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Sunny Jackson

Craziest Ann Coulter Quotes - Crazy Ann Coulter Quote Generator - 0 views

politicalhumor.about.com/...bl-ann-coulter-quotes.htm

Quotes Dislike

shared by Sunny Jackson on 01 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • ''I think [women] should be armed but should not vote...women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it...it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care.'' —Ann Coulter, on ''Politically Incorrect,'' February 26, 2001
Sunny Jackson

God: Do atheists disbelieve only in god(s) or do they disbelieve in any force that give... - 0 views

www.quora.com/...e-that-gives-human-beings-hope

shared by Sunny Jackson on 26 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Many things give humans hope
  • normal human beings
  • an atheist is "someone who doesn't believe in gods." Full stop.
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • I'm just one atheist, and I believe hope exists, because I often feel it.
  • I hope it's a sunny day tomorrow, and the fact that the weatherman said that's what I should expect gives me hope it will be.
  • make sure you're using the word "belief" in a clear way. It can have several meanings.
  • Assuming something exists
  • Being in favor of something
  • There are people who believe God exists but dislike Him, but they're not atheists. Why? Because they believe He exists.
  • it sounds like you're using the second definition of "belief," which means being in favor of something. That's a value.
  • Though individual atheists have values (which often differ drastically from the values of other atheists), atheism has nothing to do with values.
  • it's not an allegiance
  • I like the idea of gods. But I don't believe they exist, so I'm an atheist.
  • I am in favor of hope. I value it.
  • I know there are things that give lots of people hope.
  • I do believe in hope.
  • I have hope that mankind will stop making war
  • I have hope that we will advance our medicine to provide health care to all of humanity
  • I have hope that human rights will be expanded and no one will be victimized or marginalized
  • I have hope that love will win over bigotry and bias.
  • I have hope that religions will not divide us.
  • I have hope that poverty and hunger can be eliminated.
  • I have hope for mankind reaching out to the stars.
  • I have hope for laws that are not based on religious ideology and yet are fair, moral and ethical.
  • My hopes are based upon everything mankind has yet achieved compared to where we once were.
  • My hope is powered by the potential for us to yet be better.
  • My hope is not based on any form of religion and yet is still hope.
  • I have hope for humanity.
  • You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes
  • Many of them downplay how far they've come, but I see their strength and compassion. 
  • Atheists do not hold to a single creed. The only thing they share is a disbelief in some particular kind of god.
  • they might believe in the power of groups of people, working in unison with a common spirit
  • Humanism tends to give people hope
Sunny Jackson

Quoting out of Context Fallacy - Changing Meaning with Selective Quotes - 0 views

atheism.about.com/...ing-Out-Of-Context-Fallacy.htm

shared by Sunny Jackson on 26 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • every quotation necessarily excludes large sections of the original material
  • to take a selective quotation which distorts, alters, or even reverses the originally intended meaning. This can be done accidentally or deliberately.
  • A statement meant ironically can be taken wrong when in written form because much irony is communicated through the emphasis
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • you start out with an ironic observation which is followed by an explanation which communicates that the foregoing was meant to be taken ironically rather than literally
  • a passage of the original material has been taken out of context and thereby given a meaning that is exactly the opposite of what was intended
  • these passages are being used in the implicit argument
  • unethical
  • implication
  • someone is quoted out of context so that their position appears weaker or more extreme than it actually is
  • When this false position is refuted, the author pretends that they have actually refuted the real position of the original person
  • it would not be unusual to see them as premises in arguments, either explicit or implicit
Sunny Jackson

