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
A God capable of continuously monitoring and controlling the individual status of every particle in the universe cannot be simple. His existence is going to need a mammoth explanation in its own right.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that a deity with such immense capabilities must possess a complex nature, challenging the idea of divine simplicity.
In this quote, Richard Dawkins argues against the concept of a simple God by asserting that if such a being exists with the power to monitor and control every element of the universe, then this entity must be extraordinarily complex. This statement invites readers to reconsider traditional notions of divinity, particularly the idea that God is fundamentally simple and understandable. Instead, he implies that any being with such vast powers would require a detailed and complex explanation.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on the existence of God.
More from Richard Dawkins
All quotes →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.
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Into a world unknown,-the corner-stone of a nation!
Show me where a man spends his time & money, and I'll show you his god.