillions of cells is a colony of bacteria.
God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.
Isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it?
It has become almost a cliche to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.
Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.
Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that.
One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all.
Personally, I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world chess championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility.
Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.
The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.
The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.
The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.
The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity.
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.
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AuthorName
Richard Dawkins
Profession
Scientist
BirthDate
26 March, 1941
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