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Quote by Adrian Desmond

“Science was tearing through the 'fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs' to behold a new cosmos, in which our Earth is merely an 'eccentric speck' - a world of evolution 'and unchanging causation'. It invited new ways of thinking. It demanded a new rationale for belief. With science's truths the only accessible ones, 'blind faith' was no longer admirable but 'the one unpardonable sin'.”

Quote by Adrian Desmond

Author

Adrian Desmond, born in 1947, is an accomplished writer known for his profound insights into human emotions and social issues. His works span various genres, and he is recognized for his unique narrative style. more

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“A man got up [after one of Huxley's 'sermons'] and said 'they had never heard anything like that in Norwich before'. Never 'did Science seem so vast and mere creeds so little'.”

Thinking Men Littles Said Seems Heard Mere Creeds Sermons Huxley Norwich

Author:Adrian Desmond

“...it may be that there is no God, that the existence of all that is beautiful and in any sense good is but the accidental and ineffective byproduct of blindly swirling atoms, that we are alone in a world that cares nothing for us or for the values that we create and sustain - that we and they are here for a moment only, and gone, and that eventually there will be left no trace of us in the universe. A man may well believe that this dredful thing is true. But only the fool will say in his heart that he is glad that it is true.”

Thinking Men World Believe Wells Heart May Moments Care Beautiful Values Universe Left Existence Gone Fool Glad Atoms There Is No God

Author:Sterling M. McMurrin

“When we traded the results of our fantasies, it seemed to us-and rightly-that we had proceeded by unwarranted associations, by shortcuts so extraordinary that, if anyone had accused us of really believing them, we would have been ashamed.”

Ifs Thinking Believe Has Beens Results Fantasy Extraordinary Ashamed Association Accused Shortcuts

Book:Foucault's Pendulum

Source: Foucault's Pendulum

“All of us were slowly losing that intellectual light that allows you always to tell the similar from the identical, the metaphorical from the real.”

Thinking Real Light Intellectual Losing Identical Metaphorical

Book:Foucault's Pendulum

Source: Foucault's Pendulum

“I truly believe the book of philosophy to be that which stands perpetually open before our eyes, though since it is written in characters different from those of our alphabet it cannot be read by everyone.”

Thinking Believe Book Different Philosophy Character Eye Written Alphabet

Author:Galileo Galilei

“The hypothesis is pretty; its only fault is that it is neither demonstrated nor demonstrable. Who does not see that this is purely arbitrary fiction that puts nothingness as existing and proposes nothing more than simple noncontradiciton?”

Thinking Doe Simple Fiction Faults Nothingness Hypothesis Arbitrary Propose

Author:Galileo Galilei

“Nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages...”

Thinking Eye Ought Prove Passages Biblical Testimony Demonstration

Author:Galileo Galilei

“All this [Paul's writing] is nothing better than the jargon of a conjurer who picks up phrases he does not understand to confound the credulous people who come to have their fortune told. Age of Reason”

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Author:Thomas Paine

“...there ... remains a huge following [of Ayn Rand's philosophy] of those who ignore the indiscretions, infidelities, and moral inconsistencies of the founder and focus instead on the positive aspects of her philosophy. There is much in it to admire, if you do not have to accept the whole package... Criticism of the founder or followers of a philosophy does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the philosophy... Criticism of part of a philosophy does not gainsay the whole.”

Ifs Thinking Doe Philosophy Whole Accepting Moral Focus Huge Aspect Criticism Remains Following Admire Followers Founders Infidelity Packages Inconsistency Negation

Author:Michael Shermer

“The first-cause and prime-mover argument, brilliantly proffered by St. Thomas Aquinas in the fourteenth century (and brilliantly refuted by David Hume in the eighteenth century), is easily turned aside with just one more question: Who or what caused and moved God?”

Thinking Firsts Causes Century Argument Moved Just One Prime Hume St Thomas

Book:Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time

Source: Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time