#secularism

Better for them to deny the mind--and with it rationality, truth, and science itself--than to admit the soul. Once again, the secularist manifests the very dogmatism of which he accuses the religious believer, and in rationalizing it is willing to contemplate absurdities of which no religious believer has ever dreamed. ↗

— Edward Feser

#secularism #dreams

My people are going to learn the principles of democracy the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will, every man can follow his own conscience provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow men. ↗

— Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

#religion #secularism #men

In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#religion #secularism #art

I want the French people to respect values that allow each individual to practice his or her faith, but in the frame of our common rules of secularism. ↗

— Francois Hollande

#common #each #faith #frame #french

Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#atheism #humanism #secularism #humans

All my moral and intellectual being is penetrated by an invincible conviction that whatever falls under the dominion of our senses must be in nature and, however exceptional, cannot differ in its essence from all the other effects of the visible and tangible world of which we are a self-conscious part. The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is—marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state. No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvelous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural which (take it any way you like) is but a manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate delicacies of our relation to the dead and to the living, in their countless multitudes; a desecration of our tenderest memories; an outrage on our dignity. ↗

— Joseph Conrad

#intelligence

In our secular society, school has become the replacement for church, and like church it requires that its teachings must be taken on faith. ↗

— John Taylor Gatto

#public-education #schooling #secularism #education

But the philosophical and scientific process which I call 'secularization' necessarily involves the divesting of spiritual meaning from the world of nature; the desacralization of politics from human affairs; and the deconsecration of values from the human mind and conduct. ↗

— Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas

#secularization #nature

Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly? ↗

— Sandra Day O'Connor

#religion #secularism #separation-of-church-and-state #state #theocracy

Religions and states and classes and tribes and nations do not have to work or argue for their adherents and subjects. They more or less inherit them. Against this unearned patrimony there have always been speakers and writers who embody Einstein's injunction to 'remember your humanity and forget the rest.' It would be immodest to claim membership in this fraternity/sorority, but I hope not to have done anything to outrage it. Despite the idiotic sneer that such principles are 'fashionable,' it is always the ideas of secularism, libertarianism, internationalism, and solidarity that stand in need of reaffirmation. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#atheism #internationalism #libertarianism #politics #religion