Maurice Merleau-Ponty Quotes

I know too much about religion to be religious, so to speak, and I am not that stupid, either.

Really, a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him on every side.

In religious matters it is now fashionable to define tolerance as the absence of criticism of any standard religion. All too often, this absence of criticism degenerates into a conspicuous absence of thought.

Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiae, bugbears to frighten children.

Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things.

The division between faith and reason is a half-measure, till it is frankly admitted that faith has to do with fiction, and reason with fact.

To philosophize is to doubt.

Here is the beginning of philosophy: a recognition of the conflicts between men, a search for their cause, a condemnation of mere opinion .. . and the discovery of a standard of judgement.

Question boldly even the existence of God.

Because religious training means credulity training, churches should not be surprised to find that so many of their congregations accept astrology as readily as theology, or a channeled Atlantean priest as readily as a biblical prophet.

Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.

The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff.

You shouldn’t blindly accept a leader’s advice. You’ve got to question leaders on occasion.

When it comes to religion, we're not two sides of the same coin, and you don't get to put your unreason up on the same shelf with my reason. Your stuff has to go over there, on the shelf with Zeus and Thor and the Kraken, with the stuff that is not evidence-based, stuff that religious people never change their mind about, no matter what happens.

Don’t just teach your children to read… Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.

As a philosopher, I have a right to ask for a rational explanation of religious faith.

God is a too palpably clumsy answer; an answer which shows a lack of delicacy towards us thinkers-fundamentally, even a crude prohibition to us: you shall not think!

Reason cannot show itself more reasonable than to cease reasoning on things above reason.

Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, used to say that his art was like the art of the midwife. She does not herself give birth to the child, but she is there to help during its delivery. Similarly, Socrates saw his task as helping people to 'give birth' to correct insight, since real understanding must come from within. . . . Everybody can grasp philosophical truths if they just use their innate reason.

I believe that the best way to become an atheist is to read the bible

Skepticism is not a position; it's a process.

I am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers.

[Unbelievers] think they have made great efforts to get at the truth when they have spent a few hours in reading some book out of Holy Scripture, and have questioned some cleric about the truths of the faith. After that, they boast that they have searched in books and among men in vain.

In philosophy it is always good to put a question instead of an answer to a question. For an answer to the philosophical question may easily be unfair; disposing of it by means of another question is not.

So then there was the Greek, Socrates, he was great... He invented questioning. Before Socrates, no questioning. Everyone sort of went, ''Yeah, I suppose so.