#sceptic

She says he says, but she could be lying to me, and he could be lying to her, so I can’t believe her, even if I could believe her.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#believe #bizarre #funny #honest #honesty

Most people don't believe something can happen until it already has. That's not stupidity or weakness, that's just human nature. ↗

— Max Brooks

#scepticism #weakness #zombie #nature

I have friends who have a CD mastering plant in Hollywood and they are very sceptical about European record labels' understanding of digital technology. ↗

— Gavin Bryars

#cd #digital #european #friends #hollywood

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, 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

How do you give something away with the knowledge that you will get it back in three days, and then claim it to be the 'Ultimate Sacrifice'? ↗

— Jake Jesser

#crucifixion #death #mythology #perspective #religion

I shall be in Paris in two days. Well, all is finished. The waves of human mediocrity rise to the sky and they will engulf the refuge whose dams I open. Ah! courage leaves me, my heart breaks! O Lord, pity the Christian who doubts, the sceptic who would believe, the convict of life embarking alone in the night, under a sky no longer illumined by the consoling beacons of ancient faith. ↗

— Huysmans Joris-Karl Huysmans

#faiths #mediocrity #paris #sceptic #courage

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