Some Richard Dawkins Quotes
I just can’t resist. Like I said, he’s my new hero.
“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.”
Well that’s certainly true. Is it because so many people are illiterate in science and math that they have to rationalize it as ok? There is something fundamentally wrong with our institutions of education when this is the case. Note that I include JOURNALISM as one of those institutions. In a democracy it is the responsibility of journalism, print and broadcast, to help establish an INFORMED electorate.
I’m seriously beginning to wonder if universal suffrage is a good idea. Perhaps there should be some minimum knowledge base demonstrated or some minimal educational level achieved as a prerequisite for voting.
"Science offers us an explanation of how complexity (the difficult) arose out of simplicity (the easy). The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile explanation for anything, for it simply postulates what we are trying to explain. It postulates the difficult to explain, and leaves it at that."
Like I said about Intelligent Design, “ID provides NO PATH TO INTELLECTUAL GROWTH. It begins with perfection, a Supreme Being, and ends with the conclusion that there’s no reason to understand how the universe works because GOD DID IT. The so-called explanations provided by ID are in fact a declaration of surrender. The universe is so complicated that man can’t hope to determine how it all came about, so just chalk it up to God and stop trying.”
“The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.”
As reinforced by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:19 when he paraphrases Isaiah, “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
Translated, this is a warning to ignore earthly wisdom, such as science, if it conflicts with faith as defined in the bible. This admonition is one of the reasons why it is almost impossible to reason with a Christian Fundamentalist.
Other reasons are related to the psychological fact that religious adults usually have far too much of themselves invested in their faith. Younger folks often find it difficult to betray their parents who have the heavy investment. So it's unlikely we'll see much of a loosening of the stranglehold religion has upon the American public anytime soon.
“No doubt soaring cathedrals, stirring music, moving stories and parables, help a bit. But by far the most important variable determining your religion is the accident of birth.”
Amazing isn’t it? Yet virtually every single one of them will claim that they were just lucky to have been born into the true religion and their acceptance is based upon anything but an accident of birth.
“...when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong.”
Compromising with a lie is not a good idea and any such compromise will most likely come apart sooner or later. In the final analysis it is quite possible that religion and science are in a death struggle and inevitably one must destroy the other.
“Hot on the heels of its magnanimous pardoning of Galileo, the Vatican has now moved with even more lightning speed to recognise the truth of Darwinism.”
Damn Brits, when are they going to learn how to use the letter “z.” Like I’ve said, one certainly can’t accuse the Catholic Church of being a hotbed of progressive thought, but they’re ahead, at least in terms of evolution, of the evangelical Protestants you Brits dumped on us 400 or so years ago.
“There are all sorts of things that would be comforting. I expect an injection of morphine would be comforting... But to say that something is comforting is not to say that it's true.”
Dawkins way of warning us to avoid the fallacy of an “Appeal to Consequences.”
“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.”
And if we were supposed to be satisfied with ignorance, why are, at least some of us, endowed with the desire to acquire knowledge and with the intelligence to achieve that desire. Ya think God set things up this way as a means of testing our willpower?
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
I believe Bertrand Russell said something similar way back when. Statements like this sort of guarantee that Dawkins will continue to be viewed by some men of religion as a precursor of the anti-christ.
“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.”
Well that’s certainly true. Is it because so many people are illiterate in science and math that they have to rationalize it as ok? There is something fundamentally wrong with our institutions of education when this is the case. Note that I include JOURNALISM as one of those institutions. In a democracy it is the responsibility of journalism, print and broadcast, to help establish an INFORMED electorate.
I’m seriously beginning to wonder if universal suffrage is a good idea. Perhaps there should be some minimum knowledge base demonstrated or some minimal educational level achieved as a prerequisite for voting.
"Science offers us an explanation of how complexity (the difficult) arose out of simplicity (the easy). The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile explanation for anything, for it simply postulates what we are trying to explain. It postulates the difficult to explain, and leaves it at that."
Like I said about Intelligent Design, “ID provides NO PATH TO INTELLECTUAL GROWTH. It begins with perfection, a Supreme Being, and ends with the conclusion that there’s no reason to understand how the universe works because GOD DID IT. The so-called explanations provided by ID are in fact a declaration of surrender. The universe is so complicated that man can’t hope to determine how it all came about, so just chalk it up to God and stop trying.”
“The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.”
As reinforced by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:19 when he paraphrases Isaiah, “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
Translated, this is a warning to ignore earthly wisdom, such as science, if it conflicts with faith as defined in the bible. This admonition is one of the reasons why it is almost impossible to reason with a Christian Fundamentalist.
Other reasons are related to the psychological fact that religious adults usually have far too much of themselves invested in their faith. Younger folks often find it difficult to betray their parents who have the heavy investment. So it's unlikely we'll see much of a loosening of the stranglehold religion has upon the American public anytime soon.
“No doubt soaring cathedrals, stirring music, moving stories and parables, help a bit. But by far the most important variable determining your religion is the accident of birth.”
Amazing isn’t it? Yet virtually every single one of them will claim that they were just lucky to have been born into the true religion and their acceptance is based upon anything but an accident of birth.
“...when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong.”
Compromising with a lie is not a good idea and any such compromise will most likely come apart sooner or later. In the final analysis it is quite possible that religion and science are in a death struggle and inevitably one must destroy the other.
“Hot on the heels of its magnanimous pardoning of Galileo, the Vatican has now moved with even more lightning speed to recognise the truth of Darwinism.”
Damn Brits, when are they going to learn how to use the letter “z.” Like I’ve said, one certainly can’t accuse the Catholic Church of being a hotbed of progressive thought, but they’re ahead, at least in terms of evolution, of the evangelical Protestants you Brits dumped on us 400 or so years ago.
“There are all sorts of things that would be comforting. I expect an injection of morphine would be comforting... But to say that something is comforting is not to say that it's true.”
Dawkins way of warning us to avoid the fallacy of an “Appeal to Consequences.”
“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.”
And if we were supposed to be satisfied with ignorance, why are, at least some of us, endowed with the desire to acquire knowledge and with the intelligence to achieve that desire. Ya think God set things up this way as a means of testing our willpower?
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
I believe Bertrand Russell said something similar way back when. Statements like this sort of guarantee that Dawkins will continue to be viewed by some men of religion as a precursor of the anti-christ.
posted by Alencon at 2:07 PM
1 Comments:
Supper compilation. Thanks for sharing!!
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