Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins FRS FRSLis an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth26 March 1941
CityNairobi, Kenya
religious knowledge people
Religious people split into three main groups when faced with science. I shall label them the "know-nothings", the "know-alls", and the "no-contests."
religious religion useless
Religion is nothing more than a useless and sometimes dangerous, evolutionary accident. Religious behavior may be a misfiring, an unfortunate byproduct of an underlying psychological propensity which in other circumstances is, or once was, useful.
religious children miracle
The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the raising of Lazarus, even the Old Testament miracles, all are freely used for religious propaganda, and they are very effective with an audience of unsophisticates and children
religious book people
The cynic about human nature might say that religious morality is an effective way of keeping people in line. The threat of hell, the reward of heaven, but the rules of the holy books are out of date and often barbaric.
religious thinking opposites
If you are religious at all, it is overwhelmingly probable that your religion is that of your parents. If you were born in Arkansas and you think Christianity is true and Islam false (knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in Afghanistan), you are the victim of childhood indoctrination.
religious giving-up children
I think there in a great deal to be said for religious education in the sense of teaching about religion and biblical literacy. Both those things, by the way, I suspect will prepare a child to give up religion. If you are taught comparative religion, you are more likely to realise that there are other religions than the one you have been brought up in. And if you are if you are taught to read the bible, I can think of almost nothing more calculated to turn you off religion.
country religious economic-inequality
It has been convincingly demonstrated that countries where there are high rates of poverty, or high rates of economic inequality, are the countries with the highest rates of religious beliefs.
religious people religion
All religious beliefs seem weird to people not brought up in them.
religious hurt light
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.
religious taxes charitable
Religious organisations have an automatic tax-free charitable status.
suicide religious long
As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers
religious atheist atheism
Are science and religion converging? No. There are modern scientists whose words sound religious but whose beliefs, on close examination, turn out to be identical to those of other scientists who straightforwardly call themselves atheists.
religious views important
There are many religious points of view where the conservation of the world is just as important as it is to scientists.
religious simple speaks-out
Secularism is categorically not saying that the religious may not speak out publicly or have a say in public life. It is about saying that religion alone should not confer a privileged say in public life, or greater influence on it. It really is as simple as that.