“Just because science so far has failed to explain something, such as consciousness, to say it follows that the facile, pathetic explanations which religion has produced somehow by default must win the argument is really quite ridiculous.”

— Richard Dawkins

Steve Paulson, "The flying spaghetti monster" http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/10/13/dawkins/index3.html (), Salon.com

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Richard Dawkins 322

English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author 1941

Carlos Gershenson (1978) Mexican researcher

Source: Artificial Societies of Intelligent Agents (2001), p. 19

“Just because science can't in practice explain things like the love that motivates a poet to write a sonnet, that doesn't mean that religion can. It's a simple and logical fallacy to say, ' If science can't do something, therefore religion can.”

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

“The modern clergyman has acquired in his study of the science which I believe is called exegesis an astonishing facility for explaining things away.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 1, p. 8

“In drawing an inference or conclusion from facts proved, regard must always be had to the nature of the particular case, and the facility that appears to be afforded, either of explanation or contradiction. No person is to be required to explain or contradict, until enough has been proved to warrant a reasonable and just conclusion against him, in the absence of explanation or contradiction.”

Charles Abbott, 1st Baron Tenterden (1762–1832) British barrister and judge, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench

King v. Burdett (1820), 1 St. Tr. (N. S.) 140.

“Run faster, jump higher, reach farther, and you'll always win!

live life expecting the worst, hoping for the best, and living for the future!

Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”

Jerry Garcia (1942–1995) American musician and member of the Grateful Dead

“There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win, because it works.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Interview with Diane Sawyer, as quoted in "Stephen Hawking on Religion: 'Science Will Win'" on ABC World News (7 June 2010) http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Technology/stephen-hawking-religion-science-win/story?id=10830164

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”

Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series

Harvard address (2008)

“The Asharites have expressed a very peculiar opinion, both with regard to reason and religion; about this problem they have explained it in a way in which religion has not, but have adopted quite an opposite method.”

Averroes book On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

Part 4: Divine Justice and Injustice; Opening sentence
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

“Just as Darwinian adaptationists assume that every biological phenomenon must be explained in terms of natural selection (no matter how unconducive to reproductive fitness it may appear initially), so too Nietzsche assumes that whatever explains “life” must also explain these particular instances of life which appear hostile to it. "'Life against life,'" Nietzsche says is a "self-contradiction" that "can only be apparent; it has to be a sort of provisional expression, an explanation, formula, adjustment, a psychological misunderstanding of something, the real nature of which was far from being understood" (GM III:13). … The crux of Nietzsche’s explanation turns on three claims:
(1) Suffering is a central fact of the human condition.
(2) Meaningless suffering is unbearable and leads to "suicidal nihilism" (GM III:28).
(3) The ascetic ideal gives meaning to suffering, thereby seducing the majority of humans back to life.”

Brian Leiter (1963) American philosopher and legal scholar

"The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud"

“Somebody Has To Do Something. . . It Seems Pathetic That It Has To Be Us.”

Jerry Garcia (1942–1995) American musician and member of the Grateful Dead

Source: Used in various version starting in September 28, 1988, while advocating for the preservation of the world’s rain forests. "Somebody Has To Do Something. . . It Seems Pathetic That It Has To Be Us" (Quote Investigator). https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q105474079

“Just because science so far has failed to explain something, such as consciousness, to say it follows that the facile, pathetic explanations which religion has produced somehow by default must win the argument is really quite ridiculous.”

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Richard Dawkins 322

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