Quotes About Doubt

Because it's all about fear - fear of being alone, fear of never being asked and, worst of all, the fear of having a choice and making the wrong one.

I also happened to sincerely believe in my father's message, though "believe" is perhaps the wrong word. Rather, I had not yet begun to question my indoctrination.

I'd remember that if it came down to it, I'd rather be arrested for shoplifting than ever be an evangelical leader again. There was a certain basic and decent honesty about stealing pork chops that selling God had lacked.

Embracing paradox helped me discover that religion is a neurological disorder for which faith is the only cure.

If we wait for correct ideas to save us—theological or otherwise—we'll never be saved, even from ourselves. Why? Because we can never have a fully correct idea. Why? Because however we label ourselves, we are still only half-evolved primates in two or more minds and multiple moods.

Theologically speaking, we believed in an absolutely powerful omnipotent and sovereign Lord. But in practice, our God had to be begged and encouraged to carry out the simplest tasks, for instance to keep moving the hearts of the local Swiss authorities to renew our residency permits. How

As I became a more and more successful "professional Christian," I began to sense the depth of my ignorance about the country I was talking about. On the road, I'd be parroting the party line, saying that America was godless and doomed. But the America I was actually experiencing (for the first time as a resident) was not doomed. It was more complicated and wonderful than I had ever imagined. I began to get the feeling that maybe I was on the wrong side. The

certainties is putting faith in our imagination rather than in God's. It is like me demanding an explanation from Lucy in that

I'd be adrift in an ocean of uncertainty." Yes, and perhaps that's the only honest place to be. Another name for uncertainty is humility. No one ever blew up a mosque, church, or abortion clinic after yelling, "I could be wrong.

What's the point of quoting the Bible to people who don't believe it's true" Dad would say.

Maybe we need a new category other than theism, atheism or agnosticism that takes paradox and unknowing into account.

God's only in your head!" my answer is, "Yeah, whatever. What isn't?

If we wait for correct ideas to save us—theological or otherwise—we'll never be saved, even from ourselves.

I'm a reasonable kind of guy. If I hear something that seems to make sense, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. If the alternative explanation has to be pounded into shape before it fits the mould of our experience, it seems to me that it's unlikely to be true.

The more I thought about this developmental scheme, the more something seemed profoundly wrong. I read and reread what I had written, trying to figure out what was so insistently bothering me. In an unflattering moment, it seemed to me that I had stated the case so carefully that I couldn't crack my own argument; and yet something was definitely wrong."32

Some people have the experience of being accused of lying when they do not think that they have lied. Circle a number to show what percentage of the time this happens to you. [question from the Dissociative Experiences Scale]

Sometimes... I feel as if I'm not supposed to get better.

Melchior. What good does that do? Moritz. What good does it have to do?——We are fit for nothing more, neither good nor evil.

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts about reality.

I don't mean to be ungrateful but if someone's out there answering prayers, mine's not at the top of the list

If faith makes people buy an entire package of myths and values without asking too many questions, scientists are only slightly better.

There are so many ways to account for negative outcomes that it is safer to doubt one's methods before doubting one's subjects.

Oh my body, make of me a man who always questions!

My final prayer: O my body, make of me always a man who questions!" - Frantz Fanon, "Black Skin, White Masks