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Quote by Margaret E. Knight

“It is a mistake to try to impose Christian beliefs on children and to make them the basis of moral training. The moral education of children is much too important a matter to be built on such foundations.”

Quote by Margaret E. Knight

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Margaret E. Knight

Margaret E. Knight, born on February 14, 1838, and died on October 12, 1914, was an American inventor. She made significant contributions to the field of textile machinery, particularly with the invention of a machine that could automatically fold paper, greatly improving packaging efficiency. more

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“I want here to make three suggestions: first, that the doubts the ordinary man feels about religion are justified, and need not be stifled or concealed; second, that there is no ground for the view that Christianity is the only alternative to communism, or that there can be no sound character training that is not based on religion; and, third, I want to make some practical suggestions to the parents who are not believers, on what they should tell the children about God, and what sort of moral training they should give them.”

MenWantNeedsGivingFeelsShouldFirstsChildrenCharacterThreeParentSoundViewsMoralChristianityDoubtAtheismTrainingOrdinaryThirdsPositive AtheismBelieverPracticalsCommunismAlternativesSuggestionsJustifiedConcealedOrdinary Man
Author:Margaret E. Knight
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“My chief aim was to combat the view that there can be no true morality without supernatural sanctions. So I argued at length that the social, or altruistic, impulses are the real source of morality, and that an ethic based on these impulses has far more claim on our allegiance than an ethic based on obedience to the commands of a God who created tapeworms and cancer-cells.”

RealSocialViewsAtheismSourceMoralityEthicsClaimsAimCancerPositive AtheismCommandChiefsCellsObedienceImpulseLengthCombatAllegianceSanctions
Author:Margaret E. Knight
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“Jesus, in fact, was typical of a certain kind of fanatical young idealist: at one moment holding forth, with tears in his eyes, about the need for universal love; at the next, furiously denouncing the morons, crooks and bigots who did not see eye to eye with him. It is very natural and very human behaviour. But it is not superhuman.”

NeedsHumansKindMomentsFactsEyeYoungCertainNextJesusNaturalAtheismTearsUniversalPositive AtheismHis EyesBehaviourTypicalMoronIdealistBigotsSuperhumanCrooksUniversal LoveHuman Behaviour
Author:Margaret E. Knight
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“There is no ground whatever for the claim, so often made by religious apologists, that these ideals are specifically Christian and originated with Jesus. What were specifically Christian were some of the less enlightened teachings, which have done untold harm. Christians claim that organised Christianity has been a great force for good, but this view can be maintained on one assumption only: that everything good in the Christian era is a result of Christianity and everything bad happened in spite of it.”

Has BeensMadeDoneChristianJesusForceReligiousResultsViewsChristianityHappenedAtheismTeachingIdealsClaimsPositive AtheismHarmErasAssumptionSpiteEnlightenedOrganised
Author:Margaret E. Knight
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“During the ages of faith the Church argued, not illogically, that any degree of cruelty towards sinners and heretics was justified, if there was a chance that it could save them, or others, from the eternal torments of hell. Thus, in the name of the religion of love, hundreds of thousands of people were not merely killed but atrociously tortured in ways that made the gas chambers of Beslen seem humane.”

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Author:Margaret E. Knight
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“One of the most persistent fallacies about the Christian Church is that it kept learning alive during the Dark and Middle Ages. What the Church did was to keep learning alive in the monasteries, while preventing the spread of knowledge outside them... Even as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, nine-tenths of Christian Europe was illiterate.”

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Author:Margaret E. Knight
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“The Revolutionary's Utopia, which in appearance represents a complete break with the past, is always modeled on some image of the Lost Paradise, of a legendary Golden Age... All utopias are fed from the source of mythology; the social engineers' blueprints are merely revised editions of the ancient text.”

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Book:the god that failed
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“The inner defenses are unconscious. They consist of a kind of magic aura which the mind builds around cherished belief. Arguments which penetrate into the magic aura are not dealt with rationally but by a specific type of pseudo-reasoning. Absurdities and contradictions are made acceptable by specious rationalizations.”

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Author:Arthur Koestler
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“Somebody once asked Niels Bohr why he had a horseshoe hanging above the front door of his house. Surely you, a world famous physicist, can't really believe that hanging a horseshoe above your door brings you luck? Of course not, Bohr replied, but I have been reliably informed that it will bring me luck whether I believe in it or not.”

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Author:Arthur Koestler
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