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Quote by Quentin Smith

“The thesis that the universe has an originating divine cause is logically inconsistent with all extant definitions of causality and with a logical requirement upon these and all possible valid definitions or theories of causality.”

Quote by Quentin Smith

Author

Quentin Smith is a renowned philosopher born on August 27, 1952. His research focuses on metaphysics, epistemology, and religious philosophy. Smith is known for his in-depth exploration of the nature of religious experience and his unique insights into metaphysical questions. more

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“If any spirit created the universe, it is malevolent, not benevolent.”

Ifs Spirit Religion Universe Benevolent

Author:Quentin Smith

“According to theism, if a universe is to have any probability of existing, this probability is dependent upon God's beliefs, desires and creative acts. But the Hartle-Hawking probability is not dependent on any supernatural considerations; Hartle and Hawking do not sum over anything supernatural in their path integral derivation of the probability amplitude.”

Ifs Desire Religion Universe Belief Creative Path Dependent Consideration Probability Theism

Author:Quentin Smith

“By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified. Today the greatest divide within humanity is not between races, or religions, or even, as is widely believed, between the literate and illiterate. It is the chasm that separates scientific from prescientific cultures.”

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Book:Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

“[P]rescientific people... could never guess the nature of physical reality beyond the tiny sphere attainable by unaided common sense. Nothing else ever worked, no exercise from myth, revelation, art, trance, or any other conceivable means; and notwithstanding the emotional satisfaction it gives, mysticism, the strongest prescientific probe in the unknown, has yielded zero.”

People Giving Mean Art Reality Religion Common Emotional Exercise Satisfaction Myth Tiny Common Sense Revelations Mysticism Strongest Zero Spheres Trance

Author:E. O. Wilson

“[T]he true natural sciences lock together in theory and evidence to form the ineradicable technical base of modern civilization. The pseudosciences satisfy personal psychological needs... but lack the ideas or the means to contribute to the technical base.”

Needs Mean Ideas Together Form Religion Natural Modern Theory Civilization Evidence Psychological Locks Natural Science Pseudoscience Modern Civilization Psychological Needs

Author:E. O. Wilson

“The brain and its satellite glands have now been probed to the point where no particular site remains that can reasonably be supposed to harbour a nonphysical mind.”

Mind Religion Brain Particular Remains Site Harbors Satellites Glands

Author:E. O. Wilson

“No statistical proofs exist that prayer reduces illness and mortality, except perhaps through a psychogenic enhancement of the immune system; if it were otherwise the whole world would pray continuously.”

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Book:Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

“[W]hen the martyr's righteous forebrain is exploded by the executioner's bullet and his mind disintegrates, what then? Can we safely assume that all those millions of neural circuits will be reconstituted in an immaterial state, so the conscious mind carries on?”

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Book:Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

“But the argument is still unsound, because the first premise is false: there are other unmentioned alternatives, for example, that Jesus as described in the gospels is a legendary figure, so that the trilemma is false as it stands.”

Firsts Stills Religion Jesus Figures Example Argument Alternatives Premises Legendary

Author:William Lane Craig

“God in His law requires the death penalty for homosexuals.”

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Author:R.J. Rushdoony