#scepticism

What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#dislikes #racism #religion #scepticism #stupidity

I always got a bit pissed off with those broadsheet sceptics who make their living being passionately angry about homeopathy, God, synchronicity or whatever, because it's as if they can't get past their emotions, and in their rage they become as faith-driven as the beliefs they criticise. I always said they give scientists a bad name. After all, science has to be about asking unthinkable questions, not closing down debate. ↗

— Scarlett Thomas

#religion #scepticism #sceptics #skepticism #skeptics

Scepticism is as important for a good journalist as it is for a good scientist. ↗

— Freeman Dyson

#important #journalist #scepticism #scientist

Scepticism, that dry caries of the intelligence. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#intelligence #scepticism

Oxford also taught me something else - it taught me scepticism. ↗

— Frank Scott

#else #me #oxford #scepticism #something

You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? - Medicine. ↗

— Tim Minchin

#humor #pseudoscience #quackery #scepticism #humor

A Christian telling an atheist they're going to hell is as scary as a child telling an adult they're not getting any presents from Santa. ↗

— Ricky Gervais

#christianity #comedy #humor #humour #rationality

In the pragmatist, streetwise climate of advanced postmodern capitalism, with its scepticism of big pictures and grand narratives, its hard-nosed disenchantment with the metaphysical, 'life' is one among a whole series of discredited totalities. We are invited to think small rather than big – ironically, at just the point when some of those out to destroy Western civilization are doing exactly the opposite. In the conflict between Western capitalism and radical Islam, a paucity of belief squares up to an excess of it. The West finds itself faced with a full-blooded metaphysical onslaught at just the historical point that it has, so to speak, philosophically disarmed. As far as belief goes, postmodernism prefers to travel light: it has beliefs, to be sure, but it does not have faith. ↗

— Terry Eagleton

#belief #capitalism #faith #grand-narratives #islam

Johnson is a radical skeptic, insisting, in the best Socratic tradition, that everything be put on the table for examination. By contrast, most skeptics opposed to him are selective skeptics, applying their skepticism to the things they dislike (notably religion) and refusing to apply their skepticism to the things they do like (notably Darwinism). On two occasions I’ve urged Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine, to put me on its editorial board as the resident skeptic of Darwinism. Though Shermer and I know each other and are quite friendly, he never got back to me about joining his editorial board. ↗

— William A. Dembski

#critical-thinking #darwinism #evolution #macro-evolution #macroevolution

She believed in nothing. Only her scepticism kept her from being an atheist. ↗

— Jean-Paul Sartre

#belief #scepticism #skepticism #belief