Best belief & argument Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“I think Martin Luther correctly distinguished between what he called the magisterial and ministerial uses of reason. The magisterial use of reason occurs when reason stands over and above the gospel like a magistrate and judges it on the basis of argument and evidence. The ministerial use of reason occurs when reason submits to and serves the gospel…. Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter.”

“What no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”

May Doe Shows Belief Ability Argument Climate Rational Abandoned

Author:Austin Farrer

“Fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape.”

Stories Shows Seems Belief Easy Fiction Study Shapes Intellectual Evidence Argument Moved Critical Nonfiction Skeptical Shields

Author:Jonathan Gottschall

“Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”

May Doe Belief Argument Climate Rational

Book:The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis

Source: The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

Belief Freedom Liberty Capitalism Economics Argument Libertarian Libertarianism Free Market Market Economy Economic Freedom Free Market Capitalism Free Economy

Book:Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition

Source: Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition

“Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

Source: Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition

“Truth does not need argument, agreement, theories or beliefs. There is only one test for it and that is to ask yourself 'Is the statement true or false in my experience?'”

Needs Doe Truth Asks Belief Theory Argument Tests Statements Agreement True Or False

Author:Barry Long

“Christianity has a built-in defense system: anything that questions a belief, no matter how logical the argument is, is the work of Satan by the very fact that it makes you question a belief. It's a very interesting defense mechanism and the only way to get by it -- and believe me, I was raised Southern Baptist -- is to take massive amounts of mushrooms, sit in a field, and just go, "Show me.".”

“There is no argument in the world that carries the hatred that a relioious belief does. The more learned a man is, the less consideration he has for another man's belief.”

Men World Doe Belief Argument Hatred Consideration Carrie Another Man

Book:The Will Rogers book

Source: The Will Rogers book

“Sam Harris fearlessly describes a moral and intellectual emergency precipitated by religious fantasies--misguided beliefs that create suffering, that rationalize violence, that have endangered our nation and our future. His argument for the morality, the honesty, and the humility of atheism is galvanizing. It is a relief that someone has spoken so frankly, with such passion yet such rationality. Now when the subject arises, as it inevitably does, I can simply say: Read Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation.”

“It is commonly said that if rational argument is so seldom the cause of conviction, philosophical apologists must largely be wasting their shot. The premise is true, but the conclusion does not follow. For though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”

Ifs May Doe Said Shows Seems Belief Causes Ability Shots Argument Philosophical Climate Conviction Rational Conclusion Abandoned Premises

Author:Austin Farrer

“Until recently we’ve only been able to speculate about story's persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence.”

Writing Mind Humans Facts Stories Shows Seems Able Lasts Values Belief Results Attitude Fiction Study Psychology Effects Serious Evidence Argument Decades Human Mind Persuasive

Author:Jonathan Gottschall

“Unlike liberalism, with its fundamental belief in the long-range power of ideas, conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time. And since it does not really believe in the power of argument, its last resort is generally a claim to superior wisdom, based on some self-arrogated superior quality.”

Believe Long Doe Ideas Self Lasts Belief Given Quality Authority Argument Claims Fundamentals Bounds Superiors Range Liberalism Resorts Conservatism Power Of Ideas

Author:Friedrich August von Hayek

“The necessary precondition for the birth of science as we know it is, it would seem, the diffusion through society of the belief that the universe is both rational and contingent. Such a belief is the presupposition of modern science and cannot by any conceivable argument be a product of science. One has to ask: Upon what is this belief founded?”

Knows Seems Universe Asks Belief Modern Products Birth Argument Rational Modern Science Diffusion

Book:Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture

Source: Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture

“Pascal makes no attempt in this most famous argument to show that his Roman Catholicism is true or probably true. The reasons which he suggests for making the recommended bet on his particular faith are reasons in the sense of motives rather than reasons in the sense of grounds. Conceding, if only for the sake of the present argument, that we can have no knowledge here, Pascal tries to justify as prudent a policy of systematic self-persuasion, rather than to provide grounds for thinking that the beliefs recommended are actually true.”

Ifs Thinking Trying Self Reason Shows Belief Atheism Policy Particular Argument Sake Positive Atheism Motive Justify Catholicism Persuasion Flew Systematic Prudent Roman Catholic Pascal

Author:Antony Flew

“All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.”

Belief Atheism Argument Positive Atheism Paranormal Undecided

Author:Samuel Johnson

“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

“Even though their arguments did not invoke religion, I think we all know what's behind these arguments. They're trying to protect religious beliefs from contradiction by science. They used to do it by prohibiting teachers from teaching evolution at all; then they wanted to teach intelligent design as an alternative theory; now they want the supposed "weaknesses" in evolution pointed out. But it's all the same program - it's all an attempt to let religious ideas determine what is taught in science courses.”

“only that which is deeply felt can change us. Rational arguments alone cannot penetrate the layers of fear and conditioning that comprise our crippling belief system.”

