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Spirituality authors, who are generally forgiving of most human foibles ... take a hard line on intellectualism.... Skepticism they view with contempt, as the refuge of the unenlightened.

Wendy Kaminer

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Wendy Kaminer
Age: 74
Born: 1949
Born: December 28
Journalist
Lawyer
Writer
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Refuge
Lines
Contempt
Human
Forgiving
Humans
Generally
Unenlightened
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Spirituality
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More quotes by Wendy Kaminer

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As Camille Paglia's success has demonstrated, what is most marketable is absolutism and attitude undiluted by thought.
Wendy Kaminer
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In this climate - with belief in guardian angels and creationism becoming commonplace - making fun of religion is as risky as burning a flag in an American Legion hall.
Wendy Kaminer
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In its more authoritarian forms, religion punishes questioning and rewards gullibility. Faith is not a function of stupidity, but a frequent cause of it.
Wendy Kaminer
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Faith is not a function of stupidity but a frequent cause of it.
Wendy Kaminer
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I don't see a direct conflict between the rights of individuals and the rights of communities, because I don't perceive of communities as having rights in a way that individuals do. Communities certainly have interests, but they don't exactly have rights.
Wendy Kaminer
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When the inner child finds a guardian angel, publishers are in heaven.
Wendy Kaminer
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Jargon seems to be the place where the right brain and the left brain meet.
Wendy Kaminer
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Under the rubric of religious freedom, we respect the right to worship differently much more than the right to worship not at all.
Wendy Kaminer
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The press and the public like certainty and affirmation of popular biases. But real science thrives on the capacity for doubt.
Wendy Kaminer
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I don't think of myself as having a particular role. I'm lucky enough to be able to make my living essentially by expressing my opinions. But, you know, I think the world would manage quite well if I weren't doing it.
Wendy Kaminer
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Like heterosexuality, faith in immaterial realities is popularly considered essential to individual morality.
Wendy Kaminer
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One of the reasons I'm drawn to civil libertarianism as opposed to communitarianism is that I don't worry so much about the rights of the majority a majority is quite capable of enforcing and protecting its own rights.
Wendy Kaminer
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Only people who die very young learn all they really need to know in kindergarten.
Wendy Kaminer
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Secularists are often wrongly accused of trying to purge religious ideals from public discourse. We simply want to deny them public sponsorship.
Wendy Kaminer
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I don't spend much time thinking about whether God exists. I don't consider that a relevant question. It's unanswerable and irrelevant to my life, so I put it in the category of things I can't worry about.
Wendy Kaminer
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For the most part, executions happen in obscurity. If people did hear about executions, if they were publicized, even televised, I fear more would enjoy them than be repelled by them.
Wendy Kaminer
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Give the FBI unchecked domestic spying powers and instead of focusing on preventing terrorism, it will revert to doing what it does best - monitoring, harassing, and intimidating political dissidents and thousands of harmless immigrants.
Wendy Kaminer
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The phenomenal success of the recovery movement reflects two simple truths that emerge in adolescence: all people love to talk about themselves, and most people are mad at their parents. You don't have to be in denial to doubt that truths like these will set us free.
Wendy Kaminer
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Patriotism does not oblige us to acquiesce in the destruction of liberty. Patriotism obliges us to question it, at least.
Wendy Kaminer
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It is the inevitable effect of religion on public policy that makes it a matter of public concern. Advocates of religiosity extol the virtues or moral habits that religion is supposed to instill in us. But we should be equally concerned with the intellectual habits it discourages.
Wendy Kaminer