Quote of the Day: Freethought

"Freethought is not only useful but laudable. It involves labor and trouble. Ours is not a gospel for those who love the soft pillow of faith. The Freethinker does not let his ship rot away in harbor; he spreads his canvas and sails the seas of thought. What though tempests beat and billows roar? He is undaunted, and leaves the avoidance of danger to the sluggard and the slave. He will not pay their price for ease and safety. Away he sails with Vigilance at the prow and Wisdom at the helm. He not only traverses the ocean highways, but skirts unmapped coasts and ventures on uncharted seas. He gathers spoils in every zone, and returns with a rich freight that compensates for all hazards. Some day or other, you say, he will be shipwrecked and lost. Perhaps. All things end somehow. But if he goes down he will die like a man and not like a coward, and have for his requiem the psalm of the tempest and the anthem of the waves." --G.W. Foote

Quote of the Day: Lady Atheist

If Christianity were to start as a cult today, it would be so thoroughly laughed at and discredited it wouldn't stand a chance.  It only survives today because of childhood indoctrination and a long tradition of rationalization (oops that's called "apologetics").  If there had never been any religion before today and you suddenly had to pick from among the ten or so biggest religions, choosing Christianity would be selfish and amoral.  There's nothing noble in being a Christian. 

--Lady Atheist

Interesting, because I have never thought about it this way. I mean, if Christianity started as a cult, not 2,000 some odd years ago, but in this decade, would anybody even convert? Probably not very many. At least, I am assuming, there would probably be no more believers in the risen Christ than there are believers in the risen "King"--and by King I mean Elvis.

Quote of the Day: Douglas Adams

"The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'..."
                                                                              --Douglas Adams

Quote of the Day: Wes Morriston

"If one were to draw up a list of things that make us special, it would probably include things like these. Humans are (or can be) self-conscious, capable of rational reflection and deliberation, of making plans and carrying them out. They fall in love, they have children, form family bonds, and care for one another. Some of them write poems or compose symphonies or discover proofs of deep mathematical theorems. Others understand and appreciate those poems and symphonies and theorems. Non-human animals share some, though by no means all, of these characteristics; and none are shared by rocks.


"So why aren’t characteristics like these – all of which could be found in a Godless universe – sufficient to make us ‘special’ ? That we are the ‘accidental by-products’ of mindless natural processes, or that we haven’t been around very long, or that we won’t be around all that much longer, or that we are tiny in comparison with the universe is entirely beside the point. What matters to
our worth is what we are – not how we got here or how long we will be here. If that’s right, then no matter how much angst an atheist may experience in the face of a mindless, unplanned, unguided, silent universe, the unvarnished facts of her condition do not deprive her of worth. "

--Wes Morriston ("God and the ontological foundation of morality," Religious Studies, Cambridge University Press [2011], p. 9-10)

Quote of the Day: Erasmus

On Christians:

"They speak many things at an abrupt and incoherent rate, as if they were actuated by some possessing demon; they make an inarticulate noise, without any distinguishable sense or meaning. They sometimes screw and distort their faces to uncouth and antic looks; at one time beyond measure cheerful, then as immoderately sullen; now sobbing, then laughing, and soon after sighing, as if they were perfectly distracted, and out of their senses."

--Erasmus (Praise of Folly)