Richard Dawkins Quotes

There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents.

A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents. This latter nomenclature, by the way, would be an excellent piece of consciousness-raising for the children themselves. A child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose -or reject- when she becomes old enough to do so.

Children will listen to anything elders say to survive, and if you grew up without an elder telling you there was a god, what did your parents say to you?

Most Muslims do not 'choose' Islam in the way that they choose to become doctors or lawyers, nor even in the way that they choose to become fans of Coldplay or Radiohead. Most Muslims, like people of any faith, are born into their religion.

No child really chooses his religion; it is just the luck of the draw which blanket of beliefs you are wrapped in.

Religion shows a pattern of heredity which I think is similar to genetic heredity. ... There are hundreds of different religious sects, and every religious person is loyal to just one of these. ... The overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one their parents belonged to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained-glass, the best music when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing compared to the matter of heredity.

I grew up Mormon. I wasn't really Mormon, my parents were.

My mother told me once that she and my father agreed that I would not be brought up Jewish in Chicago. She had me going to a Methodist church.

Nobody would seriously describe a tiny child as a Marxist child or an Anarchist child or a Post-modernist child. Yet children are routinely labelled with the religion of their parents. We need to encourage people to think carefully before labelling any child too young to know their own opinions and our adverts will help to do that.

Isn't it a remarkable coincidence almost everyone has the same religion as their parents ? And it always just happens to be the right religion. Religions run in families. If we'd been brought up in ancient Greece we would all be worshiping Zeus and Apollo. If we had been born Vikings we would be worshiping Wotan and Thor. How does this come about ? Through childhood indoctrination.

Reform Jews are the children of Conservative Jews, or as they are sometimes known, Christians with curlier hair.

There are ten church-members by inheritance for one by conviction.

With our parents we bury our past, with our children our future.

For me, as much about being a parent as it is about being a child.

My music is in young people's lives because it's so much a part of their parents' lives.

I went to a Catholic University and there's something about being a Catholic-American. You know, St. Patrick's Day is, I'm Irish-Catholic. There's alcoholism in my family. It's like I've got to be Catholic, right?

I want to be the perfect child. I owe so much to my parents and the way I was brought up.

Everyone just did what their parents did. So that immediately made me skeptical of the whole religion thing, even as a kid. So I never was really into religion as a concept.

I came- though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents - to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve.

If someone dies as a child, they go to heaven. But, as an adult, he made a choice of accepting Christianity, so, that's not apostacy. If he was a Muslim as an adult, then changed, that would be apostacy.

Dear parents, teach your children to pray. Pray with them.

Sometimes maybe children also fulfill their parents' secrets desire.

Children are not to be blamed for the faults of their parents.

I never lost my faith...But like all modern Catholics, I felt for a time that I had outgrown the church. Now it is a bone of contention in my soul that I did not share my faith with my kids, as my parents did with me. It was a source of grace when I needed it. I have been greatly nurtured and inspired by my faith.

I am only as good as my children are.