Evidence - Quotes
This idea that belief without evidence is a virtue... it doesn`t just inspire people to trust their religious leaders blindly. It inspires people to trust anybody blindly. Including people who are trying to rob them blind.
People are told that they are inherently bad or sinful and that the only way to become good is by giving over control of their lives to faith. As there is no evidence that any of that is true, religion, in effect, is creating an imaginary problem simply so that it can sell an imaginary solution.
The only necessary argument against believing in God is simply that there is no evidence that any gods exist. An atheist doesn`t need to justify her lack of belief any further.
There is no evidence to suggest that God helps people. There is, however, ample evidence that people can help themselves and each other.
When people are taught to let go of difficult questions and trust whatever religious authorities tell them? That it`s better to trust their feelings than their critical thinking skills? That evidence and reason are less important than faith? That "doubter" is a synonym for "sinner"? They become vulnerable to every cheater, chiseler, swindler, con artist, and late night infomercial huckster who` s lucky enough to cross their gullible paths.
If you genuinely loved God, wouldn`t you want to understand him as best you can? When faced with different ideas about God, wouldn`t you want to ask some questions, and look at the supporting evidence for the different views, and try to figure out which one is probably true? Doesn`t it seem insulting to God to treat that question as if it didn`t matter? There are profound differences between religions. They are not trivial. And the different religions cannot all be right. (Although, as atheists like to point out, they can all be wrong.)
A difference between an atheist and a person of faith is that an atheist is willing to revise their belief (if provided sufficient evidence); the faithful permit no such revision.
A theory in science is a logical creation. It reflects the most accurate experimental observations and the best understanding of how the world works. Yet a scientific theory doesn’t necessarily represent absolute truth. It can only capture the state of our knowledge so far. There’s every chance that a new piece of evidence will come to light that disproves the theory, and sends the theoreticians back to the drawing board.
Only a fool of a scientist would dismiss the evidence and reports in front of him and substitute his own beliefs in their place.
Science helps us avoid dogmatism: basing conclusions on authority rather than logic and evidence.
Proof is derived not through a single piece of evidence, but through that convergence of evidence from numerous lines of inquiry, all of which point to an unmistakable conclusion.
The whole point of faith, in fact, is to believe regardless of the evidence, which is the very antithesis of science.
If you build a person without any bones in him he may look fair enough to the eye, but he will be limber and cannot stand up; and I consider that evidence is the bones of an opinion.
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What`s left is magic. And it doesn`t work.