Ripper's Domain » quotes http://www.theripper.com None of the things fit to print Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:53:44 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Atheism http://www.theripper.com/2010/06/atheism/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=atheism http://www.theripper.com/2010/06/atheism/#comments Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:03:59 +0000 ripper http://www.theripper.com/?p=43 If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

- Bertrand Russell

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