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.
When you're out of your own cultural context you have conversations with yourself that you just don't have at any other point in your life. When you're in a hotel room on the border between India and Nepal you can really discover things about yourself.
A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.
Silence emerges from the sound of rain and spreads in a crescendo of gray monotony over the narrow street I contemplate. Iβm sleeping while awake, standing by the window, leaning against it as against everything. I search in myself for the sensations I feel before these falling threads of darkly luminous water that stand out from the grimy building facades and especially from the open windows. And I donβt know what I feel or what I want to feel. I donβt know what to think or where I am.
I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.
In an age where community involvement and partnerships with civil society are increasingly being recognized as indispensable, there is clearly a growing potential for cooperative development and renewal worldwide.
Herein lies the tragedy of the age: Not that men are poor, - all men know something of poverty. Not that men are wicked, - who is good? Not that men are ignorant, - what is truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.