#skeptic

I was a terrible believer in things,but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn't know where to put my faith,or if there was such a place,or even what the word faith meant, in all of it's complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake. ↗

— Cheryl Strayed

#faith #nonbelievers #skeptical #faith

Surely we cannot take an open question like the supernatural and shut it with a bang, turning the key of the madhouse on all the mystics of history. You cannot take the region of the unknown and calmly say that, though you know nothing about it, you know all the gates are locked. We do not know enough about the unknown to know that it is unknowable. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#mysticism #skepticism #faith

There was a time when skepticism was an act of rebellion. Since to a degree I both believe in evolution and have faith, I can only conclude that, as prophesied, to have faith will someday be an act of rebellion. ↗

— Criss Jami

#apologetics #atheism #evolution #faith #god

Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#freedom-of-thought #independent-thought #skepticism #freedom

...I believe there is a legitimate aim of transcendence that is more modest and perhaps more realistic. We may not be able to rule out the skeptical possibility, and we may not be able to ground our normal capacity for understanding on something in which we can have even greater confidence; but it may still be possible to show how we can reasonably retain our natural confidence in the exercise of understanding, in spite of the apparent contingencies of our nature and formation. The hope is not to discover a foundation that makes our knowledge unassailably secure but to find a way of understanding ourselves that is not radically self-undermining, and that does not require us to deny the obvious. The aim would be to offer a plausible picture of how we fit into the world. Even in this more modest enterprise both theism and naturalistic reductionism fall short. Theism does not offer a sufficiently substantial explanation of our capacities, and naturalism does not offer a sufficiently reassuring one. ↗

— Thomas Nagel

#radically-self-undermining #skeptical #nature

To be a philosophical Sceptic is the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian. ↗

— David Hume

#christianity #religion #skepticism #nature

I don't differentiate much, except in degree, between people who believe in religion from those who believe in astrology, magic or the supernatural. ↗

— Andy Rooney

#astrology #atheism #belief #beliefs #magic

Superstition [is] cowardice in the face of the Divine. ↗

— Theophrastus

#skepticism #superstition #religion

Atheism is the opium of the mathematicians. Atheism is the religion of Mathematics. ↗

— Bill Gaede

#atheist #exist #gaede #god #mathematical-physics

The real bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles, nor evangelists, nor of Christs. Every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. It is not attested by prophecy, by miracles or signs. It makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity or fear. It has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. It appeals to man in the name of demonstration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. It does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true. It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. The earth, with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth. ↗

— Robert G. Ingersoll

#science #skepticism #faith