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My point is not that religion itself is the motivation for wars, murders and terrorist attacks, but that religion is the principal label, and the most dangerous one, by which a they as opposed to a we can be identified at all.

Richard Dawkins

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Richard Dawkins
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: March 26
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More quotes by Richard Dawkins

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We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realize that we are apes.
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Metaphors are fine if they aid understanding, but sometimes they get in the way.
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The patient typically finds himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as 'faith'.
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Isaac Asimov's remark about the infantilism of pseudoscience is just as applicable to religion: 'Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold.' It is astonishing, moreover, how many people are unable to understand that 'X is comforting' does not imply 'X is true'.
Richard Dawkins
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Far from being demeaning to human spiritual values, scientific rationalism is the crowning glory of the human spirit. Of course you can use the products of science to do bad things, but you can use them to do good things too.
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[The Internet] is by far the most important innovation in the media in my lifetime. It's like having a huge encyclopedia permanently available. There's a tremendous amount of rubbish on the world wide web, but retrieval of what you want to so rapid that it doesn't really matter
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It has become almost a cliché 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.
Richard Dawkins
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I'm a sucker for nice religious leaders. I fall for it every time.
Richard Dawkins
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[Jay] Gould sets up an artificial wall between the two worldviews that doesn't exist in my life.
Richard Dawkins
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False beliefs can be every bit as consoling as true ones, right up until the moment of disillusionment.
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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.
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Very close cousins like humans and chimps have almost all their genes in common. Slightly less close cousins like humans and monkeys still have recognizably the same genes. You could carry on right on down to humans and bacteria, and you will find continuous compelling evidence for the hierarchical tree of cousinship.
Richard Dawkins
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I think there could be a very large number who are creationists by default. Those are the people I want to reach.
Richard Dawkins
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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
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[If] there is mercy in nature, it is accidental. Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent.
Richard Dawkins
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Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime.
Richard Dawkins
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The truth is more magical - in the best and most exciting sense of the word - than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic: the magic of reality.
Richard Dawkins
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The story of Doubting Thomas is told, not so that we shall admire Thomas, but so that we can admire the other apostles in comparison. Thomas demanded evidence … The other apostles, whose faith was so strong that they did not need evidence, are held to us as worthy of imitation.
Richard Dawkins
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Bereavement is terrible, of course. And when somebody you love dies, it's a time for reflection, a time for memory, a time for regret.
Richard Dawkins
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Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.
Richard Dawkins