We should be cautiously open to the spiritual and non-rational, and skeptical of the more invisible magical thinking—what we might call “magical reason”—pervading secular thought and experience in modern society. Science and technology are for most people a new religion, and their orthodoxies are believed with the same fervor.
David WatsonTag: science belief religion skepticism magical-thinking
The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
Christopher HitchensTag: thinking opinions skepticism independent-thought critical-thinking
To be a philosophical Sceptic is the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian.
David HumeTag: belief christianity religion skepticism
...there being a god, that god must be worshiped. Worship means raising the god above the individual, and liturgies often make the point that the individual is less than nothing compared to the deity. If this be done, then, when the god is invoked, the individual has so little worth that he or she may be sacrificed for the needs of the god....
And who speaks for the god? If all people do, then no one does, and there is no god. If the people accept a priesthood, or the equivalent, then those priests exercise whatever power that god's believers grant that god over them, and that elite may cause an individual to be worth less, to be exiled, or even to die or to be killed. Yet such powers do not come from a deity.
In modern history and science, never has there been a verified occasion of a god appearing or demonstrating the powers ascribed throughout history to deities. Always, there is a prophet who speaks for the god. Why cannot the god speak? If a god is omnipotent, then the god can speak. If he cannot, then that god is not omnipotent. Often the prophets say that a god will only speak to the chosen, the worthy.
Should a people accept a god who is either too powerless to speak, or too devious and skeptical to appear? Or a god who will only accept those who swallow a faith laid out by a prophet who merely claims that deity exists—without proof? Yet people have done so, and have granted enormous powers to those who speak for god.
Tag: skepticism
Nevertheless, (Jefferson) believed that the habit of skepticism is an essential prerequisite for responsible citizenship. He argued that the cost of education is trivial compared to the cost of ignorance, of leaving government to the wolves. He taught that the country is safe only when the people rule.
Carl SaganTag: education ignorance skepticism thomas-jefferson
... skepticism can never provide firm ground under a man's feet. And perhaps, after all, we need firm ground.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynTag: skepticism 1968
If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.
Carl SaganTag: science education humanity society democracy skepticism rights
Atheism is the opium of the mathematicians. Atheism is the religion of Mathematics.
Bill GaedeTag: god religion atheism atheist skepticism mathematics exist mathematicians gaede mathematical-physics theist
I don't believe in angels and I have trouble with the whole God thing. I don't want to say I don't believe in God but I don't think I do. But I believe in people who do.
Billy ConnollyTag: belief christianity god religion atheism angels skepticism
The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
Bertrand RussellTag: passion opinions skeptic opinion skepticism extremism rationalism superficiality critical-thinking skeptical
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