Top Conversation Killers for Atheists: How Religious Theists Can Hurt Their Cause - 0 views

atheism.about.com/...DebateKillers.htm

shared by Sunny Jackson on 26 Jun 13 - Cached
  • take some time to learn how atheists and dictionaries define atheism and agnosticism
  • learn something
  • a real conversation is a two-way street where both contribute and both are interested in taking something away
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • identify and eliminate basic errors
  • For atheists, quoting passages from the Bible proves nothing about any gods whatsoever. At most, it may prove that the person doing the quoting doesn't have anything better to offer.
  • you can't prove anything to atheists by simply quoting the Bible
  • People making a positive claim have a burden of proof; this means that they voluntarily assume an obligation to support their claim
  • make your own arguments
  • many theists do something in particular: they offer arguments for the existence of their god and then ignore the various objections and rebuttals offered by atheists.
  • It's one thing not to agree with those rebuttals, but quite another to go on repeating the argument as if no objections had been raised at all.
  • do some research to learn what the most common objections and rebuttals are
  • atheists will challenge a theist to provide evidence to support their claims. The proper response is to actually provide evidence.
  • It's up to the claimant to show that their position has enough merit to be taken seriously and be looked at more closely.
  • One way or another, the theist appears to be expressing superiority over atheists in a passive-aggressive manner. That suggests they weren't interested in serious conversation to begin with.
Sunny Jackson

Great Minds: Atheist Quotes - 0 views

www.atheistempire.com/...quotes.php

Atheists

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • "The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Treaty of Tripoly, article 11
Sunny Jackson

Great Minds: Atheist Quotes - 0 views

www.atheistempire.com/...quotes.php

Atheists

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time."
Sunny Jackson

Religion: What are some great anti-religion quotes? - Quora - 0 views

www.quora.com/...ome-great-anti-religion-quotes

Quora Questions Learning

shared by Sunny Jackson on 07 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
  • Creationists make it sound like a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night
  • Faith means not wanting to know what is true.
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
  • Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
  • The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.
  • Eskimo:"If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"
  • Without religion, we'd have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
  • To sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me.
  • Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies.
  • "I don't see any god up here" - Yuri Gagarin - first man in space, while in space.
  • I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
  • Since no one really knows anything about God, those who think they do are just troublemakers.
  • The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.
  • Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet
  • Men never do evil so completely and cheerfullly as when they do it from a religious conviction
  • If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.
  • What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
  • The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism.
  • Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.
  • Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.
  • Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did.
  • Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.
  • My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it either.
  • Among theologians, heretics are those who are not backed with a sufficient array of battalions to render them orthodox.
  • Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.
  • One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.
  • A theologian is like a blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat which isn't there - and finding it!
  • Religion is an insult to human dignity.
  • All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.
  • Faith, if it is ever right about anything, is right by accident
  • The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.
  • If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.
Sunny Jackson

Quotes on Religion - Carl Sagan - 0 views

atheism.about.com/...bl_q_CSagan.htm

shared by Sunny Jackson on 26 Jun 13 - Cached
  • Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
  • In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they 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.
  • 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.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • I'm not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they're called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation.
  • 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.
  • The question [Do you believe in God?] has a peculiar structure. If I say no, do I mean I'm convinced God doesn't exist, or do I mean I'm not convinced he does exist? Those are two very different questions.
  • 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.
  • Thomas Aquinas claimed to prove that God cannot make another God, or commit suicide, or make a man without a soul, or even make a triangle whose interior angles do not equal 180 degrees. But Bolyai and Lobachevsky were able to accomplish this last feat (on a curved surface) in the nineteenth century, and they were not even approximately gods.
  • We should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit.
  • religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. The fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough- mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration was needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.
  • There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That's perfectly all right; they're the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.
  • If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
  • Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our own ignorance about ourselves.
Spiritual Guide

How to get spiritual ? Religion and Spirituality difference - 0 views

yoglica.com/...how-to-get-spiritual

spirituality religion belief faith vs god

shared by Spiritual Guide on 21 Jun 22 - No Cached
  • Spiritual Guide on 21 Jun 22
     
    What is spirituality ? Swami Ranganathan has given a beautiful quote on spirituality. He says, "when I close my eyes I find peace within and when I open my eyes I feel what can I do for you".
Sunny Jackson

