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To believe something in the face of evidence and against reason - to believe something by faith - is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect.

A.C. Grayling

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A.C. Grayling
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More quotes by A.C. Grayling

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The wise say that our failure is to form habits: for habit is the mark of a stereotyped world.
A.C. Grayling
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Religious apologists complain bitterly that atheists and secularists are aggressive and hostile in their criticism of them. I always say: look, when you guys were in charge, you didn't argue with us, you just burnt us at the stake. Now what we're doing is, we're presenting you with some arguments and some challenging questions, and you complain.
A.C. Grayling
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I do not believe that there are any such things as gods and goddesses, for exactly the same reasons as I do not believe there are fairies, goblins or sprites, and these reasons should be obvious to anyone over the age of ten.
A.C. Grayling
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Inculcating the various competing - competing, note - falsehoods of the major faiths into small children is a form of child abuse, and a scandal.
A.C. Grayling
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Just as modern motorways have no room for ox-carts or wandering pedestrians, so modern society has little place for lives and ways that are too eccentric.
A.C. Grayling
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Misuse of reason might yet return the world to pre-technological night plenty of religious zealots hunger for just such a result, and are happy to use the latest technology to effect it.
A.C. Grayling
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Humanism is the philosophy that you should be a good guest at the dinner table of life.
A.C. Grayling
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Try lighting your house by prayer instead of electricity and see which one works.
A.C. Grayling
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Science is the outcome of being prepared to live without certainty and therefore a mark of maturity. It embraces doubt and loose ends.
A.C. Grayling
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And I say, the meaning of life is what you make it. There will be as many different meaningful lives as there are people to live them.
A.C. Grayling
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...mastery of the emotions is fundamental to a virtuous life.
A.C. Grayling
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Look at the blogosphere - the biggest lavatory wall in the universe, a palimpsest of graffiti and execration.
A.C. Grayling
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I believe that decisions about the timing and manner of death belong to the individual as a human right. I believe it is wrong to withhold medical methods of terminating life painlessly and swiftly when an individual has a rational and clear-minded sustained wish to end his or her life.
A.C. Grayling
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A human lifespan is less than a thousand months long. You need to make some time to think how to live it.
A.C. Grayling
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Religions survive mainly because they brainwash the young.
A.C. Grayling
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Middle age has been defined as what happens when a person's broad mind and narrow waist change places.
A.C. Grayling
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When I was 14 a chaplain at school gave me a reading list. I read everything and I went back to him with a question: how can you really believe in this stuff?
A.C. Grayling
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There is a beautiful and life-enhancing alternative outlook that offers insight, consolation, inspiration and meaning, which has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with the best, most generous, most sympathetic understanding of human reality.
A.C. Grayling
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I despise people who depend on these things [heroin and cocaine]. If you really want a mind-altering experience, look at a tree.
A.C. Grayling
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Future generations may or may not judge Wittgenstein to be one of the great philosophers. Even if they do not, however, he is sure always to count as one of the great personalities of philosophy. From our perspective it is easy to mistake one for the other which he is time will tell.
A.C. Grayling