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Sunny Jackson

Council for Secular Humanism - 0 views

www.secularhumanism.org/index.php

Cached ≡ Humanism

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - Cached
  • secular humanists don't believe in a God or an afterlife
  • the remarkable thing about the United States is precisely that it was created as a secular republic organized around the rights and freedoms of its citizens
  • secular humanism says the morality of actions should be judged by their consequences
  • ...57 more annotations...
  • There is no central authority
  • People come to secular humanism by following their own curiosity and reasoning
  • secular humanism is not so much a body of beliefs as a method for reaching understanding
  • It is an approach to life that tries to be positive, rational, realistic, and open-minded
  • we are not expressing a doctrine
  • doing our best to state the consensus shared
  • Secular humanists believe morality and meaning come from humanity and the natural world
  • It is our human values that give us rights, responsibilities, and dignity.
  • We believe that morality should aim to bring out the best in people, so that all people can have the best in life.
  • morality must be based on our knowledge of human nature and the real world
  • treat others with the same consideration as you would have them treat you
  • the common moral decencies - for example, people should not lie, steal, or kill; and they should be honest, generous, and cooperative - really are conducive to human welfare
  • Humanists realize that individuals alone cannot solve all our problems, but instead of turning to the supernatural, we believe that problems are solved by people working together, relying on understanding and creativity
  • humanists are committed to promoting human values, human understanding, and human development
  • Humanists also emphasize the importance of self-determination - the right of individuals to control their own lives, so long as they do not harm others
  • freedom of choice
  • people create their own meaning and purpose in life
  • The value and significance of life comes from how we live life, not from some supposed transcendent realm
  • The moral differences between secular humanism and religion do not justify the allegation that secular humanist have no morals. This claim is not an argument, just an insult.
  • Nonreligious, humanistic moral systems existed before Christianity
  • the Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics of classical Greece and Rome
  • the common moral decencies are found throughout the cultures of the world
  • The most important moral and political concepts of the modern era have developed out of humanistic thinking
  • You will search the Bible in vain for opposition to slavery or support for democracy and equality
  • neither the Supreme Court, nor this circuit, has ever held that evolutionism or secular humanism are `religions'
  • they refused to reverse a ruling that secular humanism is not a religion
  • Secular humanism is not a religion by any definition: There are no supernatural beliefs, no creeds that all humanists are required to accept, no sacred texts or required rituals. Humanists are not expected or required to have "faith" in what is said by any authority, living or dead, human or "supernatural."
  • humanists derive their meaning and values from the natural world. Secular humanism is a naturalistic, nonreligious worldview
  • humanists don't worship anything
  • Humanity's constant challenge is to understand itself and improve itself
  • We don't pretend that our ethics and values are divine: we recognize that they are human, and therefore part of nature
  • individual secular humanists differ
  • the human species has evolved by the same natural processes as every other species
  • some of our most treasured traits, such as language and the ability to understand and care for others, are on an evolutionary continuum with communicative and cooperative behaviors of other animals
  • humans have a moral responsibility towards the rest of the natural world
  • secular humanists cover a wide spectrum
  • One political view that secular humanists do share is unswerving support for democracy, freedom, and human rights
  • All secular humanists are utterly opposed to totalitarian systems
  • The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights contain no references to God or Christianity. Their only references to religion establish freedom of religion and separation of church and state
  • The motto on the Great Seal of the United States, unchanged since its adoption in 1782, is E Pluribus Unum ("From Many, One")
  • The Pledge of Allegiance did not contain an oath to God, until it was added in the 1950s
  • In 1797 the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Treaty of Tripoli which stated that "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
  • secular humanism encourages people to think for themselves and question authority
  • on the basis of shared philosophical principles and ideals
  • The myth that secular humanists are unAmerican is an insult to the patriotism and distinguished service of millions of people.
  • all beliefs are fallible and provisional, and that diversity and dialogue are essential to the process of learning and developing
  • we value tolerance, pluralism, and open-mindedness as positive and beneficial qualities in society
  • Humanists are staunch supporters of freedom of religion, belief, and conscience, as laid out in both the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights protect the freedom of religious belief equally with the freedom of nonreligious belief, the freedom of religion equally with the freedom from religion.
  • the neutrality of a secular society
  • Secular humanists believe that a healthy society supports a variety of worldviews
  • We also believe that religious and philosophical views should be every bit as open to debate and discussion as political beliefs.
  • All these claims make the same mistake: they confuse neutrality with hostility
  • neutrality toward different worldviews is the best protection from persecution
  • Separating church and state doesn't mean that the state promotes atheism and humanism, but that it provides equal protection to all beliefs
  • The amoral, power-hungry "secular humanist" conspiracy described by some religious conservatives is a myth
  • the vibrant movement that champions a moral approach to living based on reason and happiness is alive and growing
  • there are secular humanists. But no, there is no bogeyman.
Sunny Jackson

