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Meditation 364
Quotations XXXII

"I hate quotations, tell me what you know." Ralph Waldo Emerson.

But as some people do like quotations and think they can be useful in succinctly communicating an opinion, we will publish a selection occasionally, mostly but not entirely relevant. This is the thirty-second in an ongoing series.

1. To mistrust science and deny the validity of the scientific method is to resign your job as a human. You'd better go look for work as a plant or animal. P. J. O'Rourke
   
   
2. There is no reason whatever to believe that the order of nature has any greater bias in favour of man than it had in favour of the ichthyosaur or the pterodactyl. H. G. Wells
   
   
3. Miss Erickson looked even more peculiar this morning. Is her spiritualism getting worse? Noel Coward
   
   
4. There can be no incompatibility between the Christian faith and proven facts concerning geology, biology, and astronomy. There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat earth in order to defend our religious faith. Jimmy Carter
   
   
5. Adam was but human--this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent. Mark Twain
   
   
6. The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. Benjamin Franklin
   
   
7. After the Rapture, can I have your car? seen on a bumpersticker
   
   
8. Evidence carefully sifted can be enlisted to support practically any supposition as long as the preponderance of contrary clues are ignored and the rules of sound scientific practice are suspended. Dennis R. Trumble
   
   
9. We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. Richard Dawkins
   
   
10. I have no special regard for Satan; but, I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. Mark Twain
    
    
11. No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish. David Hume
    
    
12. The world is proof that God is a committee. Bob Stokes
    
    
13. Hands that help are far better than lips that pray. Robert Ingersoll
    
    
14. Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age, he would have repudiated his doctrine. Friedrich Nietzsche
    
    
15. True irreverence is disrespect for another man's god. Mark Twain
    
    
16. The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion. Karl Marx
    
    
17. When we talk to God, we're praying. When God talks to us, we're schizophrenic. Lily Tomlin
    
    
18. My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed. Christopher Morley
    
    
19. The myriad approaches adopted by creation "scientists" in their attempts to undermine evolutionary theory are indeed quite creative, but hardly scientific. Dennis R. Trumble
    
    
20. The spirit of wrath -- not the words -- is the sin; and the spirit of wrath is cursing. We begin to swear before we can talk. Mark Twain