“Religion teaches you to be satisfied with nonanswers. It’s a sort of crime against childhood.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Richard Dawkins322

English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author 1941

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“[…] one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion (2006), p. 152 of the Black Swan paperback edition of 2007

“What worries me about religion is that it teaches people to be satisfied with not understanding the world they live in.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Heart Of The Matter: God Under The Microscope | BBC (1996)
Variant: [... ] one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.
Source: The God Delusion

“One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)

“These religions teach the slave virtues. They make inanimate things holy, and falsehoods sacred. They create artificial crimes.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide? (1900)
Context: These religions teach the slave virtues. They make inanimate things holy, and falsehoods sacred. They create artificial crimes. To eat meat on Friday, to enjoy yourself on Sunday, to eat on fast-days, to be happy in Lent, to dispute a priest, to ask for evidence, to deny a creed, to express your sincere thought, all these acts are sins, crimes against some god, To give your honest opinion about Jehovah, Mohammed or Christ, is far worse than to maliciously slander your neighbor. To question or doubt miracles. is far worse than to deny known facts. Only the obedient, the credulous, the cringers, the kneelers, the meek, the unquestioning, the true believers, are regarded as moral, as virtuous. It is not enough to be honest, generous and useful; not enough to be governed by evidence, by facts. In addition to this, you must believe. These things are the foes of morality. They subvert all natural conceptions of virtue.