Quotes from Richard Dawkins

Voltaire got it right long ago: 'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

We may find the attractions of a particular member of the opposite sex irresistible, even though the better judgment of our better self tells us that a liaison with that person is not in anyone's long-term interests.

This is a subtle, complicated idea. It is complicated because the 'environment' of a gene consists largely of other genes, each of which is itself being selected for its ability to cooperate with its environment of other genes.

Just as every gene is the centre of a radiating field of influence on the world, so every phenotypic character is the centre of converging influences from many genes, both within and outside the body of the individual organism.

CNN journalist Tucker Carlson?

Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's just sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great surveillance camera in the sky, or the still small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move, even your every base thought.

Nós é que decidimos se nossa vida será significativa, plena e maravilhosa. E podemos fazer com que ela seja mesmo maravilhosa.

Os braços eternos oferecem uma proteção contra as nossas próprias deficiências, a qual, como o placebo do médico, não é menos eficiente por ser imaginária

The teachings of 'moderate' religion, though not extremist in themselves, are an open invitation to extremism.

Something has shifted in the intervening decades. It has shifted in all of us, and the shift has no connection with religion. If anything, it happens in spite of religion, not because of it.

Aceptamos alegremente que podemos amar a más de un niño, padre, hermano, profesor, amigo o mascota. Cuando pensamos en esto de esta forma, ¿no es positivamete extraña la total exclusividad que esperamos del amor conyugal?.

There are so many different faiths. How do you know the holy book you have been brought up with is the true one? And if all the others are wrong, what makes you think your holy book isn't wrong too?

An itinerant selfish gene/ Said 'bodies a- plenty I've seen./ You think you're so clever/ But I'll live for ever./ You're just a survival machine.

The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness.

But if science cannot answer some ultimate question, what makes anybody think that religion can? I suspect that neither the Cambridge nor the Oxford astronomer really believed that theologians have any expertise that enables them to answer questions that are too deep for science.

But think about why it is impolite to ask such direct, factual questions of religious people today. It is because it is embarrassing! But it is the answer that is embarrassing, if it is yes.

It seems to me to require a low self-regard to think that, should belief in God suddenly vanish from the world, we would all become callous and selfish hedonists, with no kindness, no charity, no generosity, nothing that would deserve the name of goodness.

Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable. The universe is populated by stable things. A stable thing is a collection of atoms that is permanent enough or common enough to deserve a name.

Maybe the psychological reason for this amazing blindness has something to do with the fact that many people have not had their consciousness raised, as biologists have, by natural selection and its power to tame improbability. J.

An extended phenotypic character is the product of the interaction of many genes whose influence impinges from both inside and outside the organism. The interaction is not necessarily harmonious—but then nor are gene interactions within bodies necessarily harmonious

Of 43 studies carried out since 1927 on the relationship between religious belief and one's intelligence and/or educational level, all but four found an inverse connection. That is, the higher one's intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold "beliefs" of any kind.

There's a cluster of five galaxies called Stephan's Quintet, which we see through the Hubble telescope spectacularly colliding with each other. But we see them colliding 280 million years ago. If there are aliens in one of those colliding galaxies with a telescope powerful enough to see us, what they are seeing on Earth, at this very moment, here and now, is the early ancestors of the dinosaurs.

Here is a list of things defined as rewarding: sweet taste in the mouth, orgasm, mild temperature, smiling child. And here is a list of nasty things: various sorts of pain, nausea, empty stomach, screaming child. If you should happen to do something that is followed by one of the nasty things, don't do it again, but on the other hand repeat anything that is followed by one of the nice things.

they experience—what they see, hear, think, and