A brief overview of homosexuality and bisexuality - 0 views

www.religioustolerance.org/hom_intro.htm

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • "Because families are defined by love not gender. Because hatred is not a family value. Because equal rights are not special rights."
  • "Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness." Sigmund Freud (1935)
  • "The fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, THAT my friends, is true perversion."   Harvey Milk
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • "Whatever religious people may say about their love of God or the mandates of their religion, when their behavior toward others is violent and destructive, when it causes suffering among their neighbors, you can be sure the religion has been corrupted and reform is desperately needed." Charles Kimball
  • "When religion sanctifies hatred, it lends to that hatred a special ferocity. Normal moral inhibitors are erased." Johannes Cardinal Wildebrands
  • "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image, when it  turns out that God hates all the same people you do." Anne Lamott
  • homosexuality is morally neutral, is determined by some combination of genetics and environmental factors before school age, is a sexual orientation, is defined by ones sexual attraction to persons of the same sex, and is very rarely if ever changeable during adulthood
  • "It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It's like disapproving of rain."  Francis Maude
  • others consider homosexual orientation to be a morally neutral trait, like left handedness. It is normal, natural, and unchosen
  • the same equal rights and protections enjoyed by other groups
  • equal treatment and protections
  • Abigail Van Buren
  • Homosexuality is measurable and thus is a legitimate area for human sexuality researchers to study. They have generally concluded that adult human sexuality comes in three natural, normal, unchosen, and almost always unchangeable orientations: Heterosexuality: Most people are sexually attracted only to members of the opposite gender. Homosexuality: A small minority of adults are attracted only to members of the same gender. Bisexuality: A smaller minority are attracted to both men and women, but not necessarily to the same degree.
  • justice, love and acceptance
  • If the individual decided to restrict his/her sexual relationship(s) with persons of the opposite sex, they would be considered an ex-gay by most conservatives and a bisexual by most liberals.
  • It is action of oppression and discrimination which harm people.
Sunny Jackson

Bundlr - Reason(s) & Belief - 0 views

bundlr.com/reasons-and-belief

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • contrived
  • circumstantial evidence
  • all members of that religion would speak with one voice regarding ethical and theological issues
  • ...97 more annotations...
  • some piece of knowledge that the people of the time couldn't possibly have known but that is now known to be true
  • still explicable as the result of purely human forces
  • To convince me, a miracle would have to be genuine, verifiable, and represent a real and inexplicable divergence from the ordinary.
  • If a given religion's sacred text consistently promotes peace, compassion and nonviolence
  • Anything that can be explained by peer pressure, the power of suggestion or the placebo effect does not count.
  • Did God intend to communicate his message clearly but failed to do so?
  • if that religion's history reflects that fact
  • I'll be happy to believe in God if he tells me to in person, as long as he does it in such a way that I could be sure that it was not a hallucination
  • interesting theological problems
  • subjective experience
  • self-fulfilling
  • impressive
  • a dramatic, statistically significant increase in recovery rate
  • True inerrancy
  • Almost every religion claims their scripture is perfect, but none that I know of have actually met this exacting standard
  • almost every religion that has ever had the power to do so has persecuted those who believed differently, and I do not think it likely that a morally good deity would allow his chosen faith's good name to be smeared by evil and fallible humans
  • It seems reasonable to expect that, if there existed a god that was interested in revealing itself to humanity and desired that we follow its commands, that god would write down whatever instructions it had to give us in a way that was only amenable to one interpretation.
  • for no apparent reason
  • tended to explode in flames
  • interesting
  • even minor but objectively verifiable miracles would do
  • Favorable coincidences or kind or courageous acts performed by human beings also do not meet this standard.
  • the temporal lobes, especially the left lobe, are somehow involved in religious experience
  • compelling
  • this could still be the result of human influence
  • detailed, specific and unambiguous
  • result could be repeated and confirmed
  • multiple reliable witnesses
  • I invite all theists to respond by preparing a list of things that they would accept as proof that atheism is true.
  • glowing auras of h*** light
  • Why doesn't this happen any more today?
  • conclusive
  • proposed those ideas long ago
  • a double-blind study
  • verified by independent evidence
  • indisputable proof
  • circumstantial, not conclusive, evidence
  • a h*** text entirely without error or self-contradiction
  • extra-biblical evidence
  • I'm not interested in the testimonials of people who converted to a religion, not even if they used to be atheists.
  • to protect them from harm
  • independent of any claim
  • faith healing, or people being "slain in the Spirit" and toppling over, owes more to showmanship and the placebo effect used on eager-to-please individuals that have been worked up into highly excitable, suggestible states
  • possible to disprove
  • there must be independent verification that the piece of knowledge was written in texts that existed well before it was actually discovered by science
  • Everyone has moments of weakness in which emotion overrides logic.
  • Biblical miracles are people raising their hands and telling something impossible to happen, and it happens.
  • something so counter-intuitive that the odds against guessing at it correctly would be staggering
  • the lone success among a thousand failures
  • members of all faiths claim to have had convincing subjective experiences of the truth of that faith
  • something surprising, unlikely or unique
  • if faith healers could restore severed limbs...
  • explain what logic and evidence persuaded them
  • If you attempt to prove God's existence to me by listing the evidence for a young earth, more likely than not you'll be disappointed. (Though I'm always happy to debate the merits of evolution.)
  • “There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse" (Rowe, 1979, p. 336).
  • travel to every planet in the universe individually
  • what arguments and tactics are likely to be ineffective at convincing an atheist to change their mind
  • religious hallucinations associated with epilepsy
  • "An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally as bad or worse" (Rowe, 1979, p. 336).
  • In order to leap the chasm from deism to theism; from deism to Christianity - you need to establish that Yahweh was not merely the natural evolution of Canaanite polytheism, and more importantly, rationalize how an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good God, is compatible with pointless animal suffering.
  • case histories with hallucinations of a religious nature
  • Family religion was focused on the god of the settlement
  • "God by definition is all-powerful, all knowing and all good. If God is all-powerful, He can prevent evil. If God is all knowing and can prevent evil, He knows how to prevent it. If God is all good, He would want to prevent evil. But since there is evil God cannot exist” (Martin & Bernard, 2003, p. 316).
  • there is a profound chasm between (1) deism and (2) theism
  • The Christian God does not exist.
  • The Bible is not the Word of God.
  • The Bible is not 100% factually accurate.
  • This god was the patron of the leading family and, by extension, of the local clan and the settlement
  • the magnetic configurations, not the subjects’ exotic beliefs or suggestibility, were responsible for the experimental facilitation of sensing a presence
  • Convergence involved the coalescence of various deities and/or some of their features into the figure of Yahweh
  • The Cosmological argument, the Kalām cosmological argument, the Teleological or Design argument, and the Ontological argument - merely take you to the deists' side of the chasm.
  • Features belonging to deities such as El, Asherah, and Baal were absorbed into the Yahwistic religion of Israel.
  • religion was predominantly a matter of the family
  • speaks in tongues (glossolalia)
  • Jesus was not God.
  • “The text itself of each Gospel is anonymous and its title represents what later tradition had to say about the identity of the author … the first Gospel was put together by an unknown Christian who utilized the Gospel of Mark, the Matthean collection, and other special sources.” (Metzger, 2003, p. 114)
  • Allegiance to the clan god was concomitant with membership of the clan
  • Epicurus (341 - 270 BCE) Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
  • "Many of the books of the New Testament are pseudonymous – written not by the apostles but by later writers claiming to be apostles" (Ehrman, 2009, pp. 5-6).
  • God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
  • Ecclesiastes 9:5 – "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten."
  • Religious experience can be replicated using magnetic fields
  • at least one of the gospel authors is making content up
  • “The text itself, like all the gospels, is anonymous.” (Price, 2006, p. 493)
  • At least one of the gospels is incorrect
  • seizures can also be “focal”; that is, they can remain confined largely to a single small part of the brain
  • even if both phrases were said together, he could only die immediately after one of them
  • 80% of normal people will feel a sensed presence within the room if you stimulate a person’s temporal lobes with magnetic fields
  • at least one gospel is making content up
  • they cannot both be true
  • “To refer to the author as Matthew is only a convention.” (Miller, 1995, p. 56)
  • “Like all the gospels, our so-called Matthew was originally anonymous.” (Price, 2006, p. 114)
  • if they happen to be in the limbic system, then the most striking symptoms are emotional.
  • God changed his mind
  • put to death men and women, children and infants
  • “The text itself of each Gospel is anonymous and its title represents what later tradition had to say about the identity of the author.” (Metzger, 2003, p. 114)
  • there do exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse” (Rowe, 1979, p. 337).
Sunny Jackson

