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e32d551 "[ :] Atheism by itself is, of course, not a moral position or a political one of any kind; it simply is the refusal to believe in a supernatural dimension. For you to say of Nazism that it was the implementation of the work of is a filthy slander, undeserving of you and an insult to this audience. 's thought was not taught in Germany; was so derided in Germany along with every other form of unbelief that all the great modern atheists, , and were alike despised by the National Socialist regime. Now, just to take the most notorious of the 20th century totalitarianisms - the most finished example, the most perfected one, the most ruthless and refined one: that of National Socialism, the one that fortunately allowed the escape of all these great atheists, thinkers and many others, to the United States, a country of separation of church and state, that gave them welcome - if it's an atheistic regime, then how come that in the first chapter of , that says that he's doing God's work and executing God's will in destroying the Jewish people? How come the fuhrer oath that every officer of the Party and the Army had to take, making albert-einstein barbaric catholicism charles-darwin darwin darwinism einstein evolution fascism fascistic freud fuhrer germany hitler jewish mein-kampf nazi nazism pope science separation-of-church-and-state sigmund-freud superstitious united-states vatican Christopher Hitchens
a2cbbed ...Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers... for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality... But I had gradually come by this time, i.e., 1836 to 1839, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow at sign, &c., &c., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian. ...By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, (and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become), that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost uncomprehensible by us, that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitnesses; by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can be hardly denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories. But I was very unwilling to give up my belief... Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine. atheism autobiography belief charles-darwin damnable divine-revelation doctrine doubt evidence hell hindu hinduism history interpretation metaphors miracles new-testament old-testament orthodox punishment resurrection revelation sacred-books skepticism tyrant Charles Darwin
9cce14b "You could give a tutorial. And you could thrill him to the core of his being. was an encyclopedic polymath, an all time intellect. Yet not only can you know more than him about the world. You also can have a deeper understanding of how everything works. Such is the privilege of living after , , , , , and their colleagues. I'm not saying you're more intelligent than aristotle charles-darwin crick darwin einstein francis-crick intellect isaac-newton james-d-watson james-watson knowledge max-planck newton planck polymath science understanding watson Richard Dawkins
bb119d4 "The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. And even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men's hands, since the publication of biology business charles-darwin darwin goal history illimitable inexplicability infinite intellectual isaac-newton justification knowledge metaphor newton ocean origin-of-species possessions principia science solidity unknown Thomas Henry Huxley
5cd66a5 This century will be called 's century. He was one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. . Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer , and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now accepted facts. His light has broken in on some of the clergy, and the greatest man who to-day occupies the pulpit of one of the orthodox churches, Henry Ward Beecher, is a believer in the theories of --a man of more genius than all the clergy of that entire church put together. ...The church teaches that man was created perfect, and that for six thousand years he has degenerated. demonstrated the falsity of this dogma. He shows that man has for thousands of ages steadily advanced; . Religion and science are enemies. One is a superstition; the other is a fact. One rests upon the false, the other upon the true. One is the result of fear and faith, the other of investigation and reason. atonement biology charles-darwin clergy darwin dogma england evolution fact false fear garden-of-eden genius geology ignorance investigation myth nature origin-of-species original-sin orthodox orthodox-christianity reason science superstition survival-of-the-fittest true Robert Green Ingersoll
9af8923 "Why should I have to hide the fact that I don't believe there's a supreme being? There's no proof of it. There's no harm in saying you're an atheist. It doesn't mean you treat people any differently. I live by the Golden Rule to do unto others, as you'd want to be treated. I just simply don't believe in religion, and I don't believe necessarily that there's a supreme being that watches over all of us. I follow the teachings of . said he worshipped the sun. He was a fellow atheist. I'm in good company ... , atheism atheist belief carlin charles-darwin company darwin einstein george-carlin golden-rule mark-twain supreme-being twain Jesse Ventura
