#agnostic

Thus, as far as he is a scientific man, as far as he knows anything, he is a materialist; outside his science, in spheres about which he knows nothing, he translates his ignorance into Greek and calls it agnosticism. ↗

— Friedrich Engels

#engels #marx #marxism #science #science

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis argues that human beings cannot be truly good or moral without faith in God and without submis- sion to the will of Christ. Unfortunately, Lewis does not provide any actual data for his assertions. They are nothing more than the mild musings of a wealthy British man, pondering the state of humanity’s soul between his sips of tea. Had Lewis actually famil- iarized himself with real human beings of the secular sort, per- haps sat and talked with them, he would have had to reconsider this notion. As so many apostates explained to me, morality is most certainly possible beyond the confines of faith. Can people be good without God? Can a moral orientation be sustained and developed outside of a religious context? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes. ↗

— Phil Zuckerman

#atheism #ethics #morality #morals #religion

He respected the power of faith, the benevolence of churches, the strength religion gave so many people . . . and yet, for him, the one intellectual suspension of disbelief that was imperative if one were truly going to "believe" had always proved too big an obstacle for his academic mind. "I want to believe," he heard himself say. ↗

— Dan Brown

#belief #faith #religion #faith

I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'. ↗

— Thomas Huxley

#appropriate #conceived #i #invented #thought

Agnosticism has nothing to impart. Its sermons are the exhortations of one who convinces you he stands on nothing and urges you to stand there too. ↗

— Anna Julia Cooper

#convinces #exhortations #impart #nothing #sermons

I don't think I've ever been an agnostic. I've always thought there's a superior power, that this is not the real world and that there's a world to come. ↗

— Bob Dylan

#always #been #come #ever #i

I deeply believe in pluralism. I believe in the close proximity of multiple systems or agnostic systems. ↗

— Ben Nicholson

#believe #close #close proximity #deeply #i

Interviewer: "Didn't [Sagan] want to believe?" Druyan: "He didn't want to believe. He wanted to know. ↗

— Ann Druyan

#astronomy #atheism #carl-sagan #science #science

The Fundamentalist Christians have told me that I am a slave of Satan and should have my demons expelled with an exorcism. The Fundamentalist Materialists inform me that I am a liar, charlatan, fraud and scoundrel. Aside from this minor difference, the letters are astoundingly similar. Both groups share the same crusading zeal and the same lack of humor, charity and common human decency. These intolerable cults have served to confirm me in my agnosticism by presenting further evidence to support my contention that when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases. ↗

— Robert Anton Wilson

#christianity #humor #humor

Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of health; everything absolute belongs to pathology. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#absolution #agnosticism #distrust #evasion #health