You can't imagine how gratifying it is to have a reader come up to you and say, 'You changed my life.' Richard Dawkins More Quotes by Richard Dawkins More Quotes From Richard Dawkins I hate the neologism "owned" for "scored a victory over". I have no intention of owning anyone, and nobody will ever own me. Richard Dawkins i-hate victory hate To describe religions as mind viruses is sometimes interpreted as contemptuous or even hostile. It is both. I am often asked why I am so hostile to organized religion. Richard Dawkins viruses atheism mind I think by the age of about nine I recognized that there were a lot of different religions, and it was an accident I happened to be born into one of them. If I had been born somewhere else, I would have had a different one. Which is a pretty good lesson, actually. Everyone should learn that. Richard Dawkins wisdom somewhere-else thinking It is grindingly, creakingly, crashingly obvious that if Darwinism was really a theory of chance, it could not work. Richard Dawkins obvious chance theory Science, as opposed to technology, does violence to common sense. Richard Dawkins common-sense technology doe I think what I'd really like to see would be a mass consciousness-raising movement so that we would all become vegetarian. Richard Dawkins movement would-be thinking It is quite true that many scientists, many physicists, maintain that the physical constants, the half dozen or so numbers that physicists have to simply assume in order to derive the rest of their understanding ... have to be assumed. You can't provide a rationale for why those numbers are there. Physicists have calculated that if any of these numbers was a little bit different, the universe as we know it wouldn't exist. Richard Dawkins understanding numbers order By dislaiming the idea of a next life, we can take more excitement in this one! Richard Dawkins excitement next ideas When we talk about genes for anything, like a gene for being gay or a gene for being aggressive or something of that sort, that a gene for anything may not have been a gene for that thing under different environmental conditions. Richard Dawkins environmental gay different Thus the creationist's favourite question "What is the use of half an eye?" Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. Half an eye is just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye. Richard Dawkins eye half answers You contain a trillion copies of a large, textual document written in a highly accurate, digital code, each copy as voluminous as a substantial book. I'm talking, of course, of the DNA in your cells. Richard Dawkins dna cells book We've all been brought up with the view that religion has some kind of special privileged status. You're not allowed to criticise it. Richard Dawkins kind special views Scientists can have their judgment clouded by their professional aspirations. And the pure truth of faith, which you can think of as this clear spiritual water, is poured into rusty vessels called human beings, and so sometimes the benevolent principles of faith can get distorted as positions are hardened. Richard Dawkins spiritual water thinking I am passionate about truth and passionate about clarity, and I don't regard myself as particularly militant or aggressive. I simply wish to discuss what is true and to listen to evidence and put evidence forward to other people and have a sensible, sane, moderated argument. Richard Dawkins passionate wish people To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries Richard Dawkins biblical editors evil There are very interesting controversies within evolution; however, whether evolution occurs is not one of them. It definitely does. Richard Dawkins evolution doe interesting It doesn't hurt my feeling when I get vilified by fundamentalist religious people. I've actually made comedy out of it. I've made light of that. Richard Dawkins light religious hurt I would, like any other scientist, willingly change my mind if the evidence led me to do so. So I care about what's true, I care about evidence, I care about evidence as the reason for knowing what is true. It is true that I come across rather passionate sometimes - and that's because I am passionate about the truth... I do get very impatient with humbug, with cant, with fakery, with charlatans. Richard Dawkins atheism knowing mind I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine. Richard Dawkins imagine accepting may The universe is a strange and wondrous place. The truth is quite odd enough to need no help from pseudoscientific charlatans. Richard Dawkins strange helping needs
