Skeptic Quotes - Page 8

• ... In a free society, skeptics are the watchdogs against irrationalism - the consumer advocates of ideas. Debunking is not simply the divestment of bunk; its utility is in offering a better alternative, along with a lesson on how thinking goes wrong.

  Michael Shermer

  Thinking, Offering, Ideas

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• The skeptic may deny your doctrine or attack your church but he cannot honestly ignore the fact that your life has been changed.

  Charles R. Swindoll

  Life, Christian, Religion

  Charles R. Swindoll (2005). “Day by Day with Charles Swindoll”, p.311, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• I do think it's often a mistake to call them climate skeptics. I think they're deniers, just as I think president Ahmadinejad of iran who claims not to believe that the Holocaust occurred.

  Thomas Schelling

  Mistake, Believe, Thinking

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• I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

  Michael Shermer

  Believe, Differences, Want

  Michael Shermer (2011). “The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths”, p.2, Macmillan

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• Death is a confirmation of the believer's creed. For the skeptic it is discovery, immense and late.

  Calvin Miller

  Discovery, Confirmation, Creeds

  Calvin Miller (1979). “The Finale”, Intervarsity Pr

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• I am a Christian resident of New York City. I simply read things the other Manhattanites read (NY Times, New Yorker magazine, Wall Street Journal, and many of the books they read) plus all my Christian reading. I don't do anything special to understand skeptics. I also talk to a lot of skeptics and read things they point to.

  Timothy Keller

  Christian, New York, Wall

  Source: www.monergism.com

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• Everyone, including skeptics, will generate delusions that match their views. That is how a normal and healthy brain works. Skeptics are not exempt from self-delusion.

  Scott Adams

  Self, Views, Healthy

  Scott Adams (2004). “God's Debris: A Thought Experiment”, p.73, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• The problem of evil is raised more often by spectators of life than the actual combatants. You will hardly ever find that the great sufferers are the great skeptics.

  James Stewart

  Evil, Joy, Suffering

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• The sooner we can separate salvageable skeptics from self-righteous absolutists, the sooner we can move along.

  Sheri S. Tepper

  Moving, Self, Righteous

  "The Visitor". Book by Sheri S. Tepper, 2002.

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• If any student of social science comes to appreciate the case of the Forgotten Man, he will become an unflinching advocate of strict scientific thinking in sociology, and a hard-hearted skeptic as regards any scheme of social amelioration. He will always want to know, Who and where is the Forgotten Man in this case, who will have to pay for it all?

  William Graham Sumner

  Men, Thinking, Appreciate

  William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.129, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• There are GMO skeptics more in Europe maybe than in other places, but not exclusively.

  Bill Gates

  Europe, Gmos

  "Bill Gates, time traveler". www.politico.com.

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• I am not an irretrievable skeptic. I am not hopelessly prejudiced. I am perfectly willing to believe, and my mind is wide open; but I have, as yet, to be convinced. I am perfectly willing, but the evidence must be sane and conclusive.

  Harry Houdini

  Believe, Mind, Evidence

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• I am an atheist. There, I said it. Are you happy, all you atheists out there who have remonstrated with me for adopting the agnostic moniker? If "atheist" means someone who does not believe in God, then an atheist is what I am. But I detest all such labels. Call me what you like - humanist, secular humanist, agnostic, nonbeliever, nontheist, freethinker, heretic, or even bright. I prefer skeptic.

  Michael Shermer

  Atheist, Believe, Mean

  "Why I Am An Atheist" by Michael Shermer, michaelshermer.com. June 23, 2005.

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• All scientists should be skeptics. The reason why is that, even with the best of scientific measurements, we can come up with all kinds of explanations of what those measurements mean in terms of cause and effect, and yet most of those explanations are wrong. It's really easy to be wrong in science ... it's really hard to be right.

  Roy Spencer

  Mean, Measurement, Causes

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• I don't believe there are climate skeptics. I think there are people who indulge in a culture of what can be reduced to Fox network thinking. That has nothing to do with the politics that apply to the protection of quality of life in any sense. It's like talking to a member of a cult.

  Sean Penn

  Believe, Thinking, Talking

  "Sean Penn and Google's Green Chief on the Paris Climate Talks". Interview with Eric Roston and Brad Wieners, www.bloomberg.com. November 30, 2015.

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• The faithful believe that certain truths have been 'revealed.' The skeptics and secularists believe that truth is only to be sought by free inquiry and trial and error. Only one of those positions is dogmatic.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Believe, Errors, Faithful

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• In any event, it has never been true that we ignore mainstream science; and anyone who reads AEI publications closely can see that we are not 'skeptics' about warming. It is possible to accept the general consensus about the existence of global warming while having valid questions about the extent of warming, the consequences of warming, and the appropriate responses.

  Steven F. Hayward

  Events, Global Warming, Accepting

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• The shamanic realm is to get you out of the word set. For skeptics, that's impossible, and they just can't see that and it just makes no sense.

  Fred Alan Wolf

  Impossible, Realms

  Source: www.edgemagazine.net

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• When you cannot answer a skeptic, be content to wait for more light; but never forsake a great principle.

  J. C. Ryle

  Light, Waiting, Principles

  J. C. Ryle (2007). “Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots”, p.368, Hendrickson Publishers

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• Many unbelievers have threatened or prophesied the destruction of the Bible. Few people know the names of the skeptics. Everyone knows the names of Moses and Isaiah and Luke and Paul.

  William Henry Houghton

  Names, People, Moses

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• Dear old al-Maarri was a great skeptic poet. He wrote a parody of the Koran, and his friends would tease him and say, "al-Maarri, but no one says your Koran." And he said, "Yes, but give me time. Give me time. If people recite it for twenty years it will become as popular as the other one."

  Tariq Ali

  Years, People, Giving

  Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. January 31, 2002.

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• I had always been a reader and a skeptic, so when I was old enough to break away from organized religion, it just came naturally.

  Amber Heard

  Enough, Break, Reader

  "Amber Heard: 20(ish) Questions". Interview with Eric Spitznagel, www.ericspitznagel.com. August 20, 2011.

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• One should not be deceived: great spirits are skeptics ... Strength, FREEDOM which is born of the strength and overstrength of the spirit, proves itself by skepticism. Men of conviction are not worthy of the least consideration in fundamental questions of value and disvalue. Convictions are prisons.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Men, Spirit, Prison

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.385, Penguin

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• It seems to me that the civilized human being is a skeptic someone who believes nothing at face value.

  Robert McKee

  Believe, Faces, Humans

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• When science shall have effectually demonstrated to us the origin of matter, and proved the fallacy of the occultists and old philosophers who held (as their descendants now hold) that matter is but one of the correlations of spirit, then will the world of skeptics have a right to reject the old Wisdom, or throw the charge of obscenity in the teeth of the old religions.

  H. P. Blavatsky

  Teeth, World, Matter

  H. P. Blavatsky (1994). “Isis Unveiled: (Two Volumes in a Slipcase)”, p.583, Quest Books

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