“It is time to stop seeing faith as a virtue, and to stop using the term “person of faith” as a compliment.”
Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 260
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Jerry Coyne 154
American biologist 1949Related quotes

“My administration will never stop fighting for Americans of faith”
At a rally for evangelicals earlier in 2020 according to Trump Secretly Mocks His Christian Supporters https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-secretly-mocks-his-christian-supporters/616522/ September 29, 2020
2020
“The starched matron is fain to put faith in the compliment”
"That Old Birds are not to be Caught with Chaff".
Sketches from Life (1846)
Context: The starched matron is fain to put faith in the compliment which in her day of youth and grace she knew to be nonsense.... If her mirror will not admit of this she has other resources; she has sage counsel, admirable judgment, perfect knowledge of the world.... Tell her she is not to be imposed upon, and you impose upon her effectually. Admire her penetration, and you will not find her impenetrable.

“In religion, faith is a virtue. In science, faith is a vice.”
Coyne (2011) " For the love of God... scientists in uproar at £1m religion prize http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/for-the-love-of-god-scientists-in-uproar-at-1631m-religion-prize-2264181.html" on independent.co.uk, April 6, 2011

“People don't understand the virtue of time, until their clock stops ticking. ”

Israel national news http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/229567#.U5gRtvldXs9, 16 January 2012

On these is founded the whole case for the free society, for the assertion that human progress is best achieved by offering the freest possible scope for the development of individual talents, qualified only by a respect for the qualities and the freedom of others...For many years there has been a subtle erosion of the essential virtues of the free society. Self-reliance has been sneered at as if it were an absurd suburban pretention. Thrift has been denigrated as if it were greed. The desire of parents to choose and to struggle for what they themselves regarded as the best possible education for their children has been scorned.
Speech to Conservative Central Council (15 March 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102655
Leader of the Opposition

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), XI : The Practical Problem
Context: My conduct must be the best proof, the moral proof, of my supreme desire; and if I do not end by convincing myself, within the bounds of the ultimate and irremediable uncertainty of the truth of what I hope for, it is because my conduct is not sufficiently pure. Virtue, therefore, is not based upon dogma, but dogma upon virtue, and it is not faith that creates martyrs but martyrs who create faith. There is no security or repose — so far as security and repose are obtainable in this life, so essentially insecure and unreposeful — save in conduct that is passionately good.