Humanism - Wikiquote - 0 views

en.wikiquote.org/Humanism

Humanism Quotes

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • The personal virtues which humanism cherishes are intelligence, amenity, and tolerance
  • I am a humanist, which mean, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead.
  • Kurt Vonnegut, in God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
Sunny Jackson

Great Minds: Atheist Quotes - 0 views

www.atheistempire.com/...greatest.php

Atheists

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - Cached
  • "Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color." --Don Hirschberg
  • "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?" - Epicurus
  • "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • "And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence." - Bertrand Russell
  • "Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense." -- Chapman Cohen
  • "Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned."
  • "Only Sheep need a shepherd!"
  • "It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." - Mark Twain
  • "In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point." - Friedrich Nietzsche
  • "The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence." -- Abu Ala Al-Ma'arri
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

Censorship - Wikiquote - 0 views

en.wikiquote.org/Censorship

Wiki Quote Book

shared by Sunny Jackson on 03 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear. Judy Blume
  • It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers. Judy Blume
  • Only six weeks ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with the censorship and book-burning in the future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony. Judy-Lynn Del Rey, one of the new Ballantine editors, is having the entire book reset and republished this summer with all the damns and hells back in place. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Coda (1979 edition)
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Dwight D. Eisenhower
  • It is this very conflict of spiritual and moral ideas which gives the free countries a great part of their strength. You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. On all sides they are guarded by masses of armed men, cannons, aeroplanes, fortifications, and the like — they boast and vaunt themselves before the world, yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts; words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home — all the more powerful because forbidden — terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind. Cannons, airplanes, they can manufacture in large quantities; but how are they to quell the natural promptings of human nature, which after all these centuries of trial and progress has inherited a whole armoury of potent and indestructible knowledge? Winston Churchill
  • If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. Noam Chomsky
  • Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings. Heinrich Heine
  • Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure way against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is freedom. The surest path to wisdom is liberal education. Alfred Whitney Griswold
  • The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. John Gilmore
  • Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. Thomas Jefferson
  • Assassination is the extreme form of censorship. George Bernard Shaw
  • All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship. George Bernard Shaw
  • Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. Long ago those who wrote our First Amendment charted a different course. They believed a society can be truly strong only when it is truly free. In the realm of expression they put their faith, for better or for worse, in the enlightened choice of the people, free from the interference of a policeman's intrusive thumb or a judge's heavy hand. So it is that the Constitution protects coarse expression as well as refined, and vulgarity no less than elegance. Potter Stewart
  • There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all. Oscar Wilde
  • The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. Oscar Wilde
  • An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. Oscar Wilde
Sunny Jackson

Stephen Hawking - Wikiquote - 0 views

en.wikiquote.org/...Stephen_Hawking

Wiki Quote Book

shared by Sunny Jackson on 03 Jul 13 - Cached
  • Reality is not a quality you can test with litmus paper.
  • I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes.
  • I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.
  • My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.
  • However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope.
  • It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.
  • The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order
  • Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory
  • Bodies like the earth are not made to move on curved orbits by a force called gravity; instead, they follow the nearest thing to a straight path in a curved space
  • The ultimate objective test of free will would seem to be: Can one predict the behavior of the organism? If one can, then it clearly doesn't have free will but is predetermined. On the other hand, if one cannot predict the behavior, one could take that as an operational definition that the organism has free will
  • If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist.
  • I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it look before they cross the road.
  • One cannot base one's conduct on the idea that everything is determined, because one does not know what has been determined. Instead, one has to adopt the effective theory that one has free will and that one is responsible for one's actions.
  • A society in which the individual feels responsible for his or her actions is more likely to work together and survive
  • If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason
  • a good scientific theory: it made definite predictions, which could be tested by observation, and possibly falsified.
  • We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.
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

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.
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  • 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

