#theism

I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#delusions #fantasy #illusions #religion #religion

It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama. ↗

— Richard P. Feynman

#philosophy #science #religion

God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance. ↗

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

#philosophy #religion #science #skepticism #religion

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me? ↗

— Annie Dillard

#god #religion #religion

Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought. ↗

— Mark Twain

#inspirational #inspirational

I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. ↗

— Douglas Adams

#intelligence #intelligence

If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses? If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them? If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him? If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable? If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees? If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him? IF HE HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE UNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED? ↗

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

#evidence #infallibility #change

It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so,it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that gaurds the door,and this dragon is religion ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#age

We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a ‘higher answer’– but none exists ↗

— Stephen Jay Gould

#evolution #inspirational #life #nature #science

The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence. ↗

— Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri

#intelligence #religion #world #intelligence