philosophers-from-northern-ireland

"Why is there something rather than nothing? Why, in particular, does the universe exist? Where did it come from and where, if anywhere, is it heading? Is it itself the ultimate reality behind which there is nothing or is there something 'beyond' it? Can we ask with Richard Feynman: 'What is the meaning of it all?" Or was Bertrand Russell right when he said that 'The universe is just there, and that's all'?"

"... energy, light, gravity, and consciousness ... You believe in these things because of their explanatory power as concepts. ... God is not a monolith ... God is Himself a fellowship ..."

"I think atheism undermines science very seriously because if you think of the basic assumption that all of us who are scientists have, that is, we believe in the rational intelligibility of the universe. And, it's interesting to me that scientists of the eminence of Eugene Wigner and Albert Einstein used the word “faith.” They cannot imagine a scientist without this faith because, of course, they point out that you've got to believe in the rational intelligibility of the universe before you can do any science at all. Science doesn't give you that."

"It was belief in God that motivated the advance of science in the 16th and 17th centuries. Gallelo, Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton expected to find law in nature because they believed in a great law giver. Now so often we hear the new atheists talk about faith, depricating it. I want to tell you that scientists are all people of faith. As Einstein saw, they believe that the universe is accessable to the human mind and physics can not explain that for the simple reason that you can't do physics without believing that the universe is intelligable. So science required faith."

"All people are people of Faith. Everybody's got a world view that they believe and this really exposed one of the biggest problems we have in our culture -- that Christians are regarded as people of faith. That means they believe where there's no evidence but atheists -- they're not people of Faith, they're rational and fighting against that is one of the things I've been doing for a long time."

"There's a very interesting statement that Paul made that the God of this world has blinded the minds of those who don't believe that there is an enemy who sets the thought forms of the world and Paul analyzes the intellectual darkness that comes about in Romans when people reject God they end up worshiping stones and inanimate things. They ascribe creatorial power to Nature because they don't believe in God and some of it is utterly absurd; and yet that is what happens and I would describe it as intellectual Darkness, but there's an enemy behind it."

"The evils perpetuated by some professing branches of the Christian church have died hard."

"Take the whole of the Bible, how much of it was written at a time when there was no persecution and trouble? Very little and we have had an experience in Europe, at least until relatively recently, without war for an unusual period of time and unfortunately into the vacuum there has poured all this kind of stuff postmodernism, atheism, all the rest of it."

"I have a reason for trusting my mind at least in part because it is ultimately the product of the vast intelligence of a personal God as is the Universe out there; and that's why the two match together."

"Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best Ends by the best Means."

"Kant in fact seems to have begun his reflections on moral theory as an adherent of Francis Hutcheson’s moral sense theory. Even after abandoning it, he persists in maintaining the importance of “moral feeling” and tries consistently to make a place for it within his moral psychology."

"Whence this secret Chain between each Person and Mankind? How is my Interest connected with the most distant Parts of it?"

"That Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers; and that worst, which, in like manner, occasions Misery."

"Another valuable purpose of ridicule is with relation to smaller vices, which are often more effectually corrected by ridicule, than by grave admonition. Men have been laughed out of faults which a sermon could not reform; nay, there are many little indecencies which are improper to be mentioned in such solemn discourses. Now ridicule with contempt or ill-nature, is indeed always irritating and offensive; but we may, by testifying a just esteem for the good qualities of the person ridiculed, and our concern for his interests, let him see that our ridicule of his weakness flows from love to him, and then we may hope for a good effect. This then is another necessary rule, "That along with our ridicule of smaller faults we should always join evidences of good nature and esteem." As to jests upon imperfections, which one cannot amend, I cannot fee of what use they can be: men of sense cannot relish such jests; foolish trifling minds may by them be led to despise the truest merit, which is not exempted from the casual misfortunes of our mortal state."

"All our Ideas, or the materials of our reasoning or judging, are received by some immediate Powers of Perception internal or external, which we may call Senses … Reasoning or Intellect seems to raise no new Species of Ideas, but to discover or discern the Relations of those received."

"A good man deliberating which of several actions proposed he shall choose, regards and compares the material goodness of them, and then is determined by his moral sense invariably preferring that which appears most conducive to the happiness and virtue of mankind."

"The ultimate notion of right is that which tends to the universal good; and when one's acting in a certain manner has this tendency, he has a right thus to act."

"Whoever voluntarily undertakes the necessary office of rearing and educating, obtains the parental power without generation."

"Francis Hutcheson and David Hume were the two most prominent Scottish contributors to moral philosophy before Smith. They had criticized the view of rationalist philosophers, such as Samuel Clarke and William Wollaston, that the judgement and the motive of moral action are functions of reason, an understanding of necessary truth analogous to mathematical thinking. Hutcheson and Hume, in contrast, took the view that moral judgement is affective, rests on feeling, and that the motive for acting upon that judgement must likewise be affective, since reason alone does not have the power to stir bodily behaviour."