The recent discovery that humans have only twice as many genes as fruitflies has tipped the balance in the nature-nurture debate back to nurture. On … - A. C. Grayling
" "The recent discovery that humans have only twice as many genes as fruitflies has tipped the balance in the nature-nurture debate back to nurture. On this evidence it is our culture, history and belief-systems which make us what we are. We look at the rest of nature and see carnivores killing to eat, but we do not see zebras forming armies to wage war on gnus. It is only humans, with their congenital vice of inventing differences of politics and faith, who murder one another because they disagree. And what makes the tragedy more poignant is that the less secure their grounds for belief, the more anxious and violent their adherence to it—and the greater their readiness to kill and die in its defence.
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About A. C. Grayling
Anthony Clifford Grayling (born 3 April 1949) is a British philosopher and author.
Also Known As
Birth Name:
Anthony Clifford Grayling
Alternative Names:
Anthony Grayling
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A.C. Grayling
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AC Grayling
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A C Grayling
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Dr. Anthony Clifford Grayling
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Additional quotes by A. C. Grayling
The nonsense people talk about cloning stems from the prison-cell of religious belief. Pious exclamations about the sanctity of life, and about not interfering with God’s purposes, conceal a farrago of confusion. Life’s sanctity resides in its quality, not its mere quantity, for there is nothing sacred in suffering. And if we were to “avoid interfering with God’s purposes” we would not use penicillin, nor raise money for the Third World’s starving, nor build a roof over our children’s heads (which, as it happens, Jesus instructed us not to—“consider the lilies of the field”—but not even Christians are foolish enough to obey).
Four kinds of answer are standardly given to the question why religion exists. One is that it provides explanations—of the origin of the universe, of the way it works, of the apparently inexplicable things that happen in it, and of why it includes evil and suffering. Another is that religion provides comfort, giving hope of life after death, providing reassurance in a hostile world, and a means (by supplication, propitiation, and the practice of one or another form of prescribed behaviour) to get a better deal in it. A third is that it makes for social order, in promoting morality and social cohesion. And a fourth is that it rests on the natural ignorance, stupidity, superstitiousness and gullibility of mankind.
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