<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">By applying conjecture to the countless delusions of drunk or crazy men we may sometimes deduce what appears to be real prophecy; for who if he shoots at a mark all day long, will not occasionally hit it? We sleep every night and there is scarcely ever a night when we do not dream; then do we not wonder that our dreams come true sometimes? Nothing is so uncertain as a cast of dice and yet there is no one who does not sometimes make a Venus-throw [three sixes] and occasionally twice or thrice in succession. Then are we, like fools, to prefer to say that it happened by the direction of Venus rather than by chance?</em></p>
On Divination (2:59(121)), p. 507 – distinguishing luck from skill
– distinguishing luck from skill
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss.</em></p>
(Attributed to) in Haught, 2000 Years of Disbelief, p. 37 – distinguishing luck from skill
– distinguishing luck from skill
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Drink deep the Persian Spring, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.</em></p>
An Essay on Criticism (lines 215-216) – illusion of knowledge
– illusion of knowledge
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Not wanting our conversation to degenerate into a stump-the-scholar game, I [Strobel] decided to move on. In the meantime, Blomberg and I agreed that the best overall approach would be to </em><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;"><strong>study each issue individually</strong></em><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;"> to see whether there’s a rational way to resolve the apparent conflict among the gospels.</em></p>
The Case for Christ, p. 48 – emphasis added, Strobel interviewing Blomberg, the forest-versus-trees fallacy
– emphasis added, Strobel interviewing Blomberg, the forest-versus-trees fallacy
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">… despite two centuries of skeptical onslaught, it is fair to say that all the alleged inconsistencies among the gospels have received at least plausible resolutions.</em></p>
Historical Reliability of the Gospels, p. 10
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">All of the gospel and Acts evidence — incident after incident, witness after witness, detail after detail, corroboration on top of corroboration — was extremely impressive. Although I tried, I couldn’t think of any more thoroughly attested event in ancient history.</em></p>
The Case for Christ, p. 235
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">If religion was clear, it would have fewer attractions for the ignorant. They need obscurity, mysteries, fables, miracles, incredible things, which keep their brains perpetually at work.</em></p>
Common Sense (12), p. 15, (posthumously discovered 1732), or written by D’Holbach, Good Sense (2), p. 22, – love of the mysterious and miraculous
– love of the mysterious and miraculous
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">The primary religion of mankind arises chiefly from an anxious fear of future events; and what ideas will naturally be entertained of invisible, unknown powers, while men lie under dismal apprehensions of any kind, may easily be conceived. Every image of vengeance, severity, cruelty, and malice must occur, and must augment the ghastliness and horror which oppresses the amazed religionist. A panic having once seized the mind, the active fancy still farther multiplies the objects of terror.</em></p>
The Natural History of Religion (13), p. 71 – fear of death
– fear of death
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">The common man cannot imagine this Providence otherwise than in the figure of an enormously exalted father. Only such a being can understand the needs of the children of men and be softened by their prayers and placated by signs of their remorse. The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life … Its [religion’s] technique consists in depressing the value of life and distorting the picture of the real world in a delusional manner — which presupposes an intimidation of intelligence. At this price, by forcibly fixing them in a state of psychical infantilism and by drawing them into a mass delusion, religion succeeds in sparing many people an individual neurosis.</em></p>
Civilization and its Discontents (21:2), pp. 74,84-85 – the anthropomorphic delusion
– the anthropomorphic delusion
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Those who tell you that man is unable to perceive a reality undistorted by his senses, mean they are willing to perceive a reality undistorted by their feelings. … Your teachers, the mystics of both schools, have reversed causality in their consciousness, then strive to reverse it in existence. They take their emotions as a cause, and their mind as a passive effect. They make their emotions a tool for perceiving reality. They hold their desires as an irreducible primary, as a fact superseding all facts. An honest man does not desire until he has identified the object of his desire. He says: “It is, therefore I want it.” They say: “I want it, therefore it is.”</em></p>
Atlas Shrugged, p. 1036, in a speech by John Galt – wishful thinking
– wishful thinking
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">The human understanding, when any proposition has been once laid down … forces everything else to add fresh support and confirmation; and although most cogent and abundant instances may exist to the contrary, yet either does not observe or despises them, or gets rid of and rejects them by some distinction, with violent and injurious prejudice, rather than sacrifice the authority of its first conclusions.</em></p>
Novum Organum (1:46), p. 230 – an early description of confirmation bias
– an early description of confirmation bias
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.</em></p>
Henry Riecken 1917-2012 and Stanley Schachter 1922-1997, When Prophecy Fails (3:31) — cognitive dissonance, an extreme form of confirmation bias
– cognitive dissonance, an extreme form of confirmation bias
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept, and wept, till the day dawn. I mused in my heart, saying, My advent experience has been the richest and brightest of all my Christian experience. If this has proved a failure, what was the rest of my Christian experience worth? Has the Bible proved a failure? Is there no God, no heaven, no golden home city, no paradise? Is all this but a cunningly devised fable? … The 22nd of October passed, making unspeakably sad the faithful … but causing the unbelieving and wicked to rejoice. All was still. No Advent Herald; no meetings as formerly. Everyone felt lonely, with hardly a desire to speak to anyone. Still in the cold world! No deliverance — the Lord [had] not come! No words can express the feelings of disappointment … It was a humiliating thing and we all felt it alike.</em></p>
Life and Religious Experience (pp. 67-68), as quoted in Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter, When Prophecy Fails, “Unfulfilled Prophecies and Disappointed Messiahs,” p. 22 – cognitive dissonance, an extreme form of confirmation bias
– cognitive dissonance, an extreme form of confirmation bias
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Once a doctrine, however irrational, has gained power in a society, millions of people will believe it rather than feel ostracized and isolated.</em></p>
Psychoanalysis and Religion, 1950 – need for community
– need for community
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">The perversity of religion is that it allows sane people to believe the unbelievable </em><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">en masse</em><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">.</em></p>
as quoted in Huberman, The Quotable Atheist, p. 140 – need for community
– need for community
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">The question that constitutes the inherent and lasting fascination of religion [is] </em><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;"><strong>not what people believe, but why</strong></em><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;"> … Religion is invaluable because it offers the deepest insight into the nature of the psyche and its needs.</em></p>
as quoted in Huberman, The Quotable Atheist, p. 83 – emphasis added
– emphasis added
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