"In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Atheists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesHarvard University alumniCornell University alumni
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
The Last Word, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 130-131.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Nagel
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Nagel
46 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Nagel →
Related Quotes
"I believe that there is a necessary connection in both directions between the physical and the mental, but that it ca…"
"Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions."
"Consciousness is what makes the mind–body problem really intractable."
"Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless."
"Any reductionist program has to be based on an analysis of what is to be reduced. If the analysis leaves something ou…"
"[E]very subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an o…"
"Bats … present a range of activity and a sensory apparatus so different from ours that the problem I want to pose is …"
"[T]he essence of the belief that bats have experience is that there is something that it is like to be a bat. Now we …"
"Our own experience provides the basic material for our imagination, whose range is therefore limited. It will not hel…"
"We appear to be faced with a general difficulty about psychophysical reduction. In other areas the process of reducti…"