Richard Dawkin

Clinton Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and writer. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008. Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter of various atheist, secular, and humanistic organisations. Dawkins became a prominent critic of religion and has stated his opposition to religion is twofold: Religion is both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils. He rose to prominence in public debates relating science and religion since the publication of his book The God Delusion in 2006, which became an international best seller. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist and has also been identified with the rise of New Atheism. Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done the most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year; it is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's own efforts. Read More.

• We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further
• I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. 
• Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off.
• There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents. 
• Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice their incompatibility, and let them draw their own conclusions about the consequences of that incompatibility. As for whether they are ‘valid,’ let them make up their own minds when they are old enough to do so. 
• Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.
• Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.
• The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear. 
• Why would an all-powerful creator decide to plant his carefully crafted species on islands and continents in exactly the appropriate pattern to suggest, irresistibly, that they had evolved and dispersed from the site of their evolution?
• We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realize that we are apes. 
• Everybody is an atheist in saying that there is a god - from Ra to Shiva - in which he does not believe. All that the serious and objective atheist does is to take the next step and to say that there is just one more god to disbelieve in.
• Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime.
• If you don't understand how something works, never mind: just give up and say God did it. You don't
• know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don't understand, how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis, a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don't go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God.
• The book is true, and if evidence seems to condtradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out not the book.