Quotes About Skepticism

Yeah. I don't believe in monistic conspiracy theories where you pick out one group and blame everything on them, but I do tend to believe that conspiracy plays a larger role in human history than conventional historians admit.

In sum, I don't believe the people who say that the world is controlled by one vile group of conspirators who are running everything, but I believe there are actually a multitude of conspiracies contending in the night.

O ceticismo em um grau elevado é um lugar estimulante para ser visitado (por um romancista), mas certamente não desejo viver lá.

is both amusing and frightening. It reminds us that each of us sees the world through perceptual structures (biochemical- neurological) which were laid down accidentally in our earliest moments. It raises the uneasy suspicion that...we may be simply chasing the particular Ping-Pong balls which, at those sensitive shutter moments, had been imprinted on our cortical film.

Personally, I don't trust mystic experiences, including my own — although I seek them and enjoy them. I think Altered Consciousness offers new ways of perceiving/conceiving and should start philosophical investigation, not stop it.

Being modeltheists, the Fundamentalists of course reject any model but their own Eternally True Model; but why are they always especially sarcastic and suspicious when Oriental or African sources are quoted? Bronowski, we noted, said frankly that the Japanese are incapable of seeing the world objectively — i.e. the way he saw it — but how many Fundamentalists think that, too, but are too politic to say it openly?

That's what makes you unhappy," Marcie said. "You ask too many questions.

What the skeptic really seems to be claiming is that he knows what the subject feels better than the subject knows – i.e., that the subject doesn't feel what he feels but feels something else. This is the kind of verbal metaphysics that made the medieval theologians become the laughing-stocks of Voltaire and other rationalist critics.

Unless you stop to ask what coincidence means. I think it means two incidents are associated: co-incidence: coordination of incidents. So, then, to explain two associated incidents (prayers for rain followed by rain) by saying coincidence is to say that the two incidents were associated because the two incidents were associated. That may be soothing enough, but it is hardly analytical.

Some people (Roman Catholics, New Agers, heretical holistic physicians, etc.) will eagerly believe this yarn. Other people (the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the American Medical Association, old-fangled Village Atheists etc.) just as eagerly wish not to believe it at all, at all.

Nietzsche said that mystics never practiced the kind of ruthless honesty, or skepticism, which he dared. He would have had to withdraw that condemnation in the case of Phil Dick (and also, I think, in the case of Aleister Crowley.) Phil never did stop questioning, doubting and seeking alternative models (masks) to contain-or-explain his 'patanormal perceptions.

The only escape from this trap, as far as I can see, is to be skeptical about one's own skepticism: which is what I mean by the New Agnosticism.

Some call this Liberal Copenhagenism model agnosticism. Dr. Marcello Truzzi calls it zeteticism.

Probably the easiest and most efficient approach was to hate everybody. Where have you gone, Jackie Robinson?

Just because it's printed somewhere, that's no reason you have to believe it any more than if you saw it." Harry blinked. "I never thought of that angle before.

My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

On the wall over his head as he worked was a framed quote from President Calvin Coolidge: "Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create.

The cold grew until Cole felt numb. He stared at Steve Brown's house, and wondered who these people were and if everything the woman told Pike was lies. Cole

I asked people about you, and those people said if you were looking for a guy, then you probably found him. I just can't figure why you won't come clean." "Maybe they're wrong." He nodded. "Could be." "But maybe I just don't like being muscled, so I'm being petulant.

Hey, we've got this guy, Dan! He's ours!" Dan Tomsic stared at her with the disdain he reserved for shitbirds, defense attorneys, and card-carrying members of the ACLU. He said, "It's easier to cut off your own goddamned leg than convict a rich man in this state, detective. Haven't you been around long enough to know that?

I spoke with Steve Brown today, the man who owns Smith's house, and I had another talk with Jared. I have to tell you some things, and you're not going to like it. I don't think Dru has been honest with you." Cole paused for Pike to react, but Pike gave him no more reaction than a department store mannequin. The cat left the edge of the deck, twined once through Pike's legs, then sat, its eyes narrow and watchful.

Stemms sniffed the air loudly, like a dog catching a scent. "I'm smelling bullshit." Harvey spoke again, voice mellow and calm, like a jazz man at two in the morning. "Relax, Jesse. What does she look like? Describe her.

Scott told himself to be patient, but wondered what Cole knew. Cole's offer to help was like a worrisome terrier that wouldn't let go of his ankle. Cole might be one of those people who colored outside the lines, but people who hung it over the edge weren't always wrong. Cole might be able to use his secret knowledge and shady connections to break the case faster than Carter. Scott

G]ood people are rarely suspicious: they cannot imagine others doing the things they themselves are incapable of doing; usually they accept the undramatic solution as the correct one, and let matters rest there.