Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.
Interpretation
Organizing non-believers is challenging due to their independent thinking.
Richard Dawkins compares the difficulty of uniting atheists to herding cats, which highlights the nature of independent thought prevalent among non-believers. This metaphor emphasizes that individuals who do not subscribe to religious beliefs often prioritize personal reasoning and are reluctant to adhere to authoritative structures, making collective organization a significant challenge.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the challenges of forming atheist communities.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world by miles.
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.
Man makes holy what he believes as he makes beautiful what he loves.
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
During mental prayer, it is well, at times, to imagine that many insults and injuries are being heaped upon us, that misfortunes have befallen us, and then strive to train our heart to bear and forgive these things patiently, in imitation of our Saviour. This is the way to acquire a strong spirit.
The only proof for the existence of God is that without God you couldn't prove anything.
I think that ideas exist outside of ourselves. I think somewhere, we're all connected off in some very abstract land. But somewhere between there and here ideas exist.
This upper limit, of earth at our feet is visible and touches the air, but below it reaches to infinity
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