Tribalism is an addiction that is driven by false beliefs that need to be reflected back to be perceived as true.

welfare.” Such a mind may be hampered by others, it may be silenced, proscribed, imprisoned, or destroyed; it cannot be forced; a gun is not an argument. (An example and symbol of this attitude is...

One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.

Imperfect knowledge, incomplete assessment of feedback, limited memory and recall, as well as poor problem-solving skills result in a form of rationality that attains not optimal decisions but more or less satisfactory compromises between conflicting...

You cannot connect with anyone except through reality.

The essence of extended rationality is to know when you are being irrational.

The methods of increasing the degree of truth in our beliefs are well known; they consist in hearing all sides, trying to ascertain all the relevant facts, controlling our own bias by discussion with people...

Then you get the wrong answer and you can’t go to the Moon that way! Nature isn’t a person, you can’t trick them into believing something else, if you try to tell the Moon it’s...

The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don’t agree.

Dr. Peter Boghossian’s A Manual for Creating Atheists is a precise, passionate, compassionate and brilliantly reasoned work that will illuminate any and all minds capable of openness and curiosity. This is not a bedtime story...

It’s difficult to know where to begin, sir.”Yes, the beginning is the tricky part. But perhaps there is no beginning, perhaps we can’t look that far back.’ He got up from his desk and went...

The Use of the Understanding, in endeavouring to find out the Meaning of any Proposition whatsoever, in considering the nature and Evidence for or against it, and in judging of it according to the seeming...

The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life. This project is ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and ethically mandatory. The metabolic pathways of...

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

If man was a logical creature: his last suspect—namely, his mouth—was going to be the first; whenever he thinks that someone, or, something is smelly.

The idea that reason and rationality is somehow separate from and antithetical to ones ‘ heart’ is one of the most absurd theologies I have ever in my life heard.” ~R. Alan Woods (“Just Keeping...

Even intellectuals should have learned by now that objective rationality is not the default position of the human mind, much less the bedrock of human affairs.

When men reject reason, they have no means left for dealing with one another — except brute, physical force.

because a propositional justification exists for doing one thing, but not for doing another.” But why should we be reasonable, is the next come-back. Again, the answer is obvious. For one, because it would be...

Well, pray if you like, only you’d do better to use your judgment.

Spiritual”: religion without any rules. All the comfort of fictitious friends with none of their demands.

Many of the cataclysmic leadership failures were failures of rationality. The pendulum of leadership development needs to swing back toward the rational: strategy, creativity, foresight, decision-making, and analytics.

One obvious palliative of the evils of democracy in its present form would be to encourage much more publicity and initiative on the part of civil servants. They ought to have the right, and, on...

The root of liberalism, in a word, is hatred of compulsion, for liberalism has the respect for the individual and his conscience and reason which the employment of coercion necessarily destroys. The liberal has faith...

Belief comes quickly and naturally, skepticism is slow and unnatural, and most people have a low tolerance for ambiguity.The scientific principle that a claim is untrue unless proven otherwise runs counter to our natural tendency...

There’s great peace in surrendering to principles

For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared not...

Selfishness is a bad habit. That’s why I always rationally think through my decisions to act without regard for others.

Societies would _not_ be better off if everyone were like Mr Spock, all rationality and no emotion. Instead, a balance – a teaming up of the internal rivals – is optimal for brains. … Some...

For more than twenty years, I have been seeking a way to be both rational and spiritual. I have been looking for a ray of hope in an otherwise-compartmentalized world in which people segregate religious...

Not everyone understands what a completely rational process this is, this maintenance of a motorcycle. They think it’s some kind of “knack” or some kind of “affinity for machines” in operation. They are right, but...

It seems to me that my lack of faith is not, as I once thought, a triumph of the rational mind, but rather a failure of the imagination – an inability to tolerate mistery.

I am an atheist, a rationalist and a humanist.

Rationality and common sense never goes out of fashion.

The passion for revenge should never blind you to the pragmatics of the situation. There are some people who are so blighted by their past, so warped by experience and the pull of that silken...

Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion.

When you go with first principles, a giant light goes off in what you think is a city and turns out to be an insane asylum.

I, therefore, for one, cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or wilfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do so for this plain reason,...

The only kind of appeal that wins any instinctive response in party politics is an appeal to hostile feeling; the men who perceive the need of cooperation are powerless. Until education has been directed for...

Mood evidently affects the operation of System 1: when we are uncomfortable and unhappy, we lose touch with our intuition.These findings add to the growing evidence that good mood, intuition, creativity, gullibility, and increased reliance...

The idea of our own rationality…was convincing to us only because we so wished to be convinced. To any impartial observer, could such a thing exist, the sham was patent. Emotion and instinct were the...

It takes a huge amount of culture to normalize “crazy”, and of course that’s its main focus

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there’s no good reason to go into space – each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones...

The practice which obtains amongst the Americans of fixing the standard of their judgment in themselves alone, leads them to other habits of mind. As they perceive that they succeed in resolving without assistance all...

With a philosophy education, one can infuriate his peers, intimidate his date, think of obscure, unreliable ways to make money, and never regret a thing.

…reason rationalizes reality for him (Dr. Nathan) as it does for the rest of us, in the Freudian sense of providing a more palatable or convenient explanation, and there are so many subjects about which...

There is no perfectly shaped part of the motorcycle and never will be, but when you come as close as these instruments take you, remarkable things happen, and you go flying across the countryside under...

Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny — and also in a willingness to revise or abandon your theories when...

It considered trying to explain their error to them, but what would be the use? They would only go away with hurt feelings. You can’t always expect people, or squirrels, to be rational.

Leaders console the world with their speeches, heroes console the world with their actions.