Feelings Belief Felt Argument Rational Layers Penetrate Conditioning Belief Systems

Book:The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s

“Even if the absence of evidence for a given god were not evidence of its absence, it would still be evidence that the belief in that god is unreasonable. That's the only proposition that any atheist of any kind has to demonstrate in order to win the argument. Because anything beyond that... is just having fun.”

Ifs Kind Stills Order Winning Belief Given Fun Evidence Argument Atheist Absence Having Fun Propositions Unreasonable Just Have Fun

Author:Scott Clifton

“Yet the most pervasive error one encounters in contemporary arguments about belief in God-especially, but not exclusively, on the atheist side-is the habit of conceiving of God simply as some very large object or agency within the universe, or perhaps alongside the universe, a being among other beings, who differs from all other beings in magnitude, power, and duration, but not ontologically, and who is related to the world more or less as a craftsman is related to an artifact.”

World Universe Belief Sides Objects Habit Argument Errors Atheist Contemporary Related Agency Encounters Magnitude Duration Belief In God Craftsman Artifacts Conceiving

Author:David Bentley Hart

“The Catholic clergy seldom bother to make their arguments plausible; it is plain that they have little respect for human intelligence, and indeed little belief in its existence.”

Humans Littles Belief Existence Argument Catholic Bother Superstitions Clergy Plausible Human Intelligence

Author:H. L. Mencken

“When I am convinced of any principle, it is only an idea which strikes more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence.”

Giving Ideas Feelings Belief Principles Influence Argument Convinced Strikes Superiority Preference

Book:A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections

Source: A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections

“The only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified by new facts. Only openness to evidence and argument will secure a common world for us.”

World Way Humans Facts Belief Human Beings Common Evidence Argument Secure Willingness Openness Permit

Book:The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Source: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

“Arguments hardly affect the faithful- their beliefs have an entirely different foundation.”

Different Belief Argument Foundation Faithful

Book:Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Being

Source: Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Being

“A genuinely persuasive argument does not merely tell you that you are wrong about everything. It doesn't just beat on you from the outside. It comes inside your belief system, as it were, and affirms something you believe strongly. And then it says - well if you believe this (A) then why in the world can't you see that B is true?”

Ifs World Believe Wells Doe Belief Beats Argument If You Believe Belief Systems Persuasive

Author:Timothy Keller

“The difficulty with pragmatic arguments for a religion is that truths do not always "work", and beliefs that "work" are by no means always true.”

Mean Belief Religious Argument Difficulty Pragmatic

Author:John Warwick Montgomery

“I like good ideas. I don't want just do something for it's own sake to bother people, but if I can bother them with a logical argument about something they have agreed to in society simplistically - like children are sacred, the cult of the child, this cult of professional parenthood, and of course religion, and respect for policemen and the law, and all of these untouchable areas. I like attacking those beliefs, but in with good sound thinking, and an unusual approach.”

“Fundamental assumptions in general and scientific assumptions in particular are so hard to overturn because they are based on belief. Beliefs are so hard to overcome because they are irrational and therefore do not yield to logical argument.”

Hard Belief Particular Argument Overcoming Fundamentals Assumption Logical Yield Irrational Irrational Beliefs Logical Arguments

Author:Thomas Campbell

“Our moral reasoning is plagued by two illusions. The first illusion can be called the wag-the-dog illusion: We believe that our own moral judgment (the dog) is driven by our own moral reasoning (the tail). The second illusion can be called the wag-theother-dog's-tail illusion: In a moral argument, we expect the successful rebuttal of an opponent's arguments to change the opponent's mind. Such a belief is like thinking that forcing a dog's tail to wag by moving it with your hand will make the dog happy.”

“Science has long been in the value business. Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, scientific validity is not the result of scientists abstaining from making value judgments; rather, scientific validity is the result of scientists making their best efforts to value principles of reasoning that link their beliefs to reality, through reliable chains of evidence and argument.”

Long Reality Values Belief Results Effort Judgment Evidence Argument Scientist Contrary Despite Chains Reasoning Links Objectivity Validity Best Effort Abstaining

Author:Sam Harris

“Evolution as described by Charles Darwin is an scientific theory, abundantly reconfirmed, explaining physical phenomena by physical causes. Intelligent Design is a faith-based initiative in rhetorical argument. Should we teach I.D. in America's public schools? Yes, let's do - not as science, but alongside other spiritual beliefs, such as Islam, Zoroastrianism and the Hindu Idea that Earth rests on Chukwa, the giant turtle.”

“...as I reject the old time beliefs, it is not a matter of countering belief with belief, rather I can challenge the efficacy of old beliefs with sound arguments. We believe in nature and that human progress depends on the domination of man over nature. There is no conscious power behind it. This is our philosophy.”

Men Believe Humans I Can Matter Philosophy Belief Sound Challenges Behinds Progress Depends Conscious Argument Rejects Domination Efficacy Human Progress Old Time

Book:Bhagat Singh, on the path of liberation

Source: Bhagat Singh, on the path of liberation

“I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease, inasmuch as opinion finds me in a bad soil to penetrate and take deep root in. No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers to my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and so extravagant that it does not seem to me quite suitable to the production of the human mind.”

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Belief Quotes