"Friends were anxious to learn if I had had a near-death experience, and if so, what effect it had had on my longstanding public atheism. Had I had an epiphany? Was I going to follow in the footsteps of Ayer (who recovered his aplomb and insisted a few days later "what I should have said is that my experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude towards that belief"), or was my atheism still intact and unchanged? Yes, I did have an epiphany. I saw with greater clarity than ever before in my life that when I say "Thank goodness!" this is not merely a euphemism for "Thank God!" (We atheists don't believe that there is any God to thank.) I really do mean thank goodness! There is a lot of goodness in this world, and more goodness every day, and this fantastic human-made fabric of excellence is genuinely responsible for the fact that I am alive today. It is a worthy recipient of the gratitude I feel today, and I want to celebrate that fact here and now."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesBiographers from the United StatesCognitive scientists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"Wherever there is a conscious mind, there is a point of view. A conscious mind is an observer, who takes in the infor…"
"Biology is Engineering"
"As Akins observes, it is not the point of our sensory systems that they should detect "basic" or "natural" properties…"
"I have grown accustomed to the disrespect expressed by some of the participants for their colleagues in the other dis…"
"But if we ask where precisely in the brain that point of view is located, the simple assumptions that work so well on…"
"from Chapter 1, "Is Nothing Sacred", p. 21-22:"
"The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dis…"
"Experience teaches...that there is no such thing as a thought experiment so clearly presented that no philosopher can…"
"In a Thumbnail Sketch here is [the Multiple Drafts theory of consciousness] so far:There is no single, definitive "st…"
"We live in a world that is subjectively open. And we are designed by evolution to be "informavores," epistemically hu…"