#skeptic

I am the skeptic of skeptics. ↗

— Taylor Caldwell

#i #i am #skeptic #skeptics

Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie. ↗

— Thomas Paine

#religion #science #skepticism #age

Here the skeptic finds chaos and the believer further evidence that the hand that made us is divine. ↗

— Robert Moses

#chaos #divine #evidence #finds #further

Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt. ↗

— Vita Sackville-West

#doubt #every #face #fear #rarely

Nevertheless, a distinction must be made between skepticism as a philosophical thesis and skepticism as an attitude in life. As a philosophical thesis, it is a contradictory one, since it affirms the impossibility of knowing truth, although this affirmation itself claims to be true. Thus, skepticism as a thesis refutes itself in the very act of being formulated. The other aspect is different: this is the abstention from all judgments, skepticism in life, which neither affirms nor denies. This skepticism appears in history time and again, although here, too, it is doubtful whether human life can remain floating in this abstention without taking root in convictions. ↗

— Julián Marías

#attitude

Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#science #skepticism #courage

The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul, breaking the mental manacles, getting the brain out of bondage, giving courage to thought, filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy. ↗

— Robert G. Ingersoll

#science #skepticism #courage

With their backs to the sunrise they worship the night. ↗

— Robert G. Ingersoll

#skepticism #superstition #religion

I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs. ↗

— Sam Harris

#skepticism #faith

Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what so ever. ↗

— Sam Harris

#religion #skepticism #faith