It is assumed that the skeptic has no bias; whereas he has a very obvious bias in favour of skepticism.

La pensée ne doit jamais se soumettre, ni à un dogme, ni à un parti, ni à une passion, ni à un intérêt, ni à une idée préconçue, ni à quoi que ce soit, si...

Johnson is a radical skeptic, insisting, in the best Socratic tradition, that everything be put on the table for examination. By contrast, most skeptics opposed to him are selective skeptics, applying their skepticism to the...

if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary

God is always trying to give blessings to us, but our minds are usually too full to receive them.

I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.

The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can’t all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It’s a possibility, you know. You must care about the...

Don’t you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don’t you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death?No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and...

To be a philosophical Sceptic is the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian.

The arts save us from a dreary skepticism.

A third reason scientists are reluctant to examine paranormal phenomena is that they appear to contradict known physical laws. What is the point of studying the impossible? Only a fool would waste his time. The...

If we wanted to construct a basic philosophical attitude from these scientific utterances of Pauli’s, at first we would be inclined to infer from them an extreme rationalism and a fundamentally skeptical point of view....

History warns us … that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.

Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we...

My Parents had early given me religious Impressions, and brought me through my Childhood piously in the Dissenting Way. But I was scarce 15 when, after doubting by turns of several Points as I found...

Another of Mack’s patients says that the aliens have been taking eggs from her since she was sexually mature, and that her reproductive system baffles her gynecologist. Is it baffling enough to write the case...

The wrong approaches to faith and to skepticism are equally detrimental to the path. For the former declares its answers too soon and is later found false; the latter rejects sound answers altogether and hashes...

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at...

The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found

Skepticism can keep us from blessing, can keep us trapped in two minds.

So my antagonist said, “Is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it’s impossible?” “No”, I said, “I can’t prove it’s impossible. It’s just very unlikely”. At that he said, “You...

If we could believe that he [Jesus] really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanism which his biographers [Gospels] father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and theorizations of the fathers of the...

Science has carried us to the gateway to the universe. And yet our conception of our surroundings remains the disproportionate view of the still-small child. We are spiritually and culturally paralyzed, unable to face the...

If we can’t think for ourselves, if we’re unwilling to question authority, then we’re just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then...

If you want to stay in for the long haul, and lead a life that is free from illusions either propagated by you or embraced by you, then I suggest you learn to recognize and...

God, O God, where art thou? Thou art as distant to me as the lady combing rice in the Yunnan Province of China or a piece of floating space debris circling Pegasi. In this feeling-dead...

Those might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion to happiness who, by their own account, had neither one nor the other.

God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance.

Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.

Another source of fallacy is the vicious circle of illusions which consists on the one hand of believing what we see, and on the other in seeing what we believe.

It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch.

In the past, [medicalization]has been portrayed as something that doctors inflict on a passive and un-suspecting world – an expansion of the Medical Empire. But in reality, it seems that these reductionist bio-medical stories can...

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

There was a time when skepticism was an act of rebellion. Since to a degree I both believe in evolution and have faith, I can only conclude that, as prophesied, to have faith will someday...

Does a man of sense run after every silly tale of hobgoblins or fairies, and canvass particularly the evidence? I never knew anyone, that examined and deliberated about nonsense who did not believe it before...

It’s not true that skeptics consider nothing sacred. They consider freedom sacred.

People wrap themselves in their beliefs. And they do it in such a way that you can’t set them free. Not even the truth will set them free.

Take it with a whole shaker of salt, a grain won’t be close to enough.

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...

All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.

He was the least spiritual of all the monks here, accepting nothing without proof. This skepticism was simultaneously his greatest asset and his greatest impediment.

The method of science is tried and true. It is not perfect, it’s just the best we have. And to abandon it, with its skeptical protocols, is the pathway to a dark age.

There exists in society a very special class of persons that I have always referred to as the Believers. These are folks who have chosen to accept a certain religion, philosophy, theory, idea or notion...

Scientific knowledge advances haltingly and is stimulated by contention and doubt.

To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder.

Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn’t there, and finding it.

I always got a bit pissed off with those broadsheet sceptics who make their living being passionately angry about homeopathy, God, synchronicity or whatever, because it’s as if they can’t get past their emotions, and...

The real bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles, nor evangelists, nor of Christs. Every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book....

If you are searching for sacred knowledge and not just a palliative for your fears, then you will train yourself to be a good skeptic.

Nevertheless, (Jefferson) believed that the habit of skepticism is an essential prerequisite for responsible citizenship. He argued that the cost of education is trivial compared to the cost of ignorance, of leaving government to the...