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Churches have given us great treasures such as music and architecture. Whether that pays for the harm they have done is another matter.

Daniel Dennett

Human freedom is not an illusion; it is an objective phenomenon, distinct from all other biological conditions and found in only one species – us.
DANIEL DENNETT

Condition Freedom Human Mistake Objection Oneself
I’m the guy who reputedly denies that people experience colors or pains, and thinks that thermostats think — just ask my critics.
DANIEL DENNETT

Color Criticism Deny Experience Myself Pain People Repeat
In the long run I certainly hope information is the cure for fanaticism, but I am afraid information is more the cause than the cure.
DANIEL DENNETT

Afraid Cure Fantasy Hope Information Myself
I think that what one can see from a Darwinian account is how the addition of culture in our species turns us into a very special sort of animal, an animal that can be a moral agent in a way that no other animal can be.
DANIEL DENNETT

Agency Animal Culture Moral See Thinking
The haven all memes depend on reaching is the human mind, but a human mind is itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order to make it a better habitat for memes.
DANIEL DENNETT

Brain Depend Human Mindset Place Reach
The mind is the effect, not the cause.
DANIEL DENNETT

Effect Mindset Science
A scholar is just a library’s way of making another library.
DANIEL DENNETT

Library Scholar Way
The only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it.
DANIEL DENNETT

Care Effort Examination Life Meaning Worth
There are no forces on this planet more dangerous to all of us than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism.
DANIEL DENNETT

Dangerous Force Fundamental Planet
We have had plenty of atheist presidents; they just wouldn’t admit it.
DANIEL DENNETT

Admit Atheist President
In the beginning, there were no reasons; there were only causes. Nothing had a purpose, nothing has so much as a function; there was no teleology in the world at all.
DANIEL DENNETT

Beginning Purpose Reason World
Thanks to technology, what almost anybody can do has been multiplied a thousandfold, and our moral understanding about what we ought to do hasn’t kept pace.
DANIEL DENNETT

Moral Ourselves Technology Understand
Philosophers are never quite sure what they are talking about – about what the issues really are – and so often it takes them rather a long time to recognize that someone with a somewhat different approach (or destination, or starting point) is making a contribution.
DANIEL DENNETT

Contribution Destination Philosophy Quite Recognition Talk
The idea that God is a worthy recipient of our gratitude for the blessings of life but should not be held accountable for the disasters is a transparently disingenuous innovation of the theologians.
DANIEL DENNETT

Blessing God Gratitude Ideas Innovation Life Ourselves Worth
There is a time for politeness and there is a time when you are obliged to be rude.
DANIEL DENNETT

Behavior Polite Rude Time Yourself
Churches have given us great treasures such as music and architecture. Whether that pays for the harm they have done is another matter.
DANIEL DENNETT

Architecture Greatness Harm Music Pay Treasure

Churches have given us great treasures such as music and architecture. Whether that pays for the harm they have done is another matter.

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Churches have given us great treasures such as music and architecture. Whether that pays for the harm they have done is another matter.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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