7 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2023
    1. Even if life were intolerably bleak and empty – it isn’t, but even if it were – how could you, how could anyone, twist a need for solace into a belief in scriptural truth claims about the universe, simply because they make you feel good? Intelligent people don’t believe something because it comforts them. They believe it because, and only because, they have seen evidence that supports it.

      Dawkins has a point here. People should not believe something because it comforts them, even if the alternative is existential dread.

  2. Dec 2022
    1. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvellously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza’s Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.

      !- quotation : Albert Einstein - A profound and enlightening quotation comparing the human mind's understanding of the natural world - quoteworthy metaphor of a library compared to nature - By his own admission, Einstein was NOT an atheist

  3. Jan 2022
    1. Simone de Beauvoir said that when she became an atheist, it felt like the world had fallen silent.

      source?

      Is there a link to religion and the connection and potential conversation provided by it that provides an evolutionary advantage? Is there a psychological change in attention or self-consciousness?

  4. Oct 2021
    1. well for one thing that's easier to be irrational gives you certain answers

      Back when [[political correct]] did not dissallow [[Asimov]] to claim religious people have been duped due to fear.

  5. Apr 2018
    1. Lastly, Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the Being of a God. Promises, Covenants, and Oaths, which are the Bonds of Humane [53] Society, can have no hold upon an Atheist.138 The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all. Besides also, those that by their Atheism undermine and destroy all Religion, can have no pretence of Religion whereupon to challenge the Privilege of a Toleration. As for other Practical Opinions, though not absolutely free from all Error, yet if they do not tend to establish Domination over others, or Civil Impunity to the Church in which they are taught, there can be no Reason why they should not be tolerated.
  6. Apr 2017
  7. Apr 2016
    1. uma ligação direta com Deus justifica a violação de quaisquer refreamentos e considerações meramente humanos. Resumindo, os fundamentalistas não se tornaram diferentes dos comunistas Stalinistas “sem deus”, para os quais tudo foi permitido, já que viam a si mesmos como instrumentos diretos de sua divindade, a Necessidade Histórica do Progresso em Direção ao Comunismo.

      Todas as vezes que criamos um Deus, acabamos por criar uma ferramenta totalitária (?) que justifica conceitos de certo (nós) / errado (eles).