Popular beliefs about homosexuality - 0 views

www.religioustolerance.org/hom_beli.htm

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • They teach that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender persons and transsexuals (LGBT) represent a threat to religious freedom. -- not a threat to the freedom of of the church and its members to believe as they wish, but as a threat to the freedom of the church to openly discriminate against LGBTs
  • a homosexual or bisexual orientation is generally both unchosen and unchangeable
  • generally do not recommend reparative therapy because of its very low success rate
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • expect LGBTs to remain celibate for life
  • dangers
  • equal rights and protections for persons of all sexual orientations, including the right to marry
  • the extension of federal and state hate-crime laws to include violent crimes motivated by hatred of the victim's sexual orientation
  • regard homophobia -- any denial of human rights based on sexual orientation -- to be as profoundly immoral as is sexism and racism
  • benefits of marriage
  • A significant majority of Canadian adults support same-sex marriage, which was legalized in all ten provinces and three territories in mid-2005
  • persons of all sexual orientations protected from abuse, firing, discrimination in accommodation, violence in hate crimes, exclusion from the military, etc.
  • People love to portray situations in terms of two options
  • life is not that simple
  • Homosexuality, is morally neutral
  • Persons of all sexual orientations deserve equal rights
  • Homophobia is the main evil
  • Full acceptance and valuing of persons of all sexual orientations
  • a normal and natural sexual minority
  • supportive
  • a fundamental human right
Sunny Jackson

