God Delusion Quotes

• The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Life, Religious, Atheist

  George Bernard Shaw (1993). “The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929”, Viking Adult

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• A person isn't considered insane if there are a number of people who believe the same way. Insanity isn't supposed to be a communicable disease. If one other person starts to believe him, or maybe two or three, then it's a religion.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  God, Atheist, People

  "Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals". Book by Robert Pirsig, 1991.

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• The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

  Richard Dawkins

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.

  Richard Dawkins

  Funny, Trust, Laughter

  "The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder". Lecture, BBC1 Television, November 12, 1996.

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• Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

  Richard Dawkins

  Faith, Atheist, Thinking

  Richard Dawkins' Speech at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (April 15, 1992); quoted in "EDITORIAL: A scientist's case against God", "The Independent"(London), (p. 17), April 20, 1992.

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• Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.

  Richard Dawkins

  Children, Mind, Vulnerable

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• Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

  Douglas Adams

  Beauty, Beautiful, Religious

  Douglas Adams (2009). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.79, Pan Macmillan

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• God was created by evolution, inside the imagination of a primate.

  Steve Fowler

  God, Honesty, Editors

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• I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

  Richard Dawkins

  Death, Atheist, Learning

  "The Two Types of Faith" by Greg Cootsona, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 17, 2016.

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• Question with boldness even the existence of a god.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Faith Religion

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.90, Rowman & Littlefield

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• 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

  Design, Religion, Atheism

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.136, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The God of the Old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.

  Richard Dawkins

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The Christian god is a being of terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Christian, Character, Religion

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• To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries

  Richard Dawkins

  Biblical, Editors, Evil

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.268, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.

  Richard Dawkins

  Meaningful, Atheist, Responsibility

  "The God Delusion". Book by Richard Dawkins, October 2, 2006.

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• THE MAJORITY of children born into the world tend to inherit the beliefs of their parents, and that to me is one of the most regrettable facts of them all

  Richard Dawkins

  Children, Parent, Religion

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• We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

  Richard Dawkins

  Religious, Atheist, If There Is A God

  "The Root of All Evil?". Documentary, January 2006.

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• Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.

  Richard Dawkins

  Evil, Religion, Atheism

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.347, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Fear

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.90, Rowman & Littlefield

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• If people are good because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

  Albert Einstein

  Im Sorry, Atheist, Fear

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• The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  Richard Dawkins

  Funny, Sarcastic, Atheist

  River Out of Eden ch. 4 (1995)

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• We're going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.

  Richard Dawkins

  Lucky, Sahara, Evolution

  Unweaving the Rainbow ch. 1 (1998)

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• Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Jesus, Men, Ideas

  Thomas Jefferson (1964). “The Jefferson Bible: With the Annotated Commentaries on Religion of Thomas Jefferson”

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• Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think.

  Richard Dawkins

  Faith, Atheist, Thinking

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  Be open minded, but not so open minded that your brains fall out.

  Groucho Marx

  Fall, Brain, Open Minded

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