Mitch Stokes > Quotes

“Moreover, the more deeply a view is ingrained, the less likely we will see it as influencing us—or see it at all. If you want to know what water is, don’t ask the fish.
(Kindle Locations 1550-1551)”
― Mitch Stokes, A Shot of Faith (to the Head): Be a Confident Believer in an Age of Cranky Atheists

“To question reason is to trust it.”
― Mitch Stokes

“If the history of science really consists of a succession of increasingly successful theories making radically and fundamentally different claims about what there is in the world and how it works, why on earth would we suppose that this process has come to an end with the theories of the present day?”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“Laws tell us how the elementary stuff of the universe is arranged, not how it got here.263 That is, the laws of physics simply tell us how the universe behaves, not how it was born.”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“Reason can get away from us. As Chesterton said in Orthodoxy (and he’s probably right), some insane people aren’t irrational; they’re hyperrational, with no way to tap the brakes: “The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“we must stand on theories to argue for them; there’s sometimes nowhere else to stand.136 Beliefs about the theories are themselves soaked in theories, sometimes the very same ones. So then, the beliefs we have strongly influence the beliefs we form. Old”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“Theory influences observation, which influences theory, which influences observation. We”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“The history of science is littered with the remains of successful-but-false theories, theories that matched the available observations, contributed to technological advancements, and even made novel and surprising predictions. Philosopher”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“In response to any act of alleged wickedness that the atheist points to, we can reasonably ask, what’s wrong with that?”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“Out of so many universes, one of them was sure to produce life from dead matter. And of course, it was ours—after all, if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be marveling at our unbelievable luck (don’t say you’ve never won anything).”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“We’ve become all too willing to believe metaphysical pronouncements based on scientific results. “Scientifically proven” is our new “Thus saith the Lord.” And”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“We can say that the universe behaves this way or that way, but just why it behaves this way is something that science isn’t equipped to handle. Of”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“the question of why there’s something rather than nothing simply isn’t a scientific question all. Maybe”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“How can you derive meaning, purpose, or ethics from evolution? You can’t. Evolution is simply a theory about the process and patterns of life’s diversification, not a grand philosophical scheme about the meaning of life. It can’t tell us what to do, or how we should behave.”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“said, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and enduringly reflection is occupied with them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“so evolution must account for “consciousness, intentionality, meaning, purpose, thought, and value.”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“If we have reason to be skeptical about what our scientific theories tell us about the unobservable parts of physical reality, why would we believe what they imply about a nonphysical reality? Why”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“Science can rise to rarefied heights but can also reach tragic depths—often simultaneously. Science”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“It’s easy, then, to mistake our moral sentiments—our strong feelings about morality—for an argument in favor of the truth of our moral beliefs. But”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“if naturalism is true, then so is moral nihilism, the view that there are no objective moral standards and that anything goes, ethically speaking.”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“science can’t determine our antecedent valuing of well-being. Much less the well-being of others. Nor could it. Again, science gives us facts only about the physical world. And”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“a purely naturalistic world would require nothing of us whatsoever. Naturalism”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“we have no independent reason to believe reason—other than the fact that we already do and that we couldn’t help it in any case. (Maybe”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough

“Math can say all it wants, but seeing is believing, and the only way to know whether the mathematics is telling the truth is to check the world.”
― Mitch Stokes, How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren't Skeptical Enough