I am baffled by the way sophisticated theologians who know Adam and Eve never existed still keep talking about it.
Interpretation
Dawkins criticizes theologians for discussing biblical figures despite modern understandings of their fictional nature.
In this quote, Richard Dawkins expresses his confusion over the persistence of sophisticated theologians who continue to reference Adam and Eve in discussions, despite the fact that contemporary scientific understanding has established that these figures are not historically real. This statement highlights the tension between religious beliefs and scientific knowledge, suggesting that such discussions may be outdated or irrelevant in light of current evidence.
In practice
In a debate about evolution, one might say, 'As Richard Dawkins noted, it's baffling how some theologians still reference figures like Adam and Eve.'
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.
To be a mass tourist, for me,...is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.
Saying that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.
Tragically, some people believe they are going to heaven when they die just because a few drops of water were sprinkled over their heads a few weeks after their birth. They have no personal faith, have never made a personal decision, and are banking on a hollow ceremony to save them. How absurd.
If God should desire to raise us to the position of one who is an intimate and shares his secrets, we ought to accept this gladly.
Obviously I have a capacity for feeling extreme anxiety, and there are people out there who don't. I'm to some extent rather jealous of them.
Nobody can come and develop Africa on behalf of Africans.
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