Richard Dawkins, PhD, British evolutionary biologist, 1941-
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“I surmise that religions, like languages, evolve with sufficient randomness, from beginnings that are sufficiently arbitrary, to generate the bewildering – and sometimes dangerous – richness of diversity that we observe. At the same time, it is possible that a form of natural selection, coupled with the fundamental uniformity of human psychology, sees to it that the diverse religions share significant features in common. Many religions, for example, teach the objectively implausible but subjectively appealing doctrine that our personalities survive our bodily death. The idea of immortality itself survives and spreads because it caters to wishful thinking. And wishful thinking counts, because human psychology has a near-universal tendency to let belief be coloured by desire (‘Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought,’ as Henry IV Part II said to his son).”
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— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p220-221

Bertrand Russell, British philosopher & polymath, 1872-1970
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“The Bishop proceeds to argue that ‘the universe has been shaped and is governed by an intelligent purpose,’ and that it would have been unintelligent, having made man, to let him perish.

“To this argument there are many answers. In the first place, it has been found, in the scientific investigation of nature, that the intrusion of moral or aesthetic values has always been an obstacle to discovery. It used to be thought that the heavenly bodies must move in circles because the circle is the most perfect curve, that species must be immutable because God would only create what was perfect and what therefore stood in no need of improvement, that it was useless to combat epidemics except by repentance because they were sent as a punishment for sin, and so on. It has been found, however, that, so far as we can discover, nature is indifferent to our values and can only be understood by ignoring our notions of good and bad. The universe may have a purpose, but nothing that we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.”

— Bertrand Russell, “Do We Survive Death,” (1936) Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects, Touchstone Books, 1957, p91-92

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Richard Dawkins, PhD, British evolutionary biologist, 1941-
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“...In my interview with [Jim Watson, founder of the Human Genome Project] at Clare, I conscientiously put it to him that, unlike him and [Francis] Crick, some people see no conflict between science and religion, because they claim science is about how things work and religion is about what it is all for. Watson retorted: ‘Well I don’t think we’re for anything. We’re just products of evolution. You can say, ‘Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don’t think there’s a purpose.’ But I’m anticipating having a good lunch.’ We did have a good lunch, too.”
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— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p126

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George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright & polemicist, 1856-1950
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“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”
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— George Bernard Shaw, Androcles and the Lion (quoted by Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p194)

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