Aristotle - Wikiquote - 0 views

en.wikiquote.org/Aristotle

Wiki Quote Book

shared by Sunny Jackson on 03 Jul 13 - Cached
  • He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.
  • Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
  • Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.
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  • Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
  • A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
  • The basis of a democratic state is liberty.
  • Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.
  • All men by nature desire to know.
  • All men by nature desire knowledge.
  • The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow.
  • May not we then confidently pronounce that man happy who realizes complete goodness in action, and is adequately furnished with external goods?
  • For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.
  • I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
  • Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
  • It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced
  • To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.
  • With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.
  • Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
  • Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him.
  • Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
  • a convincing impossibility is preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
  • Education is the best provision for old age.
  • Hope is a waking dream.
  • Life in the true sense is perceiving or thinking.
  • Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.
  • Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
  • Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
  • What is life without love? Love is like the sun; without light, there's no life
Sunny Jackson

i want the chance to chat with an atheist : atheism - 0 views

www.reddit.com/...chance_to_chat_with_an_atheist

shared by Sunny Jackson on 26 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • For me it was liberating because finally the Universe made complete sense. There was only matter and energy that followed constant laws...anything 'supernatural' was simply dreamed up by humans. When bad things happened, it was not punishment, just chance. It meant that we could make this world into what we pleased, for good or ill. My choices were on me alone.
  • I'm from the Bible Belt as well. My suspicion is that you actually do know some atheists, but you just don't know it. It's very difficult for atheists to be "out" in the Bible Belt. As to your question, I would first just point out that it's less that I "decided" there was no God, and more that I just "realized" there was no God. And for me at least, it wasn't "liberating" so much as terrifying. I wasn't frightened of God's judgment or anything like that. Having grown up in a fundamentalist Christian household, I was always taught that doubt, in itself, was sinful, so by the time I got to the point of not believing, I had already crossed the line of doubting God (and thus being subject to judgment) long before that. In that sense, when I finally realized there was no God, it actually erased any fear of judgment - there's no God to judge me, thus no fear. Instead, I was terrified of the reaction that I would get from people around me when they found out that I no longer believed in God. My number one concern was my grandparents, whom I am very close with. I knew that it would devastate them, and that was really tough for me. (To this day, I have never really "come out" to them, although my parents told them - something that I honestly think I will always be resentful towards my parents for.) Beyond that, literally everyone around me, friends, family, my whole community really, were Christians, and so there was a deep, deep sense of loneliness when I realized that I had basically become "evil" in all of their minds.
  • It is liberating not to follow any religion because I feel that most of them (the major ones i.e. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) are oppressive, intolerant and encourage ignorance in one way or another.
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  • Being open-minded means being able and willing to question one's own beliefs and consider those of others
  • You don't even have to change your mind, the very fact that you're asking questions and considering the ideas of those with whom you don't necessarily agree means you are open-minded (and is great, if you ask me).
  • It is kind of disheartening to know I have only one life to live and it is relatively short in the scheme of everything, but it makes this life I have more important. Alternately, I think the belief in an afterlife would make life feel cheap. I'm perfectly okay with knowing after I'm dead that will be the complete end of me. All I can hope for is that I "live on" in the memories of those that survive me.
  • The uncertainty of what happens after death is why humans are afraid of it.
  • reality is reality whether I find it unnerving or not. Wanting something to be true has no effect on whether or not it actually is.
  • I would just like you to know that there are places in this world where coming out as gay to one's parents is not viewed as the end of the world.
  • Many people have different "coming-out" experiences with their atheism. If their family is mostly composed of fundamentalist christians or muslims, they're going to have a much harder time than somebody who comes from a less irrational family.
  • There are atheists that are bigots
  • There are bigots in any group you can think of.
  • I think the scale of bigotry is tipped heavily in favor of those that are extremely religious.
  • Christianity has oppressed them, discriminated against them and has caused them all kinds of grief.
  • here is a quote from Steven Weinberg. Christopher Hitchens has also used the same idea in many of his debates: “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”
  • I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that people you know personally are atheists.
  • But it comes down to what makes you happy. As an atheist, I believe we only get one shot at this life. I think it is most important that you live a happy and moral life and as long as you do that, believe or disbelieve whatever you want.
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