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Belief Quotes

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Belief Quotes

“William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.”

Should Believe Wanted Used Belief Wish Doubt Opposites Errors Vagueness

Author:Bertrand Russell

“There are strange flowers of reason to match each error of the senses. Admirable gardens of absurd beliefs, forebodings, obsessions and frenzies. Unknown, ever-changing gods take shape there.”

Reason Belief Strange Flower Shapes Garden Errors Senses Obsession Absurd Admirable Frenzy Foreboding

Author:Louis Aragon

“Trusting people to be creative and constructive when given more freedom does not imply an overly optimistic belief in the perfectibility of human nature. It is, rather, belief that the inevitable errors and sins of the human condition are far better overcome by individuals working together in an environment of trust and freedom and mutual respect than by individuals working under a multitude of rules, regulations, and restraints imposed upon them by another group of imperfect individuals.”

“It is probably true that almost all atheists stand for the values of reason and freethought. I will attempt to put these values in more substantial terms. There is the belief that inquiry and doubt are essential checks against deception, self deception, and error. There is the belief that logic and the scientific method is the only way the world can arrive at an agreement on the truth about anything.”

World Way Self Reason Values Belief Term Doubt Atheism Essentials Logic Method Errors Atheist Checks Deception Agreement Inquiry Self Deception Scientific Method

Author:Richard Carrier

“People are said to believe in God, or to disbelieve in Adam and Eve. But in such cases what is believed or disbelieved is that there is an entity answering a certain description. This, which can be believed or disbelieved is quite different from the actual entity (if any) which does answer the description. Thus the matter of belief is, in all cases, different in kind from the matter of sensation or presentation, and error is in no way analogous to hallucination. A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.”

Source: Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950

“No matter what the belief, if it had modestly said, 'This is our best thought, go on, think farther!' then we could have smoothly outgrown our early errors and long since have developed a religion such as would have kept pace with an advancing world. But we were made to believe and not allowed to think. We were told to obey, rather than to experiment and investigate.”

Ifs Thinking World Believe Long Made Said Matter Belief Goes On No Matter What Errors Experiments Pace Advancing

Book:His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers

Source: His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers

“wrongness always seems to come at us from left field - that is, from outside ourselves. But the reality could hardly be more different. Error is the ultimate inside job. Yes, the world can be profoundly confusing; and yes, other people can mislead or deceive you. In the end, though, nobody but you can choose to believe your own beliefs.”

People World Believe Different Ends Reality Seems Jobs Belief Left Fields Ultimate Errors Deceiving Confusing Mislead Left Field

Author:Kathryn Schulz

“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

“They have their belief, these poor Tibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, a belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds. This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the "discoverability" is the only error here.”

People Knows Men Kind Stills Belief Poor Generations Buddhism Ought Treats Errors Bottom Bounds Obedience Providence Pope Incarnation Tibet Greatest Man

Author:Thomas Carlyle

“I started by saying that one of the most fateful errors of our age is the belief that the problem of production has been solved. This illusion, I suggested, is mainly due to our inability to recognize that the modern industrial system, with all its intellectual sophistication, consumes the very basis on which is has been erected. To use the language of the economist, it lives on irreplaceable capital which it cheerfully treats as income.”

Source: SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

“We like to think we're superior to the people who, centuries ago, burned 'witches' for no better reason than a neighbor's belief that his crop failure or impotence was caused by that woman's action. But reporters are still prone to the same mental errors that caused these killings: seeing patterns where there are none, finding causes where there is only coincidence, ignoring our sources' political agendas and turning scanty evidence into panic.”

“More often than not, the belief that you are bad contributes to the "bad" behavior. Change and learning occur most readily when you (a) recognize that an error has occurred and (b) develop a strategy for correcting the problem. An attitude of self-love and relaxation facilitates this, whereas guilt often interferes.”

Self Problem Belief Attitude Self Love Behavior Strategy Guilt Errors Interfere Relaxation Correcting Facilitate Bad Behavior Behavior Change

Book:Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

Source: Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

“Christians are beginning to lose the spirit of intolerance which animated them: experience has shown the error of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and of the persecution of those Christians in France whose belief differed a little from that of the king. They have realized that zeal for the advancement of religion is different from a due attachment to it; and that in order to love it and fulfil its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to it.”

Littles Different Christian Spirit Hate Order Belief Loses Kings Errors Jew Dues France Attachment Intolerance Persecution Spain Advancement Zeal Animated Expulsion

Author:Baron de Montesquieu