reason

Do not believe a thing because you have read about it in a book. Do not believe a thing because another man has said it was true. Do not believe in words because they are hallowed by tradition. Find out the truth for yourself. Reason it out. That is realization.

Panentheistic doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations.

If you've got a religious belief that withers in the face of observations of the natural world, you ought to rethink your beliefs - rethinking the world isn't an option.

We should be agnostic about those things for which there is no evidence. We should not hold beliefs merely because they gratify our desires for afterlife, immortality, heaven, hell, etc.

If there is a god maybe it rewards those who don't believe on the basis of insufficient evidence--and punishes those who do.

The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon [the 'Super', i.e. the hydrogen bomb] makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light. For these reasons, we believe it important for the President of the United States to tell the American public and the world what we think is wrong on fundamental ethical principles to initiate the development of such a weapon.

The aim of this book is not to make atheism a popular belief or even to overcome its invisibility. My object is not utopian. It is merely to provide good reasons for being an atheist. _ My object is to show that atheism is a rational position and that belief in God is not. I am quite aware that atheistic beliefs are not always based on reason. My claim is that they should be.

We either base our 'confidence' on reason (evident probabilities, past experience, competence, etc) or we base our beliefs on faith, which is blind by definition. Faith is the most dishonest position it is possible to have, because it is an assertion of stoic conviction that is assumed without reason and defended against all reason. If you have to believe it on faith, you have no reason to believe it at all.

I may not believe that 'all things happen for a reason.' But I do believe that reason may come from all things that happen.

Suppose that members of a religious movement, such as Christianity, maintain that the existence of some powerful god and its goals or laws can be known through their scriptures, their prophets, or some special revelation. Suppose further that the evidence that is available to support the reliability of those scriptures, prophets, or special revelations is weaker than that God is hypothetically capable of producing. That is, suppose that Christians maintain that Jesus was resurrected on the basis of the Gospels, or that God__ existence can be known through the Bible, or Muslims insist on the historical authenticity of the Koran. Could God, the almighty creator of the universe, have brought it about so that the evidence in favor of the resurrection, the Bible, or the Koran was better than we currently find it? I take it that the answer is obviously yes. Even if you think there is evidence that is sufficient to prove the resurrection, a reasonable person must also acknowledge that it could have been better. And there__ the problem. If the capacity of that god is greater than the effectiveness or quality of those scriptures, prophets, or special revelations, then the story they are telling contradicts itself. 'We know our god is real on the basis of evidence that is inadequate for our god.' Or, 'The grounds that lead us to believe in our god are inconsistent with the god we accept; nevertheless, we believe in this god that would have given us greater evidence if it had wished for us to believe in it.'Given the disparity between the gods that these religious movements portend and the grounds offered to justify them, the atheist is warranted in dismissing such claims. If the sort of divine being that they promote were real and if he had sought our believe on the basis of the evidence, the evidential situation would not resemble the one we are in. The story doesn__ make internal sense. A far better explanation is that their enthusiasm for believing in a god has led them to overstate what the evidence shows. And that same enthusiasm has made it difficult for them to see that an all powerful God would have the power to make his existence utterly obvious and undeniable. Since it__ not, the non-believer can__ possibly be faulted for failing to believe.

Have you got something against faith?___ave you got something against reason?

The probability of an event is the reason we have to believe that it has taken place, or that it will take place.The measure of the probability of an event is the ratio of the number of cases favourable to that event, to the total number of cases favourable or contrary, and all equally possible.

The presence of pain should not be the reason for your low self-image. Boldness is the ability to stand tall even when the valley seems deep. Your pain will bring gain. Just believe and go to work!

Naturally, I always place my word over anyone else's simply because I know why I said what I said.

But what use is the unicorn to you if your intellect doesn't believe in it?

Just 'cause something isn't true is no reason to not believe in it...

The highest function of humanity is belief, that activity of spirit that proceeds upon the pathway of reason, until it comes to some great promontory, and then spreads its wings, and upon the basis of its earlier journeying, takes eternity into its grasp.

Flowers are evil, because they live just to die for the love of other people. You don__ believe me? Try it for yourself and see if you__l be good afterwards. Undeath is a way of life, for some things. That doesn__ make it good or anything. Especially anything. Nothing makes anything anything. Because nothing is a serious matter, and anything just is.