People really, really hate their religion being criticized. It's as though you've said they had an ugly face; they seem to identify personally with it.
Interpretation
Criticism of one's beliefs can provoke strong defensive reactions, as people often see their beliefs as part of their identity.
Richard Dawkins highlights the intense emotional connection individuals have with their religious beliefs. When criticized, many people perceive it as a personal attack, leading to defensiveness and hostility. This suggests that religion is not just a set of beliefs for many; it is intertwined with their self-identity, making any critique feel like an insult to their very being.
In practice
In a debate about faith, one might quote Dawkins to highlight why people react strongly to religious criticism.
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
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.
I was originally supposed to become an engineer but the thought of having to expend my creative energy on things that make practical everyday life even more refined, with a loathsome capital gain as the goal, was unbearable to me.
Pundits are always blaming TV for making people stupid, movies for desensitizing the world to violence, and rock music for making kids take drugs and kill themselves. These things should be the least of our worries. The main problem with mass media is that it makes it impossible to fall in love with any acumen of normalcy. There is no 'normal,' because everybody is being twisted by the same sources simultaneously.
In short, there are mysteries of science and of soul that will never be understood no matter how hard we measure, no matter how strongly we believe, no matter how deep our think tanks and how high our aspirations. But as anyone will tell you—for we all know this within our hearts—the impossible happens and grand cosmic mysteries are solved on a regular basis, although most of the time the solutions lead to even greater mysteries.
The goal of life is not the earning of money, but the service of God.p.114
The whole of the 20th century has always put the car at the center. So by putting the pedestrian first, you create these livable places, I think, with more attraction and interest and character.
With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.