“Once a person believes - really believes - that certain ideas can lead to eternal happiness, or to its antithesis, he cannot tolerate the possibility that the people he loves might be led astray by the blandishments of unbelievers. Certainty about the next life is simply incompatible with tolerance in this one.”
― The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
― The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
“We live in a world of unimaginable surprises - from the fusion energy that lights the sun to the genetic and evolutionary consequences of this light’s dancing for eons upon the earth - and yet paradise conforms to our most superficial concerns with all the fidelity of a Caribbean cruise. This is wondrously strange. If one didn't know better, one would think that man, in his fear of losing all that he loves, had created heaven, along with its gatekeeper God, in his own image.”
― The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
― The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
“What one believes happens after death dictates much of what one believes about life, and this is why faith-based religion, in presuming to fill in the blanks in our knowledge of the hereafter, does such heavy lifting for those who fall under its power. A single proposition – you will not die – once believed, determines a response to life that would be otherwise unthinkable.”
― The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
― The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
Amanda’s 2025 Year in Books
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