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Quote by Margaret E. Knight

“I was convinced that, besides millions of frank unbelievers, there are today large numbers of half-believers to whom religion is a source of intellectual and moral discomfort.”

Quote by Margaret E. Knight

Author

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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“It is difficult, none the less, for the ordinary man to cast off orthodox beliefs, for he is seldom allowed to hear the other side... Whereas the Christian view is pressed on him day in and day out.”

Men Christian Belief Difficult Sides Views Atheism Ordinary Casts Positive Atheism Orthodox Ordinary Man

Author: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.”

Trying Children Important Matter Christian Belief Mistake Moral Atheism Training Built Bases Foundation Positive Atheism Moral Education

Author:Margaret E. Knight

“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.”

“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.”

Real Social Views Atheism Source Morality Ethics Claims Aim Cancer Positive Atheism Command Chiefs Cells Obedience Impulse Length Combat Allegiance Sanctions

Author:Margaret E. Knight

“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.”

“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 Beens Made Done Christian Jesus Force Religious Results Views Christianity Happened Atheism Teaching Ideals Claims Positive Atheism Harm Eras Assumption Spite Enlightened Organised

Author:Margaret E. Knight

“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.”

People Ifs Way Made Seems Age Names Church Chance Hell Atheism Degrees Eternal Positive Atheism Cruelty Gas Sinner Torment Justified Chamber Humane Heretic Gas Chambers

Author:Margaret E. Knight

“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.”

“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.”

Age Past Lost Social Break Atheism Source Ancient Appearance Positive Atheism Mythology Golden Revolutionary Paradise Feds Engineers Utopia Legendary Blueprints Golden Age

Book:the god that failed

Source: the god that failed

“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.”

Mind Kind Made Belief Magic Atheism Type Argument Positive Atheism Defense Reasoning Unconscious Contradiction Acceptable Absurdity Penetrate Auras Pseudo

Author:Arthur Koestler