Michael Shermer Quotes
In the past 10,000 years, humans have devised roughly 100,000 religions based on roughly 2,500 gods. So the only difference between myself and the believers is that I am skeptical of 2,500 gods whereas they are skeptical of 2,499 gods. We're only one God away from total agreement.
Quotes to Explore
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The tension between the essence of spiritual teachings and the harmful fundamentalism that often arises in the name of religion is an issue that has engaged my mind practically as far back as I can remember.
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It was once religion which threatened us with a last judgment at the end of days. It is now our tortured planet which predicts the arrival of such a day without any heavenly intervention.
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My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.
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Genius without religion is only a lamp on the outer gate of a palace; it may serve to cast a gleam of light on those that are without, while the inhabitant sits in darkness.
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Then if your movie clicks with real audiences, you'll be sucked into some sort of Hollywood orbit. It's a devil of a place where the only religion that really counts is box office.
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You're always going to have extremists in every religion.
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If you don't acknowledge differences, it's as bad as stereotyping or reducing someone.
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Religion and ritual can be vehicles for entering stillness. It says in Psalm 46:10, 'Be still, and know that I am God.' But they are still just vehicles. The Buddha called his teaching a raft: You don't need to carry it around with you after you've crossed the river.
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The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion.
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Religious tolerance is something we should all practice; however, there have been more persecution and atrocities committed in the name of religion and religious freedom than anything else.
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To justify Christian morality because it provides a foundation of morality, instead of showing the necessity of Christian morality from the truth of Christianity, is a very dangerous inversion.
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Do you believe in rock 'n roll? Can music save your mortal soul?
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The foolish idea that my music can actually make a difference in someone's life - that right there is proof that it's working. It makes me feel great, it really does.
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I've come to realize that the difference in success or failure is not how you look, how you dress, or how you're educated. It's how you think !
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The only reason the Protestants and Catholics have given up the idea of universal domination is because they've realised they can't get away with it.
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The meetings yesterday proved that we really do have a partnership, which is growing both wider and deeper, ... We do also have some differences. But there is a lot more that unites us than divides us.
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Atheists have just as much civil right to teach atheism as Christians have to teach Christianity; agnostics have just as much right to teach agnosticism as Christians have to teach their religion.
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If we are to be as a shining city upon a hill, it will be because of our ceaseless pursuit of the constitutional ideal of human dignity.
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No religion taught man to kill fellowmen because he held different opinions or was of another religion.
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My religion enables me, obliges me to imbibe all that is good in all the great religions of the earth.
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It doesn't matter whether you're black or white, practice a different religion, come from a different culture, or have a disability. If you're different from most of the people you're surrounded by, some people might not be as tolerant as they should be.
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The problem is we are left only with empathy - which is critical, if it can be developed - without substantive manifestations of that empathy. It's one thing to attain it intellectually, but it's another thing to do something about it.
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A governor can be a very good friend to people. A governor can be a formidable force.
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In the past 10,000 years, humans have devised roughly 100,000 religions based on roughly 2,500 gods. So the only difference between myself and the believers is that I am skeptical of 2,500 gods whereas they are skeptical of 2,499 gods. We're only one God away from total agreement.