Bundlr - Humanism 101 - 0 views

bundlr.com/...humanism

shared by Sunny Jackson on 24 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • reliance on reason, evidence, and free inquiry
  • considers the welfare of humankind - rather than the welfare of a supposed God or gods - to be of paramount importance
  • affirms our ability and responsibility to lead meaningful, ethical lives
  • ...80 more annotations...
  • people can find purpose in life and maximize their long-term happiness by developing their talents and using those talents for the service of humanity
  • human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives
  • a democratic and ethical lifestance
  • value knowledge based on reason and hard evidence
  • this is the only life
  • adding to the greater good of humanity
  • using human efforts to meet human needs
  • recognizes human beings as a part of nature
  • supporters of the principle of separation of church and state
  • humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny
  • individual freedom
  • represents a consensus of what all or almost all Humanists believe
  • universal human dignity
  • we owe it to ourselves and others to make it the best life possible for ourselves and all
  • values-be they religious, ethical, social, or political-have their source in human experience and culture
  • an uncreated universe that obeys natural laws
  • service to others is a major focus of Humanism
  • stands for the building of a more humane society
  • people's fulfillment by personal effort
  • knowledge can be obtained through rational thought and experimentation
  • advocates the extension of participatory democracy
  • Humanists believe in and value love, equality, peace, freedom and reason
  • derives the goals of life from human need
  • accept democracy
  • the preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value
  • an approach to life based on reason and our common humanity, recognizing that moral values are properly founded on human nature and experience
  • a philosophy, world view, or lifestance
  • a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion
  • Humanist values are mainstream American values
  • when people are free to think for themselves, using reason and knowledge as their tools, they are best able to solve this world's problems
  • the open society, standing for human rights and social justice
  • Humanists take responsibility for their own lives and relish the adventure of being part of new discoveries, seeking new knowledge, exploring new options
  • a philosophy
  • Since most believe that an afterlife is non-existent, they regard life here on earth to be particularly precious
  • ethics based on human and other natural values in a spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities
  • fundamentalist religion has no right to claim the moral high ground
  • Affirming the dignity of each human being
  • many people realize that they are already humanists and just did not know
  • Humanists stand for the building of a more humane, just, compassionate, and democratic society using a pragmatic ethics based on human reason, experience, and reliable knowledge-an ethics that judges the consequences of human actions by the well-being of all life on Earth.
  • Although religious texts can teach good lessons, they also advocate fear, intolerance, hate and ignorance.
  • highly motivated to alleviating pain and misery around the world
  • Secular Humanism a non-religiously based philosophy
  • supports the maximization of individual liberty and opportunity consonant with social and planetary responsibility
  • Humanists view this natural world as wondrous and precious, and as offering limitless opportunities for exploration, fascination, creativity, companionship, and joy
  • All quotes from religious texts were checked by scripture scholars to ensure accuracy, context and proper translation. 
  • value freedom of inquiry, expression and action
  • have a history of combating bigotry, hatred, discrimination, intolerance and censorship
  • truth could be discovered by human effort
  • humans have the freedom to give meaning, value, and purpose to their lives by their own independent thought, free inquiry, and responsible, creative activity
  • moral values derive their source from human experience
  • humanists enjoy the open-endedness of a quest and the freedom of discovery
  • Humanism considers the universe to be the result of an extremely long and complex evolution under immutable laws of nature
  • Humanists seek to understand the universe by using science and its methods of critical inquiry-logical reasoning, empirical evidence, and skeptical evaluation of conjectures and conclusions-to obtain reliable knowledge
  • The rights of men and women should be equal and sacred
  • a philosophy centered upon the needs and interests of people
  • marriage should be a perfect partnership
  • love coupled with empathy, democracy, and a commitment to selfless service
  • secular humanist values are consistent with mainstream America
  • nature is all that exists or is real
  • Humanism is the idea that you can be good without a belief in God.
  • the lack of any evidence for an afterlife means this life should be lived as though it's the only one we have
  • When people view the Bible as the word of a just and omniscient God, and attempt to have society's laws and social practices reflect biblical teachings, serious error and harm will occur if the Bible was actually written by fallible humans who lived in an unenlightened era.
  • When the subjects involve governmental issues, all of society can be affected
  • In most communities, an opposing view is rarely, if ever, heard
  • It would instead perpetuate the ideas of an ignorant and superstitious past - and prevent humanity from rising to a higher level.
  • written solely by humans
  • it contains numerous contradictions
  • The Bible is an unreliable authority
  • The massive and incessant promotion of the Bible significantly influences the beliefs of millions
  • Humanists also reject the Bible because it approves of outrageous cruelty and injustice.
  • because so many people have been told the Bible is the "Good Book," biblical teachings shape the attitudes of millions
  • Humanity’s condition could be greatly improved if those resources were used for solving the world's problems instead of worshiping a nonexistent God.
  • Logically, if two statements are contradictory, at least one of them is false.
  • the suffering of the innocent is the essence of injustice
  • the book has many false statements and is not infallible
  • the Bible teaches that God repeatedly violated this moral precept by harming innocent people
  • Instances of cruel and unjust behavior by the biblical God are seen in the most basic Christian doctrines.
  • hundreds of contradictions mean there are at least hundreds of incorrect statements in the Bible
  • because the writers of the Bible lived in an unenlightened era, the book contains many errors and harmful teachings
  • Each contradiction is an instance where at least one of the verses is wrong.
Sunny Jackson

Carl Sagan - Wikiquote - 0 views

en.wikiquote.org/Carl_Sagan

Wiki Quote Book

shared by Sunny Jackson on 03 Jul 13 - Cached
  • Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
  • If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you … On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.
  • The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key.
  • ...49 more annotations...
  • We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. That's a clear prescription for disaster.
  • I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.
  • If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
  • Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever it has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?
  • In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
  • Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
  • We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever.
  • It is all a matter of time scale. An event that would be unthinkable in a hundred years may be inevitable in a hundred million.
  • The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science.
  • With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong.
  • Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.
  • For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.
  • They (i. e., the Pythagoreans) did not advocate the free confrontation of conflicting points of view. Instead, like all orthodox religions, they practised a rigidity that prevented them from correcting their errors.
  • If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
  • We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew with undiminished wonder: What are the stars? Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.
  • If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
  • A googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number 1... no matter what number you have in mind, infinity is larger still.
  • The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are.
  • The library connects us with the insights and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.
  • Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors.
  • I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.
  • Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid.
  • As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and the sky.
  • History is full of people who out of fear or ignorance or the lust for power have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to all of us. We must not let it happen again
  • 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.
  • there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined
  • We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.
  • whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised.
  • Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations. We have broadened the circle of those we love. We have now organized what are modestly described as super-powers, which include groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together — surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.
  • Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group.
  • the choice, as H. G. Wells once said in a different context, is clearly the universe or nothing.
  • Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.
  • it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.
  • For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
  • Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone control the world?
  • God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intelligence. You simply turn your mind off and say God did it.
  • Humans are very good at dreaming
  • For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
  • You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep seated need to believe.
  • We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both.
  • We're made of star-stuff.
  • The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.
  • We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.
  • We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.
  • The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.
  • War is murder writ large.
  • By exploring other worlds we safeguard this one. By itself, I think this fact more than justifies the money our species has spent in sending ships to other worlds. It is our fate to live during one of the most perilous and, at the same time, one of the most hopeful chapters in human history.
  • Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil.
  • You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It's up to you.
Sunny Jackson

