It's an important point to realize that the genetic programming of our lives is not fully deterministic. It is statistical - it is in any animal merely statistical - not deterministic. Richard Dawkins More Quotes by Richard Dawkins More Quotes From Richard Dawkins Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense. Richard Dawkins wisdom hope love 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 atheist religious god Faith is belief without evidence and reason; coincidentally that's also the definition of delusion. Richard Dawkins definitions belief faith The idea that God could only forgive our sins by having his son tortured to death as a scapegoat is surely, from an objective point of view, a deeply unpleasant idea. If God wanted to forgive us our sins, why didn't he just forgive them? Why did he have to have his son tortured? Richard Dawkins views fear son Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you. Richard Dawkins atheist education children Evolution is just a theory? Well, so is gravity and I don't see you jumping out of buildings. Richard Dawkins building jumping evolution We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die, because they are never going to be born. The number of people who could be here, in my place, out number the sand grains in the Sahara. If you think about all the different ways in which our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here. The number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist... we are privileged to be alive and nd we should make the most of our time on this world. Richard Dawkins numbers inspirational thinking Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science, and he who denies it betrays woeful ignorance and lack of education, which likely extends to other fields as well. Richard Dawkins ignorance simple religion Such delusions of grandeur to think that a God with a hundred billion galaxies on his mind would give a tuppenny damn who you sleep with, or indeed whether you believe in him. Richard Dawkins sleep believe thinking How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one. Richard Dawkins thoughtful born matter 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 atheist christian god Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. Richard Dawkins mad-cow-disease evil religion You believe that all humanity came from Adam and Eve, and humans have not evolved at all since. So tell me; between the two of them, which was black, which was white, and which was Asian? Richard Dawkins white two believe Religion shows a pattern of heredity which I think is similar to genetic heredity. ... There are hundreds of different religious sects, and every religious person is loyal to just one of these. ... The overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one their parents belonged to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained-glass, the best music when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing compared to the matter of heredity. Richard Dawkins religious science thinking It's a horrible idea that God, this paragon of wisdom and knowledge, power, couldn't think of a better way to forgive us our sins than to come down to Earth in his alter ego as his son and have himself hideously tortured and executed so that he could forgive himself. Richard Dawkins ideas son thinking We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. ... This is exactly what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object's sole reason for living. Richard Dawkins dna life science 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 sarcastic atheist funny The less you think, the more you believe. Richard Dawkins doubt believe thinking I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. Richard Dawkins learning atheist death Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun. Richard Dawkins theory-of-evolution health inspire
