#skepticism

It Begins with skepticism. The history of human folly, and our own susceptibility to illusions and fallacies, tell us that men and women are fallible. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#skepticism #men

The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on - I am not too sure. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#skepticism #tolerance #men

I suppose that Willie had his natural quota of ordinary suspicion and caginess, but those things tend to evaporate when what people tell you is what you want to hear. ↗

— Robert Penn Warren

#gullibility #skepticism #men

The typical atheist rebels against God as a teenager rebels against his parents. When his own desires or standards are not fulfilled in the way that he sees fit, he, in revolt, storms out of the house in denial of the Word of God and in scrutiny of a great deal of those who stand by the Word of God. The epithet 'Heavenly Father' is a grand reflection, a relation to that of human nature. ↗

— Criss Jami

#atheism #bible #bitterness #denial #epithet

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