Russell's teapot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Russell%27s_teapot

info Wiki

shared by Sunny Jackson on 03 Jul 13 - Cached
  • the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims
  • it would be nonsensical for him to expect others to believe him on the grounds that they could not prove him wrong
  • if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account
  • no one can prove a negative
  • Science has no way of establishing the existence or non-existence of a god.
  • if agnosticism demands giving equal respect to the belief and disbelief in a supreme being, then it must also give equal respect to belief in an orbiting teapot, since the existence of an orbiting teapot is just as plausible scientifically as the existence of a supreme being
  • reductio ad absurdum
  • Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true
Sunny Jackson

Humanism - 0 views

www.religioustolerance.org/humanism.htm

Humanism

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - Cached
  • they do not believe in the existence of a deity, or have no opinion, or don't care
  • codes of behavior and morality can be created through reason
  • concerned about human rights and equal opportunities for all
Sunny Jackson

Humanist Manifesto III - 0 views

www.americanhumanist.org/...Humanist_Manifesto_III

Humanism

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.
  • guided by reason, inspired by compassion, and informed by experience
  • values and ideals, however carefully wrought, are subject to change as our knowledge and understandings advance
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • not what we must believe but a consensus of what we do believe
  • Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis.
  • Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience.
  • and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility
  • We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity
  • Life's fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals.
  • Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence.
  • The joining of individuality with interdependence enriches our lives, encourages us to enrich the lives of others, and inspires hope of attaining peace, justice, and opportunity for all.
  • Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness.
  • We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability
  • committed to diversity
  • Humanists are concerned for the well being of all
  • respect those of differing yet humane views
  • uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties
  • humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals
  • The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone.
Sunny Jackson

Stop Saying "Same-Sex" Marriage | The Humanist - 0 views

thehumanist.org/...0%9csame-sex%e2%80%9d-marriage

Humanism

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • What saying “gay” or “same-sex” marriage does confer is that the social worth of gay and lesbian individuals is subordinate and inferior to their heterosexual counterparts.
  • As humanists, we should stop saying “gay marriage” and “same-sex marriage” and call it what it really is: marriage.
  • marriage is a cherished, challenging, and rewarding commitment between two individuals who love each other and who have their relationship recognized by the state for certain privileges and protections.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Nowhere in that structure is the sex or gender of the participants relevant. What is relevant is the love, mutual respect, care, and commitment between the participants.
  • homosexuality is neither a disease nor a disorder
  • there is no valid secular reason to discriminate against gay and lesbian individuals
  • Diminished social worth caused by popular disparaging has far-reaching consequences
  • Same-sex couples are only asking for what is deserved, the extensions of these marriage rights that are open to our heterosexual peers.
  • We no longer need a god for health and welfare, social order, or the maintenance of the laws of physics (and frankly, we never did).
  • We’ve moved on
  • I find the implication of inferiority by distinction offensive.
  • Language has power, and without thinking, our use of these specific terms can cause pain and separation between us and the very people we support.
  • Freethinkers are always at the forefront of pursuits to elevate all of humanity, to achieve equality, and to work for the greater good (which includes happiness).
  • As humanists we must be compelled to actively participate in these endeavors.
  • we do have the ability to do the little things that really matter
  • once and for all, stop saying “same-sex marriage“ and call it what it really is: Marriage. For all.
Sunny Jackson

Hopeful☀Heathens - 0 views

hopefulheathens.tumblr.com/3

Atheists

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • I try to approach all people with equal amounts of respect.  But if I am approached with unjust rudeness, condescension, or disrespect, I will sometimes (if the situation calls for it) answer in the fashion I was addressed.
  • because people don’t get to be respectfully reasoned with if they’re going to insult me from the get-go
  • there’s a time to be nice and then there’s a time to be real
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • In terms of atheism, I will always show respect to people who are curious, even if their curiosity seems intrusive or easily solved by looking at Google.  I will always answer genuine questions in a genuine fashion.
  •  If someone addresses me or atheists in general in a derogatory way, however, they usually don’t deserve any graciousness on my part.
  • Because we already fight such a daunting stereotype
  • everyone is an individual person who is responsible for their actions and no one else’s
  •  One theist being rude to you does not say anything about theists
  • Conversely, a theist griping about how rotten atheists are is really saying something about himself: that he’s biased, unjust, and silly for generalizing.
  • remember that people will usually treat you the way you treated them
  • they were the ones setting the tone
  • people like this are not indicative of all
  • If you’re using their individual behavior as an excuse to dislike their entire group, you’re the one who is really adding to the stereotypes
  •  Blanket assumptions work both ways.
Sunny Jackson

Religion vs politics- goes both ways by *Verixas92 on deviantART - 0 views

verixas92.deviantart.com/...itics-goes-both-ways-346066628

Reason(s) and Belief Dislike

shared by Sunny Jackson on 01 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Marriage comes with civil benefits
  • Religiously, marriage can be a multitude of things
  • If you really want to have more credibility with your arguments, maybe you should try to not sound like you are generalizing a whole group of people.
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • Civil partnerships are not equality. It's like asking black folks to drink from the "civil drinking fountain."
  • religion and politics should be kept separate
  • I'm also curious to know what glass house you think I'm in.
  • You can fact check all my statements and you'll find them to be quite true.
  • If he is allowed to post his beliefs in a stamp, journal, or art, then I am allowed to post my opinion in a comment.
  • I am not forcing Atheism on anybody
  • I am not in any group concerning christians
  • I'm only stating my opinion
  • I wasn't searching for religious stamps, but political stamps.
  • I don't care if christians think I'm a troll
  • the picture is in the group. Too bad. I am not
  • This isn't a "Christian community" this is deviantart. As a fellow atheist, I found this stamp by searching for "gay art", not "Christian community", just like many of the other commentators did
  • Just because it's featured in a Christian group doesn't mean it can't be found outside the group
  • unless you're actively searching IN the group there's no way to know that the stamp is part of any religious club
  • Marriage is not religious. I'm atheist, and I can get married any time I want.
  • I'm an atheist, and I celebrate Christmas as a holiday to love my family.
  • Get over yourself.
  • it's what gives people morals
  • If you NEED religion to have morals, you're actually a pretty shitty person.
Sunny Jackson

