Quotes About Doubt

More generally, as I shall repeat in Chapter 8, one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.

Yet now we are faced with the sickening suspicion that technology has run ahead of us.

Almost all arguments for skepticism make reference to seemingly ridiculous possibilities—we are being deceived by an evil demon, life is just a dream, we are brains in vats. You might propose psychoanalysis, rather than philosophical reflection, for anyone who worries about these possibilities.

The God way. Talking about God this and God that. Fuck God, he had actually wanted to say. Fuck God for having made this world, fucked be his name, now and for fucking ever, fuck God for our lives, fuck God for not saving us, fuck God for not being here and for not saving the men burning on the fucking bamboo.

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." People

There's no better way to build confidence in a theory than to believe it is not testable.

If you will only ask yourself, "Is what I am being told really true?," it is amazing how much you can find is, or borders on, being false, even in a well-developed field!

The institutions that claim to represent God, when they are not ignored altogether, are treated like other human institutions that have to earn their right to a hearing by the value of what they say, and not by virtue of who is saying it. Today, authority has to earn respect by the intrinsic value of what it says, not by the force of its imposition.

And do you think that unto such as you, A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew, God gave the Secret, and denied it me? - Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.

And I wanted to be as I had been yesterday, a boy again, without the heaviness of doubt, this pressing fear, this new treachery that lifted to realms of singing gold, and in a little space, flung to pits of night.

To his complete astonishment, he later found himself offering up a stumbling prayer that the dog would be protected. It was a moment in which he felt a desperate need to believe in a God that shepherded his own creations. But, even praying, he felt a twinge of self-reproach, and knew he might start mocking his own prayer at any second. Somehow, though, he managed to ignore his iconoclastic self and went on praying anyway. Because he wanted the dog, because he needed the dog.

The strength of the vampire is that no one will believe in him.

Was there a logical answer, something he could accept without slipping on banana skins of mysticism?

It was a moment in which he felt a desperate need to believe in a God that shepherded his own creations. But, even praying, he felt a twinge of self-reproach, and knew he might start mocking his own prayer at any second. Somehow, though, he managed to ignore his iconoclastic self and went on praying anyway. Because he wanted the dog, because he needed the dog.

The strength of the vampire is that no one will believe in him." Thank you, Dr. Van Helsing, he thought, putting down his copy of Dracula.

Anyone who gets righteous...doesn't understand. Understand what? How hopelessly fragile and wrong we all are. About everything.

I've been a man who happily confuses the agreed-on for the actual. A man who has never doubted that life has a meaningful future

Again, that unreachable future opened up in front of them through a crack in the air. Again, they drew near to enter it. The wilder her feelings, the more she doubted. The man's visit was brief, lucky, mad. But anything more than one illicit afternoon outside Independence Hall would be impossible. Surely he saw that.

organized religion is no longer good news for most people, but bad news indeed. It set us up for the massive atheism, agnosticism, hedonism, and secularism we now see in almost all formerly Christian countries.

It is important to know that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but in fact, certitude and the demand for certitude!

Our temptation now and always is not to trust in God but to trust in our faith tradition of trusting in God.

For some of you, my quoting Jesus is the only way you will trust me; for others, it gives you more reasons to mistrust me, but I have to take both risks. If I dared to present all of these ideas simply as my ideas, or because they match modern psychology or old mythology, I would be dishonest. Jesus for me always clinches the deal, and I sometimes wonder why I did not listen to him in the first place.

If this inner and critical voice has kept you safe for many years as your inner voice of authority, you may end up not being able to hear the real voice of God.

Some say that FEAR is merely an acronym for "false evidence appearing real.