Exodus 35:2 kill sabath day violators Deut 21:18-21 kill disobedient teenagers Lefiticus 20:13 death to homosexuals Deut 22:13-21 kill non-virgins who marry
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Authors and People
christopher hichens …in a debate — transcendence is the goal.
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Christopher Hitchens, Dog BLOG
what we have to be talking about is …transcendence, how do we, as a civilization and a culture, retain what is of value and of beauty and of instruction in the contributions gifted to us by the past from the years, decades, centuries of faith, while discarding the superstition the theocracy the censorship the torture […]
Read More…only His non-existence could excuse Him.
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Authors and People, Dog BLOG, Quotes
“Why do you write to me ‘God should punish the English’? i have no close connection to either one or the other. I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence […]
Read MoreAs to gods and wishes
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Authors and People, Dog BLOG, First Things First
As to gods, they have been, I find, countless, but even the names of most of them lie in the deep compost which is known as civilization, and the memories of few of them are green. There does not seem to be a good reason for holding that some of them are false and some […]
Read MoreWhat they call unbelief, I call belief.
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Authors and People, Dog BLOG
— Carl Van Doren, 1885 – 1950 (from “Why I Am an Unbeliever”) . . .The very terms that I am forced to use put me at the outset in a trying position. Belief, being first in the field, naturally took a positive term for itself and gave a negative term to unbelief. As an […]
Read MoreBelief in demons (Carl Sagan, A Demon-Haunted World)
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Authors and People, Dog BLOG
Belief in demons was widespread in the ancient world. They were thought of as natural rather than supernatural beings. Socrates described his philosophical inspiration as the work of a personal benign demon. Augustine believed that witches were the offspring of …demons having unlawful sexual congress with women. In the Middle Ages, nearly everyone believed in […]
Read MoreFear of things invisible… (Thomas Hobbs)
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Authors and People, Dog BLOG, Quotes
Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which every one in himself calleth religion. — Thomas Hobbs, Leviathan (1651)
Read MoreCarl Sagan (1934 – 1996) (Ann Druyan)
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Authors and People, Dog BLOG, Quotes
Carl’s widow, Ann Druyan: “Where we are ignorant, we withhold belief.”
Read MoreNo exaggeration will be deemed sufficient… ; All must be applause, ravishment, extacy.
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Authors and People, Dog BLOG, Quotes
– – – – -David Hume Every virtue, every excellence, must be ascribed to the divinity, and no exaggeration will be deemed sufficient to reach those perfections with which he is endowed. Whatever strains of panegyric can be invented, are immediately embraced, without consulting any arguments of phenomena: It is esteemed a sufficient confirmation of […]
Read More…there is no aspect of science that I would exempt from the most rigorous scrutiny.
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Authors and People, Dog BLOG
Is science my religion? Not at all; there is no aspect of modern medicine or science that I would exempt from the most rigorous scrutiny, and I can readily identify a host of serious problems that still need to be fixed. That’s easy to do, of course, because the worlds of medicine and science are […]
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