Oral Arguments Presented in Massachusetts Case Challenging "Under God" in Pledge of All... - 0 views

www.americanhumanist.org/...ed-in-massachusetts-case-chall

Humanism

shared by Sunny Jackson on 01 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • constitutional equal protection
  • “The daily recitation in public schools of a pledge declaring that the nation is ‘under God’ is discriminatory toward atheists and humanists,”
  • “No child should go to school each day to have the class declare that her religious beliefs are wrong in an exercise that portrays her and her family as less patriotic than believers.”
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The federal government added “under God” to its wording of the Pledge in 1954
  • before that the Pledge simply declared that the nation was “one nation indivisible.”
  • The original version of the Pledge, written in 1892, is completely secular and inclusive of all Americans.
  • Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism, affirms our responsibility to lead ethical lives of value to self and humanity.
Sunny Jackson

Why do atheists talk so much about this God they disbelieve in? - Quora - 0 views

www.quora.com/ut-this-God-they-disbelieve-in

Quora Questions Learning

shared by Sunny Jackson on 07 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • when the god squad stops trying to enforce their god through legislation, we'll stop talking about it
  • oddly enough, despite my not believing in him, other people keep trying to cram him down my throat, often via efforts to enact laws based on his non-existent rules.This disturbs me.
  • Yeah, I know a detective who talks about crime a lot.  Mad isn't it?
  • ...74 more annotations...
  • I try to give equal time to all the gods that I don't believe in.
  • Religion is a huge force in the world. Good, bad or mixed, it's inescapable.
  • When something is a major component of the Human Condition, it's notable.
  • None.
  • wanted to make you and your children believe this too and were willing to change laws, education and polices to force this
  • how long would it take before you started speaking out?
  • Like all conscientious people who care about what goes on in the world, we are all struggling to define the best way for us to live.
  • There are good things in the world and there are bad things in the world. What is good and bad, and in what degree, depends on your perspective.
  • When it happens publicly, it is generally regarded by atheists as either gauche or extreme.It seems most extreme when it enters into political or other ostensibly secular arenas, like school.
  • the strengths of these secular institutions depends widely on the separation of religious and secular activities and ideologies
  • this resembles a backslide into barbarism and ignorance
  • For the atheist, it is a frightening prospect that people want to hinder education or freedoms based on Biblical writings.
  • if I did not care about the world, I would have nothing to say about God.
  • Both I, and the most extreme fundamentalist, want only to live in the best way we know how.
  • As an atheist, I personally have no qualm with any belief in a deistic God.
  • When I see people pushing other people around, trying to take away their rights of people, or hurting people in some way, I get angry.
  • For this atheist, it isn't about God, it's about how we treat people.
  • There is an unfortunate crossover with religion and social justice.
  • I am only concerned with the ways in which religion, as I see the world, hurts the vision I have of how we should best live. There are grave incompatibilities with that vision.
  • I don't believe in spirits, or souls, or gods or reincarnation. I do believe in finding meaning, in finding the "path to the self", and finding the best way to live in this world.
  • hope for the future elevation of humanity to freedom, to the best possible health and cooperation
  • There is beauty and wisdom in every belief system, but also there is ugliness and ignorance to be found, and I see it as a detriment to humanity if we simply avoid the hard work of re-examining those parts, and simply allow people to say "It is God's will, we've got a book that says so."
  • What am I talking about? Subjugation of women, ostracism of homosexuals, teaching creation myths as science to children, circumcision of boys by Jews, of girls by certain sects. From the eyes of an atheist, doing these things in 2012 is an archaic nightmare. Allowing these things to happen out of a fear of offending people is a most ludicrous failure of humanity.
  • a human person wrote any words in any book ever written. There are no gods, no sons of gods, and no prophets. To hold another person hostage for words written by a man, who possessed all the frailties we have today, but had far less knowledge, seems a dangerous and singularly terrible act to condone in this time. We know there is no basis for it, and it is frightening to see those who are willing to commit violence and abuse in the name of God and call it "good".
  • it seems simply like folly or madness
  • They had a belief that their view of the world was the right one, just as I have a view of the world that I believe is the right one.
  • To the atheist, it resembles a wave of madness taking over people.
  • Approach with caution and come with gifts
  • I know a lot about "this God" theists believe in
  • It is always good to engage your mind in an intellectual exercise
  • I was once a believer
  • I'm more certain on my position now that I ever was when I believed in god
  • it helps me refine my thoughts
  • often I find myself discussing something with a theist who has a strong intellect - and this is entertaining in the same way a sports person, or chess player, enjoys meeting their match or better; it gives me a chance to stretch and test myself - see where I might need to improve my "game".
  • All we do is try and unpack the reasons behind things
  • After unpacking these reasons the conclusion is baffling; These things are done, people are tortured, children are abused all in the name of a story.
  • I find belief in god and other supernatural entities an interesting human and social phenomenon.
  • Religion teaches to be satisfied with not understanding.
  • Religion teaches to not question authority.
  • Religion teaches a twisted concept of evidence and logic.
  • Religion advocates intolerance.
  • Religion promotes immorality.
  • Religion promotes inaction.
  • Religion inhibits progress.
  • I talk about the silly, stupid and vicious things that some people who claim to believe try to impose on the rest of us.
  • And sometimes I applaud the wonderful things that people of good character and religious belief do
  • What people do in this world matters.
  • Think of it as self defense.Atheists don't talk about their views until religious people refuse to shut up about theirs.
  • surrounded by theists trying to ram their beliefs down everyone else's throats, incorporating their religion into the government and legal system, corrupting the educational system by blurring the difference between fact and belief, and murdering and hurting people in the name of their "god"
  • Why should anyone assume that if one disbelieves in something, especially something that a lot of other people keep saying they believe in, one should not talk about it?
  • Why do anti-war people talk so much about war if they don't believe in war? Pretty much the same reason for atheists and talk about god.
  • I only really talk about it when someone else brings it up. Since I live in the United States, this happens about every ten minutes.
  • large percentages of each country believes in some God
  • They have TV shows to broadcast their beliefs
  • billboards
  • huge gatherings
  • radio shows
  • You have people standing in the street, shouting at you, telling you how you are going to hell
  • You have religious people questioning evolution, preaching creationism, questioning the Big Bang and promoting God-magic.
  • some people still insist in teaching their children that an invisible being thought the universe into existence, and that believing this is more rational than to trust science's explanation of the same event
  • Religion is stepping on my toes - a response is pretty much expected don't you think?
  • if 'talking about God' means 'talking about theology,' then Atheists totally have a right and a commission to do so, because theology can be done by both adherents and non-adherents
  • Atheists have been portrayed as belligerent, annoying twerps who need to be quiet; when, in reality, their calling out religion needs to be applauded. This is the 21st century—a supposedly new era—and Atheists are doing a good job of calling out politicians and leaders who cannot and will not rationalize their decisions outside of a faith context.
  • So many people do boneheaded things in the name of God, both those doers and their God need to be called out...and that calling out is often done by Atheists.
  • I, for one, find religion/mythology fascinating.
  • bad things religion pushes and endorses
  • we do not have to believe anything on insufficient evidence
  • the harms it can bring
  • that is a serious problem
  • Atheists do not keep talking about god. They keep getting asked about it
  • it's a part of our history and culture that is hard to ignore
  • we don't like being lied to
  • there's no reason to believe it
  • try to reason
Sunny Jackson

