«
»

8th April 2011

“The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.”

Voltaire1694 – 1778

This entry was posted on Friday, April 8th, 2011 at 1:00 and is filed under QOTD. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “8th April 2011”

  1. Atheist MC Says:
    April 8th, 2011 at 12:15

    I hate to disagree with Voltaire of all people, but I would say the “truths” of religion are best understood by those of us who rationally reject it.

  2. R J Says:
    April 8th, 2011 at 12:49

    to Atheist MC……………

    could you elaborate slightly ??? i happen to agree with your observation, but i think there’s a little “edge ” to Voltaire’s
    statement you may have overlooked.
    you’re not really DISAGREEING with him………..but examine the last eight words…and you’ll see what i mean.

  3. CaptainZero Says:
    April 8th, 2011 at 15:19

    Put another way, you can’t understand religious ideas while you still have the ability to reason. I’m sympathetic with the jibe but it’s clearly meant as a jibe, not as a literal. It’s not hard to find rational people that have a compartmentalized irrationality as regards their religions. Francis Collins, for example. Within that charmed bubble, you can believe lots of weird stuff while still mapping the genome.

  4. Atheist MC Says:
    April 9th, 2011 at 21:57

    Ah the downfall of this mayfly site. A day goes by and all comment dies. Just in case any thread necromancers bother to dig this up though… I get that Voltaire is being ironic, but the “understood” is misplaced. Unless he is being doubly ironic… Oh this is Voltaire ffs.