Quotes from Susan Jacoby

Beginning with the radio evangelist Billy Sunday in the twenties, American fundamentalists, with their black-and-white view of every issue, have made effective use of each new medium of mass communication. Liberal religion, with its many shades of gray and determination to make room for secular knowledge in the house of faith, does not lend itself as readily to media packaging and is at an even greater disadvantage in the visual media than it was on the radio.

More than half of American adults believe in ghosts, one third believe in astrology, three quarters believe in angels, and four fifths believe in miracles.

If enough money is involved, and enough people believe that two plus two equals five, the media will report the story with a straight face, always adding a qualifying paragraph noting that "mathematicians, however, say that two plus two still equals four." With a perverted objectivity that gives credence to nonsense, some mainstream news outlets have done more to undermine logic and reason than rapture ready.com could ever do.

The inseparability of junk science from junk thought is evinced by the telltale marks of endemic illogic coupled, in many instances, with deliberate manipulativeness. The first and most fundamental warning sign is an inability to distinguish between coincidence and causation--a basic requirement for scientific literacy.

In 1929, George Macdonald recalled that there "has always been a considerable fringe of ascetics in the Freethought ranks—foes of rum, tobacco, corsets, sex, meat, and white bread. . . . Their slogan is: 'The whiter the bread the sooner you're dead.

Public ignorance and anti-intellectualism are not identical, of course, but they are certainly kissing cousins. Both foster the rise of candidates who regard a broad knowledge of history, science, and culture, and a decent command of their native language as political liabilities rather than assets—and who frequently try to downplay these qualities, even if they possess them, in order to pander to a public that considers conspicuous displays of learning a form of snobbery.

Madonna's "fuck you" was offensive not because it is an obscenity but because it is an expression that cannot persuade opponents and can only please blind supporters. In either private or public, the only possible answer to "fuck you" is "fuck you too.

Truth never envelops itself in mystery, and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped is the work of its antagonist.

one of the great weaknesses of the women's rights movement over the past two hundred years has been the tendency of its history to disappear, so that it must be resurrected for each new generation.

Real-life discussions involve a great many bores and boors who have never learned that the art of conversation demands listening as well as talking.

At its heart, all intellectual and emotional life is a conversation, and the conversation begins at birth.

Religious education is only valuable intellectually, if the child is educated in a religion versus [just] about a religion. I don't believe you can have both.

I'd be the last person in the world to deny that there are many people for whom faith is - can be a great sustaining force.

I have always regarded the development of the individual as the only legitimate goal of education.