“The fundamental question to be asked about any theological statement is, ‘What is the evidence that makes you think this might be true?’”
Author’s Introduction to John Polkinghorne The Faith of a Physicist
According to Schopenhauer “It is this removal of the personal equation which leaves the genius so maladapted in the world of will-full, practical, personal activity. By seeing so far he does not see what is near; he is imprudent and ‘queer’; and while his vision is hitched to a star he falls into a well.”
Will Durant The Story of Philosophy [paraphrasing not quoting]
“The great difficulty is to get modern audiences to realize that you are preaching Christianity solely and simply because you happen to think it true; they always suppose you are preaching it because you like it or think it good for society or something of that sort.”
C.S. Lewis “Christian Apologetics” in The Grand Miracle
“Other people’s heads are a wretched place to be the home of a man’s true happiness.”
Schopenhauer deploring the pursuit of fame in “Wisdom of Life,” quoted in Will Durant The Story of Philosophy
“He [the “mature man”] knows, with Carlyle, that there is no sense in vilifying the sun because it will not light our cigars. And perhaps, if we are clever enough to help it, the sun will do even that...”
Will Durant The Story of Philosophy [part of Durant’s critique of Schopenhauer’s excessive gloominess]
“’Can’t you lead a good life without believing in Christianity?’ This is the question on which I have been asked to write, and straight away, before I begin trying to answer it, I have a comment to make. The question sounds as if it were asked by a person who said to himself, ‘I don’t care whether Christianity is in fact true or not. I’m not interested in finding out whether the real universe is more like what the Christians say than what the materialists say. All I’m interested in is leading a good life. I’m going to choose beliefs not because I think them true but because I think them helpful.’ Now frankly, I find it hard to sympathize with this state of mind…. Christianity is not a patent medicine.”
C.S. Lewis “Man or Rabbit?” in The Grand Miracle
“It would be no sort of a life if we felt entirely comfortable in it.”
P.J. Kavanaugh, quoted in The Economist May 5, 1990
“In 1867, Matthew Arnold heard the ‘melancholy, long, withdrawing roar’ of the Sea of Faith.”
Charles J. Sykes, A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character