With Liberty & Justice for All | The Humanist - 0 views

thehumanist.org/...with-liberty-justice-for-all

shared by Sunny Jackson on 07 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • The world urgently needs more liberty and justice, and therefore more humanism.
  • The ethical system of humanism prioritizes these ideals at a higher level than any belief system that precedes it
  • it values the life of every person in this world
  • ...39 more annotations...
  • Societies that prioritize private liberty to excess, that let individuals accumulate all the powers they can, find that vast inequalities emerge. Those inequalities congeal into hierarchical social classes and rigid castes and severely restrict freedom of opportunity for all but the privileged and wealthy.
  • bonded in mutual support
  • this worldly life is one of mutual reliance, every person depending on so many others
  • reasonable humanism
  • The individual needs freedoms within a supportive society, while society needs individuals to support the whole.
  • Humanism emerges as individuals abandon submission to religious traditions and gods that their reasoning cannot justify.
  • Humanism seeks greater freedoms and opportunities for individuals as they expand their capacities, yet humanism also fights for social justice when novel social structures disempower peoples or entire societies.
  • Humanism works best as a liberating ethos within cultures as they try to balance liberty and justice.
  • it is fundamentally about responsibility
  • that which each individual owes others, and also what society owes to each individual
  • trying to gradually improve people’s lives
  • regardless of any cultural pieties that stand stubbornly in the way
  • starts with actual people as they really are, culture and all
  • practical value
  • logical thought
  • the aim of humanistic reform is not progress towards a static abstract truth
  • It isn’t necessary to know what is ethically perfect before you can know what is morally reprehensible.
  • ethics of liberty and justice for all
  • Balancing liberty and justice in healthy proportions is wiser than naively supposing that both can be maximized
  • organizing against oppressive powers
  • reasonable public discussion
  • permanent reform by nonviolent and democratic means
  • it smartly keeps its means consistent with its ends
  • Humanism is the stance of vigilance for new forms of repression and oppression
  • debating values and priorities
  • alleviate suffering and decay
  • Any list of principles and ideals from humanist manifestos and resolutions at most affirm priorities for constant vigilance and standards that work for humanistic cultures so far.
  • The personal and social ethics of humanism in its details must be ever-changing
  • the practical meanings to such things as “equal dignity and worth” and “social justice” gradually develop as cultures slowly transform
  • people hundreds of years in the future will find fault with our ways
  • We may achieve better liberty and justice in our lifetimes
  • Even our moral successes today will be regarded as immoral compromises by distant generations; they’ll point to our fine ideals, our imperfect reach, and our impotent blindness.
  • Humanism asks everyone to question old pieties using common sense and an open heart, without forgetting that these human resources are within everyone.
  • Humanism can’t respect blind cultural piety, but it does recognize that religion is hardly the only source of oppression.
  • sound minds and good hearts are always needed as allies
  • Humanism urges principles of ethical wisdom for each person, without demanding submission to some wisdom tradition.
  • we must forcefully sustain its radical spirit of outrage against any degradation to humanity anywhere
  • humanism fights for greater opportunity and empowerment of each individual
  • humanity deserves nothing less than liberty and justice for all
Sunny Jackson

