Quotes About Faith

We know that people can maintain an unshakeable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers.

The exaggerated faith in small samples is only one example of a more general illusion—we pay more attention to the content of messages than to information about their reliability, and as a result end up with a view of the world around us that is simpler and more coherent than the data justify.

people can maintain an unshakable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers.

many people are overconfident, prone to place too much faith in their intuitions. They apparently find cognitive effort at least mildly unpleasant and avoid it as much as possible.

We know that people can maintain an unshakable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers.

And it is natural for System 1 to generate overconfident judgments, because confidence, as we have seen, is determined by the coherence of the best story you can tell from the evidence at hand. Be warned: your intuitions will deliver predictions that are too extreme and you will be inclined to put far too much faith in them.

that people can maintain an unshakable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers.

The exaggerated faith in small samples is only one example of a more general illusion—we pay more attention to the content of messages than to information about their reliability, and as a result end up with a view of the world around us that is simpler and more coherent than the data justify. Jumping

many people are overconfident, prone to place too much faith in their intuitions.

Mnoge umiruje ?injenica da sveštenici još uvek postoje, da hodaju zemljom, da služe mise, da se mole i ponašaju kao da ?ovek ima dušu i kao da postoji nada za ljude. Tako i sam mislim kad vidim sveštenika koga ne poznajem. Ali kada se pogledam u ogledalo, to više ne funkcioniše.

Nobody, said Humboldt, had a destiny. One simply decided to feign one until one came to believe in it oneself. But so many things didn't fit in with it, one had to really force oneself.

There is no God and Mary is his mother." —GEORGE SANTAYANA, AMERICAN-SPANISH PHILOSOPHER (1863–1952), AMERICAN PRAGMATIST (SORT OF)

It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that." —THOMAS NAGEL, AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER (1937–), ETHICIST AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHER

I hope there is no God" passage, Nagel wrote that "[I] am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers." I, too, know a great number of very bright and knowledgeable people who are believers. It sometimes makes me wonder if the skeptics have it backward: maybe I am just not wise enough to be a believer.

I wonder if I have a problem. I definitely have a tendency to seek spiritual inspiration from super-rational thinkers rather than from rabbis and priests and theologians.

Christians today, no less than people of other faiths, are caught between pervasive apathy and acts of violence, apathy born of hopelessness about the enormity of the evils that confront us and recourse to violence and coercion that seriously compromises or even destroys the goals of a better future. Either way, we can close off the future to which we are directed by God our creator and redeemer.

God only allows his Divine Presence to rest on someone who is strong, wealthy, wise, and humble.

Relax. Everything will resolve itself in time— this is the way of the world.

A belief is not a fact; it is simply what we believe.

My own experience is that when I've lost something it was irreplaceable, it's usually replaced with something much better. The key to change is having faith that when we get rid of the old, something or someone even more magnificent will take its place.

I'm not Candide, nor Dr Pangloss, but we know that faith moves mountains.

There are more people living in Lower Manhattan now than before the terrorist attacks. That's faith for you. There's such a strong spirit here.

The soul that loves God seeks no other reward than that God whom it loves. Were the soul to demand anything else, then it would certainly love that other thing and not God.

Discussion Questions 1. Why does legalism appeal to almost every Christian at some time? To what extent are you a "just do it" Christian? What is the cure for legalism? 2. How do people change? How have you answered that question in the past? How do you answer it now? 3. List all the motives people can have for obeying God. What are your main motives for living as a disciple? How might you move to the higher motives?