"Secular humanists suspect there is something more gloriously human about resisting the religious impulse; about accepting the cold truth, even if that truth is only that the universe is as indifferent to us as we are to it"
- Tom Flynn
About this Quote
This quote by Tom Flynn speaks to the concept of secular humanism, which is the belief that humans must be guided by reason, ethics, and justice, rather than religious doctrine. The quote suggests that nonreligious humanists think that there is something more worthy and admirable about withstanding the religious impulse and accepting the truth, even if that truth is that the universe is indifferent to us. This concept talks to the idea of human autonomy and self-determination, as secular humanists think that people should be able to make their own decisions and live their lives without the influence of faith. This quote also speaks to the idea of accepting truth, as secular humanists believe that people need to be able to accept the reality, even if it is not what they wish to hear. Ultimately, this quote speaks to the concept that nonreligious humanists think that human beings must have the ability to make their own choices and live their lives without the impact of faith.
"I have an almost religious zeal... not for technology per se, but for the Internet which is for me, the nervous system of mother Earth, which I see as a living creature, linking up"
"An intellectual is going to have doubts, for example, about a fundamentalist religious doctrine that admits no doubt, about an imposed political system that allows no doubt, about a perfect aesthetic that has no room for doubt"
"I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life"
"This, it may be said, is no more than a hypothesis... only of that force of precedent which in all times has been so strong to keep alive religious forms of which the original meaning is lost"
"Well, in The Chosen, Danny Saunders, from the heart of his religious reading of the world, encounters an element in the very heart of the secular readings of the world - Freudian psychoanalytic theory"