How I describe humanism to religious people : atheism - 0 views

www.reddit.com/...e_humanism_to_religious_people

Humanism

shared by Sunny Jackson on 07 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Morality leads to a better life for everyone.
  • working together with rationality and science as tools can lead to a better world
  • Cooperation makes sense
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • I describe humanism as acting in the best interest of all those we know exist.
  • two good reasons to be a humanist: altruism and enlightened self-interest
  • I help others simply because I want them to be happy and not have to suffer
  • because I want to live in a world where I would be helped
  • compassion
  • Empathy
  • solidarity
  • We must treat others as our equals in order to ensure a balanced world.
  • No one deserves to be treated better or worse than someone else.
  • It is through our impact on others, how we will be remembered, and whether or not we make the world a better place, even just for some, that we will achieve any true lasting "immortality."
  • We live on in the hearts and minds of those who we loved and loved us, those whose lives we made better
  • we should try to make the earth better for everybody
  • like a star over the horizon, it is a direction that we can move towards
Sunny Jackson

Karl Popper - Wikiquote - 0 views

en.wikiquote.org/Karl_Popper

Wiki Quote Book

shared by Sunny Jackson on 03 Jul 13 - Cached
  • The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth
  • When I speak of reason or rationalism, all I mean is the conviction that we can learn through criticism of our mistakes and errors, especially through criticism by others, and eventually also through self-criticism.
  • A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from others — not by simply taking over another's opinions, but by gladly allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the ideas of others. The emphasis here is on the idea of criticism or, to be more precise, critical discussion.
  • ...35 more annotations...
  • The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff. He is well aware that acceptance or rejection of an idea is never a purely rational matter; but he thinks that only critical discussion can give us the maturity to see an idea from more and more sides and to make a correct judgement of it.
  • True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
  • The game of science is, in principle, without end.
  • if our civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men. Great men may make great mistakes
  • The open society is one in which men have learned to be to some extent critical of taboos, and to base decisions on the authority of their own intelligence.
  • paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek.
  • paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.
  • counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion
  • We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
  • No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.
  • It is our duty to help those who need help; but it cannot be our duty to make others happy
  • There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.
  • A rationalist, as I use the word, is a man who attempts to reach decisions by argument and perhaps, in certain cases, by compromise, rather than by violence. He is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by force
  • Only if we give up our authoritarian attitude in the realm of opinion, only if we establish the attitude of give and take, of readiness to learn from other people, can we hope to control acts of violence inspired by piety and duty.
  • it always takes two to make a discussion reasonable. Each of the parties must be ready to learn from the other. You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.
  • Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now. Our fellow men have a claim to our help; no generation must be sacrificed for the sake of future generations, for the sake of an ideal of happiness that may never be realised.
  • If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it.
  • we do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.
  • The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance — the fact that our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
  • The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, clear, and well-defined will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. The main source of our ignorance lies in the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
  • I believe it is worthwhile trying to discover more about the world, even if this only teaches us how little we know.
  • What we should do, I suggest, is to give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach. We may admit that our groping is often inspired, but we must be on our guard against the belief, however deeply felt, that our inspiration carries any authority, divine or otherwise. If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far it may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without danger, the idea that truth is beyond human authority. And we must retain it. For without this idea there can be no objective standards of inquiry; no criticism of our conjectures; no groping for the unknown; no quest for knowledge.
  • Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.
  • I believe it is worthwhile trying to discover more about the world, even if this only teaches us how little we know. It might do us good to remember from time to time that, while differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.
  • If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far we may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without risk of dogmatism, the idea that truth itself is beyond all human authority. Indeed, we are not only able to retain this idea, we must retain it. For without it there can be no objective standards of scientific inquiry, no criticism of our conjectured solutions, no groping for the unknown, and no quest for knowledge.
  • Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.
  • The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities — perhaps the only one — in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there.
  • There are all kinds of sources of our knowledge; but none has authority
  • more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.
  • There are all kinds of sources of our knowledge; but none has authority ... The fundamental mistake made by the philosophical theory of the ultimate sources of our knowledge is that it does not distinguish clearly enough between questions of origin and questions of validity.
  • Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.
  • All things living are in search of a better world.
  • Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.
  • There are uncertain truths — even true statements that we may take to be false — but there are no uncertain certainties. Since we can never know anything for sure, it is simply not worth searching for certainty; but it is well worth searching for truth; and we do this chiefly by searching for mistakes, so that we have to correct them.
  • Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.
Sunny Jackson

Rebutting more outlandish statements about atheists | Psychology Today - 0 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...dish-statements-about-atheists

shared by Sunny Jackson on 26 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • correlation does not equal cause
  • These broad-based assertions about atheists are so groundless and outlandish that it's difficult to know where to start in rebutting them.
  • atheists have indeed inhabited foxholes
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • In truth, of course, atheists, like all people, regularly experience far more severe "stress" without abandoning their worldview.
  • the most important factor in creating atheists is education, not material comfort. In fact, if material comfort correlates to atheism, that is only because it also correlates to education.
  • a non-theistic worldview is attained via a lifetime of education and thoughtful consideration of knowledge and reason
  • this is insulting to the millions of atheists and humanists who take their lifestance seriously, who have given much thought and energy to understanding the world
  • Atheists suffer like everyone else, atheists watch loved ones suffer, atheists encounter unbearable hardships, and atheists die in pain - all the while remaining atheists.
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