The Idealized Conservative on Church & State

After hearing more and more conservatives openly promoting the unity of Church and State (only their Church, or course) I found this quote from one of their favs ironic.

Parallel Universe Carl Sagan

For the uninitiated, this is a goof on Spiderman's motto "with great power comes great responsibility" and the saying popularized by Mr. Sagan "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." A wise mash-up brought to you by a parallel, if not perpendicular, universe.

Insert Quote Here

I'm subscribed to the The Browser's quotation feed and have been favoring relavent quotes for a collection eerily like the one you are about to read. I see no need for me to comment on each, they pretty much stand on their own. You may recognize the first from President Clinton's great DNC speech.

Bob Strauss, on politics

"Every politician wants you to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself"

Alexander Nazaryan, on belief

"Anyone who says we are a society lacking belief is not paying attention. If anything, we are lacking doubt"

Scott Adams, on the mind

"On one hand, every educated person knows that the physical structure of the human brain controls what people think and do. At the same time, the vast majority of humans also believe brains are part magic"

Jules Renard, on God

"I don't know if God exists. But it would be better for his reputation if he didn't"

Tom Stoppard, on honesty

"It is better to be quotable than to be honest"

Robert Samuelson, on happiness

"Only in the mid-1700s — the Enlightenment — did happiness become socially acceptable. Before that, religious dogma encouraged austere rectitude"

Carlo Rovelli, on science

"Science is not about certainty. Science is about finding the most reliable way of thinking, at the present level of knowledge"

John Girdwood, on rhetoric

"There are three major political languages in America: liberalism, republicanism, and biblical thought"

EM Cioran, on God

"If truth were not boring, science would have done away with God long ago"

Alain de Botton, on religions

"Religions are giant machines directed to managing our inner life. There is nothing like this in the secular world, and this seems a pity"

Philip Kitcher, on ethical progress

"Better to think of it as consisting in the solution of problems—as progress from, not progress to"

Richard Dawkins, on evolution

"If a time machine could serve you up your 200-millionth-great-grandfather, you would eat him with sauce tartare and a slice of lemon. He was a fish"

Paul Kedrosky, on the Bible

"Leviticus is best understood as Judge Judy for desert tribes"

Andrew Brown, on Catholic dogma

"Whatever is forbidden is what's actually going on"

Andrew Brown, on intelligent design

"You get design without a designer the same way the wind blows without a blower"

Gloria Steinem, on truth

"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off"

Terry Eagleton, on secularism

"Societies become truly secular not when they dispense with religion but when they are no longer greatly agitated by it"

I agree with most of the quotes intended to be taken seriously and find a certain telling truth in the more humorous one-liners. If you have a favorite, please let me know in the comments.

This.

from the great Zen Pencils