Kyle

I found a bunch that I thought were good and amusing, but that were just a smidge too long for email. Thus, I post them here:

But I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations. —Gallileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany (1615)

Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing “Yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. Amen!” If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it. —Dan Barker (formerly “Unknown”)

It is an established maxim and moral that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him. —Abraham Lincoln, chiding the editor of a Springfield, Illinois, newspaper (from Antony Flew: How to Think Straight p17)

An atheist doesn’t have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that there can’t be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that the evidence on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf question. —John McCarthy