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Evidence Quotes

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Evidence Quotes

“Contemporary philosophers have exercised themselves with the problem of our knowledge of other minds. Enmeshed in the dogma of the ghost in the machine, they have found it impossible to discover any logically satisfactory evidence warranting one person in believing that there exist minds other than his own. I can witness what your body does, but I cannot witness what your mind does, and my pretensions to infer from what your body does to what your mind does all collapse, since the premises for such inferences are either inadequate or unknowable.”

Mind Believe Persons Doe I Can Problem Body Found Impossible Evidence Machines Philosopher Your Body Ghost Contemporary Witness Collapse Dogma Premises Inadequate Pretension Inference

Book:The Concept of Mind

Source: The Concept of Mind

“Religion is based upon blind faith supported by no evidence. Science is based upon confidence that results from evidence - and that confidence can be modified and/or reversed by further observations and experimentation. Science approaches truth, closer and closer, by hard dedicated work. Religion already has it all decided, and it's in the book. It's dogma, unchangeable, and unaffected by reality and whatever facts we come upon in the real world.”

World Book Real Hard Facts Reality Results Atheism Approach Evidence Decided Blind Positive Atheism Observation Real World Dedicated Dogma Experimentation Blind Faith Unchangeable

Author:James Randi

“The Enlightenment was an attempt to liberate myth and base truth claims on evidence, not just dogma. But when science threw out the church, they threw out the baby with the bath water.”

Water Church Baby Enlightenment Evidence Claims Myth Dogma Baths

Author:Ken Wilber

“The world that I should wish to see would be one freed from the virulence of group hostilities and capable of realizing that happiness for all is to be derived rather from co-operation than from strife. I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than imprisoning the minds of the young in rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence.”

World Should Mind Would Be Young Wish Realizing Groups Protect Capable Evidence Operations Dogma Strife Hostility Armor

Book:Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

Source: Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

“The Fundamentalist Christians have told me that I am a slave of Satan and should have my demons expelled with an exorcism. The Fundamentalist Materialists inform me that I am a liar, charlatan, fraud and scoundrel. Aside from this minor difference, the letters are astoundingly similar. Both groups share the same crusading zeal and the same lack of humor, charity and common human decency. These intolerable cults have served to confirm me in my agnosticism by presenting further evidence to support my contention that when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.”

“I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs.”

Source: The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959

“We godless lack that certainty, and we know the world is a complex place that requires compromise and is not ruled by a moral force - virtue is subject to negotiation, and is found in working together with others to find mutually satisfactory solutions. Good is not absolute, it is an emergent property that arises from successful networks of individuals. It is also something that is measured by evidence: we look at the good that people do, not the promises that they make and never keep, or the lies that dovetail nicely into dogma. Competence is a virtue. Intent is meaningless without action.”

“Liberalism is an attitude rather than a set of dogmas - an attitude that insists upon questioning all plausible and self-evident propositions, seeking not to reject them but to find out what evidence there is to support them rather than their possible alternatives.”

Self Attitude Support Evidence Seeking Alternatives Liberalism Rejects Questioning Dogma Evident Propositions Plausible

Book:The Faith of a Liberal

Source: The Faith of a Liberal

“RELIGION: A set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual.”

God Religion Belief Emotional Intellectual Evidence Method Contrary Dogma Dominating

Book:Uncertain Paths to Freedom: Russia and China, 1919-22

Source: Uncertain Paths to Freedom: Russia and China, 1919-22

“There must be no barriers for freedom of inquiry... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.”

Science Asks Doubt Evidence Scientist Errors Barriers Dogma Inquiry Assertion

Author:J. Robert Oppenheimer