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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

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
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
Most people in the West who say they believe in God actually believe in belief in God.
DANIEL DENNETT

Believe God People Religious
Philosophers’ Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.
DANIEL DENNETT

Failure Imagination Mistake Necessary Philosophy
There are no good reasons to believe in god.
DANIEL DENNETT

Believe God Goodness Reason
Sometimes you don’t just want to risk making mistakes; you actually want to make them – if only to give you something clear and detailed to fix.
DANIEL DENNETT

Clear Detail Mistake Risk Time Yourself
To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant — inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write.
DANIEL DENNETT

Fair Ignorance Learning Myself Process Reading Writing
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
The mind is the effect, not the cause.
DANIEL DENNETT

Effect Mindset Science
I don’t think there is any religious revival. I think what we are hearing, the furor, is merely the hysterical response of the churches the handwriting on the wall that they are seeing.
DANIEL DENNETT

Myself Religious Respond Revive See Thinking Writing
Problems in science are sometimes made easier by adding complications.
DANIEL DENNETT

Add Complication Easy Problem Science Time
Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.
DANIEL DENNETT

Hold Life Paint Philosophy
I am a philosopher, not a scientist, and we philosophers are better at questions than answers.
DANIEL DENNETT

Better Philosophy Question Science Way Yourself
Religion is defined as social systems whose participants avow a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought.
DANIEL DENNETT

Natural Religion Social System
I think religion for many people is some sort of moral viagra.
DANIEL DENNETT

Moral Myself People Thinking
I am inclined to think that nothing could matter more than what people love. At any rate, I can think of no value that I would place higher. I would not want to live in a world without love.
DANIEL DENNETT

Love Myself People Rate Thinking

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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