I would like to find a way in which people in Saudi Arabia could learn that they can be something other than a Muslim. Some people may not realize this. Of course, there is the problem that you can get in trouble or get stoned.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the importance of personal freedom and the pursuit of individual identity, particularly in a context where beliefs can lead to severe consequences.
Richard Dawkins expresses a desire for individuals in Saudi Arabia to understand that their identity and beliefs need not be confined to Islam alone. He acknowledges the societal repercussions of deviating from religious norms but emphasizes the importance of exploring one’s own beliefs and potential, advocating for the idea that individuals should have the freedom to question and redefine their identity.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, one might use this quote to encourage questioning societal norms.
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.
For neither good nor evil can last for ever; and so it follows that as evil has lasted a long time, good must now be close at hand.
A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age ... pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives. They don't want to be who they are any more. They want out. This list includes Thurston Howell the Third, Ann-Margret, the cat members of Rent, Václav Havel, space shuttle astronauts and Snuffleupagus. It's universal.
Grace finds us beggars but leaves us debtors.
Since 9/11 we have somehow come to accept the 'radicalization' narrative, which basically holds that people become terrorists through a series of consecutive, traceable steps laid out for them by large international Islamic organizations. Reality is messier, and also smaller.
There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman._x000D_ There is not even a rope to tow the boat, and no one to pull it._x000D_ There is no earth, no sky, no time, no thing, no shore, no ford!
If the land mechanism as a whole is good then every part is good, whether we understand it or not.
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