George H. Smith Quotes

#1. Reason is not one tool of thought among many, it is the entire toolbox. To advocate that reason be discarded in some circumstances is to advocate that thinking be discarded - which leaves one in the position of attempting to do a job after throwing away the required instrument.

George H. Smith

#2. Those in government are especially susceptible to the corruption of power, because government is institutionalized coercion.

George H. Smith

#3. Christianity has nothing to offer a happy man living in a natural, intelligible universe.

George H. Smith

#4. I am continually amazed by the credence given to religious claims in the intellectual community; and, as a human being, i am appaulled by the psychological damage caused by religious teachings-damage that often takes years to counteract.

George H. Smith

#5. I am arguing that faith as such, faith as an alleged method of acquiring knowledge, is totally invalid and as a consequence, all propositions of faith, because they lack rational demonstration, must conflict with reason.

George H. Smith

#6. Religion has had the disastrous effect of placing vitally important concepts, such as morality, happiness and love, in a supernatural realm inaccessible to man's mind and knowledge.

George H. Smith

#7. The negative way [of describing God] is a cardboard prop of Christianity to conceal its unknowable God. When this prop collapses, theistic agnosticism emerges, complete with its package of contradictions and non-sensical utterances.

George H. Smith

#8. [A]ny being with the supposed capacity to create the logically impossible must himself be logically impossible.

George H. Smith

#9. The theist must present an intelligible description of god. Until he does so, god makes no more sense than unie; both are cognitively empty, and any attempt at proof is logically absurd.

George H. Smith

#10. A willingness to engage in the give and take of argument displays a commitment to cognitive egalitarianism - the proposition that all people should be treated as intellectual equals, and that no individual can legitimately claim a privileged immunity from the burden of proof.

George H. Smith

#11. One can be committed to conformity or one can be committed to truth, but not both.

George H. Smith

#12. If acorns start growing into theologians, or if women begin turning into pillars of salt, then we may wish to hypothesize about a supernatural influence. But until such time as nature becomes hopelessly unintelligible and unpredictable, we need look no further than nature itself for explanations.

George H. Smith

#13. Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can introduce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can introduce salvation.

George H. Smith

#14. Atheism is the absence of a belief in a god, nothing more. If the theist wishes to draw monumental implications from this lack of belief, he must argue for his claims.

George H. Smith