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St. Augustine wrote that basically it is not possible to understand what was being described in Genesis. It was not intended as a science textbook. It was intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God.

Richard Dawkins

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Richard Dawkins
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: March 26
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Kenya's capital
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Absolutist morality doesn't have to come from religion but usually does.
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Molecular genetics can show off some surprising relationships like, for example, the close relationship of whales to hippopotamuses, which I think nobody ever guessed until molecular data was looked at. The closest relatives of whales are hippopotamuses, even closer than any other cloven-hoofed animals.
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Everybody is an atheist in saying that there is a god - from Ra to Shiva - in which he does not believe. All that the serious and objective atheist does is to take the next step and to say that there is just one more god to disbelieve in.
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St. Augustine explicitly warns against a very narrow perspective that will put our faith at risk of looking ridiculous. If you step back from that one narrow interpretation, what the Bible describes is very consistent with the Big Bang.
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Matthew and Luke handle the problem differently, by deciding that Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem after all. But they get him there by different routes.
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I think the written word is probably the best medium of communication because you have time to reflect, you have time to choose your words, to get your sentences exactly right. Whereas when you're being interviewed, say, you have to talk on the fly, you have to improvise, you can change sentences around, and they're not exactly right.
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You can't blame science for being used for evil purposes. What you can do is say, 'This is an exceedingly powerful tool.' And you want to make sure it is used for good purposes, not bad ones. That is a political decision.
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The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile explanation for anything, for it simply postulates what we are trying to explain.
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Religion has been a powerful weapon in the hands of governments, in the hands of priests, in the hands of kings who have used it as a weapon to keep down the populace. It is a wonderful way of disciplining people and making them do what you want, to tell them that if they don't do what you want they will, for example, go to Hell.
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The machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer engineering journal.
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Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one.
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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.
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Something pretty mysterious had to give rise to the origin of the universe.
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There's nothing nonsensical about saying that what would evolve if Darwinian selection has its head is something that you don't want to happen. And I could easily imagine trying to go against Darwinism.
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The fact that somebody does good doesn't make their beliefs true.
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It is an absurd law [Section 295A of the Indian penal code] but also extremely dangerous because it gives fanatics, whether they are Hindus, Catholics or Muslims, a licence to be offended. It also allows people who are in dispute with you to make up false accusations of blasphemy.
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My personal feeling is that understanding evolution led me to atheism.
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There is something so mysterious that it is almost like God. God is in the equations. God is in the fundamental constants. And that's fine. I mean, that's just redefinition of that which we find mysterious at the basis of the universe.
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