#skepticism

It is my firm conviction that man has nothing to gain, emotionally or otherwise, by adhering to a falsehood, regardless of how comfortable or sacred that falsehood may appear. Anyone who claims, on the one hand, that he is concerned with human welfare, and who demands, on the other hand, that man must suspend or renounce the use of his reason, is contradicting himself. There can be no knowledge of what is good for man apart from knowledge of reality and human nature, and there is no manner in which this knowledge can be acquired except through reason. To advocate irrationality is to advocate that which is destructive to human life. ↗

— George H. Smith

#religion #skepticism #life

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#skepticism #religion

God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance. ↗

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

#philosophy #religion #science #skepticism #religion

Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither. ↗

— Robert G. Ingersoll

#science #skepticism #religion

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 Russell

#extremism #opinion #opinions #passion #rationalism

You could just as well say that an agnostic is a deeply religious person with at least a rudimentary knowledge of human fallibility. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#religion #skepticism #religion

Science has carried us to the gateway to the universe. And yet our conception of our surroundings remains the disproportionate view of the still-small child. We are spiritually and culturally paralyzed, unable to face the vastness, to embrace our lack of centrality and find our actual place in the fabric of nature. We batter this planet as if we had someplace else to go. That we even do science is a hopeful glimmer of mental health. However, it's not enough merely to accept these insights intellectually while we cling to a spiritual ideology that is not only rootless in nature but also, in many ways, contemptuous of what is natural. ↗

— Ann Druyan

#science #skepticism #nature

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#independent-thought #opinions #skepticism #thinking #independence

In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder. ↗

— Robert G. Ingersoll

#religion #skepticism #worship #age

I'd say there was a fair amount of skepticism at the time about whether the Internet held any promise. And of course I felt that it did. ↗

— Jim Clark

#amount #any #course #did #fair