THOMAS HUXLEY on Religion

THOMAS HUXLEY

English biologist

(1825-1895)

• “Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe.”(What Great Men Think of Religion, by Cardiff)

• “The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.”

• “The dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the popes.”(Contoverted Questions, 1892)

• “I have no faith, very little hope, and as much charity as I can afford.”(What Great Men Think of Religion, by Cardiff)

• “I neither deny or affirm the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing in it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it.”(Letter to Charles Kingsley, 1860)

• “Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.”(The Coming of Age of the Origin of the Species)

• “I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of ‘Agnostic.’ It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the ‘Gnostic’ of Church history who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant.”(Agnosticism. Nineteenth Century, 1889)

• “Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.” (Science and Culture)

• “The only question which a wise man can ask himself is whether a doctrine is true or false. Consequences will take care of themselves.” (What Great Men Think of Religion, by Cardiff)

• “What are among the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism a sin; that when good authority has pronounced what is to be believed, and faith has accepted it, reason has no further duty.” (What Great Men Think of Religion, by Cardiff)