97fde74 It has often been noted that three major revolutions in thought have threatened the idea of human centrality. First, Copernicus demonstrated that Earth was not the center about which all celestial bodies revolved. Next, Darwin showed us that we were not central in the chain of life but, like all other creatures, had evolved from other life-forms. Third, Freud demonstrated that we are not masters in our own house-that much of our behavior is governed by forced outside of our consciousness. There is no doubt that Freud's unacknowledged co-revolutionary was Arthur Schopenhauer, who, long before Freud's birth, had posited that we are governed by deep biological forced and then delude ourselves into thinking that we consciously choose our activities. charles-darwin copernic copernicus darwin freud philosophy schopenhauer science sigmund-freud Irvin D. Yalom
a0318f6 The 'Manifesto' being our joint production, I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus belongs to . That proposition is: that in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolution in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and the oppressed class--the proletariat--cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class--the bourgeoisie--without, at the same time, and once for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles. This proposition, which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what 's theory has done for biology, we, both of us, had been gradually approaching for some years before 1845. charles-darwin class-struggle communism darwin exploitation history karl-marx marx oppression Friedrich Engels
3b54aa5 As a rule, theologians know nothing of this world, and far less of the next; but they have the power of stating the most absurd propositions with faces solemn as stupidity touched by fear. It is a part of their business to malign and vilify the , , , , Tyndalls, , , , and Drapers, and to bow with uncovered heads before the murderers, adulterers, and persecutors of the world. They are, for the most part, engaged in poisoning the minds of the young, prejudicing children against science, teaching the astronomy and geology of the bible, and inducing all to desert the sublime standard of reason. adulterers afterlife alexander-humboldt alexander-von-humboldt astronomy charles-darwin children-science darwin david-hume draper ernst-haeckel fear geology haeckel herbert-spencer humboldt hume john-draper john-tyndall john-william-draper knowledge mind murderers paine persecutors poison power prejudice propositions reason spencer stupidity sublime theologian theologians theology thomas-paine tyndall vilify voltaire wilhelm-humboldt wilhelm-von-humboldt world Robert G. Ingersoll
f8092af was born in a brick farmhouse in Lancaster Mass, he walked through the woods one winter crunching through the shinycrusted snow stumbling into a little dell where a warm spring was and found the grass green and weeds sprouting and skunk cabbage pushing up a potent thumb, He went home and sat by the stove and read Struggle for Existence Origin of Species Natural Selection that wasn't what they taught in church, so ceased to believe moved to Lunenburg, found a seedball in a potato plant sowed the seed and cashed in on 's Natural Selection on and with the Burbank potato. Young man go west; went to Santa Rosa full of his dream of green grass in winter ever- blooming flowers ever- bearing berries; could cash in on Natural Selection carried his apocalyptic dream of green grass in winter and seedless berries and stoneless plums and thornless roses brambles cactus-- winters were bleak in that bleak brick farmhouse in bleak Massachusetts-- out to sunny Santa Rosa; and he was a sunny old man where roses bloomed all year everblooming everbearing hybrids. America was hybrid America could cash in on Natural Selection. He was an infidel he believed in and Natural Selection and the influence of the mighty dead and a good firm shipper's fruit suitable for canning. He was one of the grand old men until the churches and the congregations got wind that he was an infidel and believed in . had never a thought of evil, selected improved hybrids for America those sunny years in Santa Rosa. But he brushed down a wasp's nest that time; he wouldn't give up and Natural Selection and they stung him and he died puzzled. They buried him under a cedartree. His favorite photograph was of a little tot standing beside a bed of hybrid everblooming double Shasta daisies with never a thought of evil And Mount Shasta in the background, used to be a volcano but they don't have volcanos any more. charles-darwin darwin herbert-spencer huxley luther-burbank spencer t-h-huxley thomas-h-huxley thomas-henry-huxley thomas-huxley John Dos Passos
cb12e81 "I published that theory [of speciational evolution] in a 1954 paper...and I clearly related it to paleontology. argued that the fossil record is very incomplete because some species fossilize better than others... I noted that you are never going to find evidence of a small local population that changed very rapidly in the fossil record... charles-darwin darwin eldredge evidence evolution fossil-record gould harvard niles-eldredge science speciational-evolution stephen-jay-gould Ernst Mayr
b26bb6e "The funny thing is if in England, you ask a man in the street who the greatest living is, he will say . And indeed, has done a marvelous job of popularizing . But charles-darwin darwin darwinian dawkins evolution gene genetics irony richard-dawkins science Ernst Mayr
379f0f4 This new consensus seemed so compelling that Ernst Mayr, the dean of modern Darwinians, opened the ashcan of history for a deposit of Geoffrey's ideas about anatomical unity. charles-darwin consensus darwin darwinian ernst-mayr evolution history science Stephen Jay Gould
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