Calilasseia wrote:"Bad ideas exist to be destroyed".

"Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity."
- Michel de Montaigne

THWOTH wrote:

"Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity."
- Michel de Montaigne

THWOTH wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:"Bad ideas exist to be destroyed".

One of many classic Caliisms.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is as good as your knowledge"

Calilasseia wrote:"Your favourite mythology is about as much use as a fishnet condom."

Kiwi wrote:Albert Einstein is rightly regarded as a very clever individual. The theist community often uses his sometimes euphemistic language ("God does not play dice" etc) to say he was a theist, despite the existence of many quotes to the contrary.

I happened to pick up a copy of "Man and his Gods" by H W Smith (1953) at a jumble sale and found this quote from the foreword by Einstein very moving, written as it was in the shadow of the second world war.

PROFESSOR Smith has kindly submitted his book to me before publication. After reading it thoroughly and with intense interest I am glad to comply with his request to give him my impression.

The work is a broadly conceived attempt to portray man's fear-induced animistic and mythic ideas with all their far-flung transformations and interrelations. It relates the impact of these phantasmagorias on human destiny and the causal relationships by which they have become crystallized into organized religion.

This is a biologist speaking, whose scientific training has disciplined him in a grim objectivity rarely found in the pure historian. This objectivity has not, however, hindered him from emphasizing the boundless suffering which, in its end results, this mythic thought has brought upon man.

Professor Smith envisages as a redeeming force, training in objective observation of all that is available for immediate perception and in the interpretation of facts without preconceived ideas. In his view, only if every individual strives for truth can humanity attain a happier future; the atavisms in each of us that stand in the way of a friendlier destiny can only thus be rendered ineffective.

His historical picture closes with the end of the nineteenth century, and with good reason. By that time it seemed that the influence of these mythic, authoritatively anchored forces which can be denoted as religious, had been reduced to a tolerable level in spite of all the persisting inertia and hypocrisy.

Even then, a new branch of mythic thought had already grown strong, one not religious in nature but no less perilous to mankind -- exaggerated nationalism. Half a century has shown that this new adversary is so strong that it places in question man's very survival. It is too early for the present-day historian to write about this problem, but it is to be hoped that one will survive who can undertake the task at a later date.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

The book is available to read here:

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/homer1a.htm

THWOTH wrote:As currently sported by Agrippina in her sig...

Calilasseia wrote:"Your favourite mythology is about as much use as a fishnet condom."

Even then, a new branch of mythic thought had already grown strong, one not religious in nature but no less perilous to mankind -- exaggerated nationalism. Half a century has shown that this new adversary is so strong that it places in question man's very survival. It is too early for the present-day historian to write about this problem, but it is to be hoped that one will survive who can undertake the task at a later date.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

It is sometimes claimed that religious intolerance is the fruit of conviction. If one be absolutely certain that one's faith is right, and all others wrong, it seems criminal to permit one's neighbour's obvious error and perdition. I am tempted to think, however, that religious fanaticism often is the result not of conviction, but rather of doubt and insecurity.

-George Sarton

The most malicious kind of hatred is that which is built upon a theological foundation.

"I've long complained about Noah's Ark being presented as a children's story & as the basis for toys. It is without doubt, the most disturbing story in the bible, and the failure to mention all the drownded ickle wabbits an' puddy tats, an' baby heffalumps, is simply a deceit visited upon those children who are told the highly sanitised version."

-- chairman bill

"Ich denke, also bin ich kein Christ."

"I think, therefore I am no christ."

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

- Lao Tzu

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

- Lao Tzu

Prohibit the taking of omens, and do away with superstitious doubts. Then, until death itself comes, no calamity need be feared.

- Sun Tzu