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Skepticism is essential to the quest for knowledge, for it is in the seedbed of puzzlement that genuine inquiry takes root. Without skepticism, we may remain mired in unexamined belief systems that are accepted as sacrosanct yet have no factual basis in reality.

Paul Kurtz

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Paul Kurtz
Age: 86 †
Born: 1925
Born: December 21
Died: 2012
Died: October 20
Philosopher
Professor
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Without
Essentials
Inquiry
Puzzlement
Remain
Root
Sacrosanct
Roots
Systems
Mired
Takes
Basis
Unexamined
Belief
Bases
Factual
Knowledge
Genuine
Quests
Reality
Essential
Quest
May
Accepted
Skepticism

More quotes by Paul Kurtz

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No diety will save us we must save ourselves.
Paul Kurtz
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Secular humanism is avowedly non-religious. It is a eupraxsophy (good practical wisdom), which draws its basic principles and ethical values from science, ethics, and philosophy.
Paul Kurtz
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Free inquiry entails recognition of civil liberties as integral to its pursuit, that is, a free press, freedom of communication, the right to organize opposition parties and to join voluntary associations, and freedom to cultivate and publish the fruits of scientific, philosophical, artistic, literary, moral and religious freedom.
Paul Kurtz
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Many humanists have argued that happiness involves a combination of hedonism and creative moral development that an exuberant life fuses excellence and enjoyment, meaning and enrichment, emotion and cognition.
Paul Kurtz
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Three key humanist virtues are courage, cognition, and caring - not dependence, ignorance, or insensitivity to the needs of others.
Paul Kurtz
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No one is infallible, and no one can claim a monopoly on truth or virtue. It would be contradictory for skepticism to seek to translate itself into a new faith.
Paul Kurtz
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Secular humanism proposes ... the complete implementation of the agenda of modernism ... what is necessary for it to occur is a ... New Enlightenment.
Paul Kurtz
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Life, when fully lived under a variety of cultural conditions, can be euphoric and optimistic it can be a joy to experience and a wonder to behold.
Paul Kurtz
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Secular humanism does not have the essential attributes of a religion: belief in a deity, the wish for some sort of afterlife, sacred dogma or texts, or an absolutist moral creed. Instead, it expresses a philosophical and ethical point of view, and it draws upon the scientific method in formulationg its naturalistic view of the nature.
Paul Kurtz
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UFO mythology is similar to the message of the classical religions where God sends his Angels as emissaries who offer salvation to those who accept the faith and obey his Prophets. Today, the chariots of the gods are UFOs. What we are witnessing in the past half century is the spawning of a New Age religion.
Paul Kurtz
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The skeptic has no illusions about life, nor a vain belief in the promise of immortality. Since this life here and now is all we can know, our most reasonable option is to live it fully.
Paul Kurtz
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I believe that a person should take an affirmative outlook. There are always problems in life, old and new, uncertainties, and unexpected contingencies. The optimal way to deal with this is not to give up in despair, but to move ahead using the best intelligence and resources that we have to overcome adversity.
Paul Kurtz
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Humanists hold that ethical values are relative to human experience and need not be derived from theological or metaphysical foundations.
Paul Kurtz
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The theist can only find meaning by leaving this life for a transcendental world beyond the grave. The human world as he finds it is empty of 'ultimate purpose' and hence meaningless. Theism thus is an attempt to escape from the human condition it is a pathetic deceit.
Paul Kurtz
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We need to be skeptical of utopianists who offer unreliable totalistic visions of other worlds and strive to take us there. We need some ideals, but we also need to protect ourselves from the miscalculations and misadventures of visionaries.
Paul Kurtz
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The meaning of life is not to be discovered only after death in some hidden, mysterious realm on the contrary, it can be found by eating the succulent fruit of the Tree of Life and by living in the here and now as fully and creatively as we can.
Paul Kurtz
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We cannot remain silent when someone of the Pope's stature and credibility confuses religious principles for science
Paul Kurtz
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A skeptic is one who is willing to question any truth claim, asking for clarity in definition, consistency in logic, and adequacy of evidence.
Paul Kurtz
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Only a fool of a scientist would dismiss the evidence and reports in front of him and substitute his own beliefs in their place.
Paul Kurtz
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Parents have no right to impose their religion on their children... A Fundamentalist Protestant parent has no right to expect the state to support his own narrow conception of education.
Paul Kurtz