Richard Dawkins Quotes About Virtue

Quotes about: Virtue

• Christianity, just as much as Islam, teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue. You don't have to make the case for what you believe. If somebody announces that it is part of his faith, the rest of society, whether of the same faith, or another, or of none, is obliged, by ingrained custom, to "respect" it without question; respect it until the day it manifests itself in a horrible massacre like the destruction of the World Trade Center, or the London or Madrid bombings.

  Richard Dawkins

  Children, Believe, Islam

• I do believe that nice religious people make the world safe for extremists by teaching us [...] that faith is a virtue, teaching us that there's something good about holding beliefs without any substantiating evidence. Once you buy into that, [...] then the door is opened to extremists who defend their extremism by saying, 'Oh well, it's my faith, you can't touch it, you can't criticise my faith, I don't even need to defend it because faith is faith.'

  Richard Dawkins

  Religious, Nice, Believe

  "Richard Dawkins at the Sydney Writers' Festival". Interview with Robyn Williams, www.abc.net.au. September 8, 2007.

• Religion shows a pattern of heredity which I think is similar to genetic heredity. ... There are hundreds of different religious sects, and every religious person is loyal to just one of these. ... The overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one their parents belonged to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained-glass, the best music when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing compared to the matter of heredity.

  Richard Dawkins

  Religious, Science, Thinking

• Cheetah genes cooperate with cheetah genes but not with camel genes, and vice versa. This is not because cheetah genes, even in the most poetic sense, see any virtue in the preservation of the cheetah species. They are not working to save the cheetah from extinction like some molecular World Wildlife Fund.

  Richard Dawkins

  Science, Wildlife, Vices

• If children were taught to question and think through their beliefs, instead of being taught the superior virtue of faith without question, it is a good bet that there would be no suicide bombers.

  Richard Dawkins

  Suicide, Children, Thinking

• Book critics or theatre critics can be derisively negative and gain delighted praise for the trenchant with of their review. But in criticisms of religion even clarity ceases to be a virtue and sounds like aggressive hostility. A politician may attack an opponent scathingly across the floor of the House and earn plaudits for his robust pugnacity. But let a soberly reasoning critic of religion employ what would in other contexts sound merely direct or forthright, and it will be described as a 'rant'.

  Richard Dawkins

  Book, House, Criticism

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• 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

  Believe, Ignorance, People

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