Quote

There is a significant difference between having no belief in a God and believing there is no God.

Michael Shermer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Michael Shermer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 8
Historian Of Science
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sport Cyclist
Writer
Glendale
California
USA
Michael Brant Shermer
Difference
Differences
Belief
Believe
Believing
Significant

More quotes by Michael Shermer

Image
For solving a surprisingly large and varied number of problems, crowds are smarter than individuals.
Michael Shermer
Image
Since humans are by nature tribal, the overall goal is to expand the concept of the tribe to include ALL members of the species, in a global free society.
Michael Shermer
Image
But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.
Michael Shermer
Image
When alien abductees recount to me their stories, I do not deny that they had a real experience.
Michael Shermer
Image
Skepticism is not a position that you stake out ahead of time and stick to no matter what.
Michael Shermer
Image
Human history is highly nonlinear and unpredictable.
Michael Shermer
Image
Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.
Michael Shermer
Image
Believing that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator when it is only the wind does not cost much, but believing that a dangerous predator is the wind may cost an animal its life.
Michael Shermer
Image
Religious faith depends on a host of social, psychological and emotional factors that have little or nothing to do with probabilities, evidence and logic.
Michael Shermer
Image
Providentially, learned habits can be unlearned, especially in the context of moral groups.
Michael Shermer
Image
Being a skeptic just means being rational and empirical: thinking and seeing before believing.
Michael Shermer
Image
Belief is the natural state of things. It is the default option. We just believe. We believe all sorts of things. Belief is natural disbelief, skepticism, science, is not natural.
Michael Shermer
Image
In science, if an idea is not falsifiable, it is not that it is wrong, it is that we cannot determine if it is wrong, and thus it is not even wrong.
Michael Shermer
Image
Are science and religion compatible? It's like, are science and plumbing compatible? They're just two different things.
Michael Shermer
Image
Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.
Michael Shermer
Image
My thesis is that morality exists outside the human mind in the sense of being not just a trait of individual humans, but a human trait that is, a human universal.
Michael Shermer
Image
But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.
Michael Shermer
Image
We are a fluke of nature, a quirk of evolution, a glorious contingency.
Michael Shermer
Image
People who espouse Intelligent Design believe nature is so complex as to require an intelligent designer-God. Similarly, liberals believe the economy is so complex as to require an intelligent designer-government.
Michael Shermer
Image
We think of our eyes as video cameras and our brains as blank tapes to be filled with sensory inputs.
Michael Shermer