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
Believe
Believing
Significant
Difference
Differences
Belief

More quotes by Michael Shermer

Image
Plato wove historical fact into literary myth.
Michael Shermer
Image
We're all talking about the same thing, whether it's religious people or New Age spiritual people or Buddhists or scientists. We're all talking about having a sense of awe and wonder at something grander than ourselves.
Michael Shermer
Image
Being a skeptic just means being rational and empirical: thinking and seeing before believing.
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
Science is the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works.
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
For solving a surprisingly large and varied number of problems, crowds are smarter than individuals.
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
We think of our eyes as video cameras and our brains as blank tapes to be filled with sensory inputs.
Michael Shermer
Image
Intelligent Design is a remarkably uncreative theory that abandons the search for understanding at the very point where it is most needed. If Intelligent Design is really a science, then the burden is on its scientists to discover the mechanisms used by the Intelligent Designer. (80)
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
Rationality tied to moral decency is the most powerful joint instrument for good that our planet has ever known.
Michael Shermer
Image
In the long run, it is better to understand the way the world really is rather than how we would like it to be.
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 are a fluke of nature, a quirk of evolution, a glorious contingency.
Michael Shermer
Image
Darwin matters because evolution matters. Evolution matters because science matters. Science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age, an epic saga about who we are, where we came from and where we are going.
Michael Shermer
Image
When alien abductees recount to me their stories, I do not deny that they had a real experience.
Michael Shermer
Image
I just witnessed an event so mysterious that it shook my skepticism.
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