We're going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.
Interpretation
Acknowledging our mortality is what makes life meaningful.
In this quote, Richard Dawkins emphasizes the idea that our awareness of death gives our lives purpose and urgency. Rather than viewing mortality as a negative aspect of existence, it can be seen as a privilege that allows us to appreciate life more deeply and strive to make the most of our time. This perspective shifts our understanding from fear of death to an appreciation of life itself.
In practice
In a speech about the significance of life experiences, this quote can be used to inspire others to cherish every moment.
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.
Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.
Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care To grant, before we can conclude the prayer: Preventing angels met it half the way, And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.
It is strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world.
Making mistakes is part of life. The only things I would feel ashamed of would be if I had said things I hadn't believed in order to get on. Some politicians do do that.
Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
In the past the need for a hierarchal form of society has been the doctrine specifically of the High. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and the priests, lawyers and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally been softened by promises of an imaginary world beyond the grave.
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