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Арабские красавицы на фестивале в Дубаи. ТОП-10Арабские красавицы на фестивале в Дубаи. ТОП-10 14 самых удивительных вертикальных садов мира14 самых удивительных вертикальных садов мира Крупнейшие радиационные аварии и катастрофы современностиКрупнейшие радиационные аварии и катастрофы современности
Richard Dawkins

On one planet [earth], and po...

On one planet [earth], and possibly only one planet in the entire universe, molecules that would normally make nothing more complicated than a chunk of rock, gather themselves together into chunks of rock-sized matter of such staggering complexity that they are capable of running, jumping, swimming, flying, seeing, hearing, capturing and eating other such animated chunks of complexity; capable in some cases of thinking and feeling, and falling in love with yet other chunks of complex matter.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

Maybe somewhere in some other...

Maybe somewhere in some other galaxy there is a super-intelligence so colossal that from our point of view it would be a god. But it cannot have been the sort of God that we need to explain the origin of the universe, because it cannot have been there that early.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

Individuals are not stable th...

Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

Scientific and technological ...

Scientific and technological progress themselves are value-neutral. They are just very good at doing what they do. If you want to do selfish, greedy, intolerant and violent things, scientific technology will provide you with by far the most efficient way of doing so. But if you want to do good, to solve the world's problems, to progress in the best value-laden sense, once again, there is no better means to those ends than the scientific way.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

Certainly I see the scientifi...

Certainly I see the scientific view of the world as incompatible with religion, but that is not what is interesting about it. It is also incompatible with magic, but that also is not worth stressing. What is interesting about the scientific world view is that it is true, inspiring, remarkable and that it unites a whole lot of phenomena under a single heading.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

Faith is powerful enough to i...

Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

I can't be sure God does not ...

I can't be sure God does not exist. On a scale of seven, where one means I know he exists, and seven I know he doesn't, I call myself a six. That doesn't mean I'm absolutely confident, that I absolutely know, because I don't.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

A designer God cannot be used...

A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

I'd like everybody to be secu...

I'd like everybody to be secular. I suppose I have to say politically I would like religion to become gentler and nicer and to stop interfering with other people's lives, stop repressing women, stop indoctrinating children, all that sort of thing. But I really, really would like to see religion go away altogether.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

Sticks and stones may break m...

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." The adage is true as long as you don't really believe the words. But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, really believe, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that a woman is the property of her husband), it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

The popularity of the paranor...

The popularity of the paranormal, oddly enough, might even be grounds for encouragement. I think that the appetite for mystery, the enthusiasm for that which we do not understand, is healthy and to be fostered. It is the same appetite which drives the best of true science, and it is an appetite which true science is best qualified to satisfy.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

The human psyche has two grea...

The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals. Abrahamic religion gives strong sanction to both-and mixes explosively with both. Only the willfully blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

Creationists eagerly seek a g...

Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

Natural selection, the blind,...

Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation forthe existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of the watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

You can never be absolutely c...

You can never be absolutely certain that anything doesn't exist. But you can show that it's unlikely.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

Human beings are just gene ma...

Human beings are just gene machines.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

I might respect you as a bril...

I might respect you as a brilliant intellect, runner, musician or juggler. But respect your BELIEFS? Only if they're supported by evidence.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

If any remedy is tested under...

If any remedy is tested under controlled scientific conditions and proved to be effective, it will cease to be alternative and will simply become medicine. So-called alternative medicine either hasn't been tested or it has failed its tests.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

There is no reason for believ...

There is no reason for believing that any sort of gods exist, and quite good reasons for believing that they do not exist and never have. It has all been a gigantic waste of time and a waste of life. It would be a joke of cosmic proportions if it weren't so tragic.

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes
Richard Dawkins

It is a virtue to admit ignor...

It is a virtue to admit ignorance when you don't know, but not to wallow in ignorance as an end in itself.
People say if we don't believe god is watching over us, we abandon morality. Are they right?

Richard Dawkins 714 quotes

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