Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the lack of evidence in religious faith while highlighting the pride that stems from it.
Richard Dawkins emphasizes that religious faith is characterized by a notable absence of evidence to support its claims, and he argues that this very independence from evidence is something that believers often celebrate. The statement suggests that rather than viewing faith through a lens of doubt or scrutiny, many individuals flaunt their faith as a point of pride, despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of empirical support.
In practice
During a debate on belief systems, one might reference this quote to highlight the conversation about the reliance on evidence in faith.
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.
Our aim in studying the Godhead must be to know God himself better. Our concern must be to enlarge our acquaintance, not simply with the doctrine of Godβs attributes, but with the living God whose attributes they are.
No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the cross. No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ.
We are on the side of religion as opposed to religions, and we are among those who believe in the wretched inadequacy of sermons and the sublimity of prayer.
You can't measure time by days, the way you measure money by dollars and cents, because dollars are all the same while every day is different and maybe every hour as well.
Maybe, he said hesitantly, maybe there is a beast. The assembly cried out savagely and Ralph stood up in amazement. You, Simon? You believe in this? I don't know, said Simon. His heartbeats were choking him. [...] Ralph shouted. Hear him! He's got the conch! What I mean is . . . maybe it's only us. Nuts! That was from Piggy, shocked out of decorum.
Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles.
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