Canto II, line 377.
Source: Hudibras, Part II (1664)
“If the gods evolve (culturally) to condemn selfish and divisive behaviors, they can then be used to promote cooperation and trust within the group. […] Creating gods who can see everything, and who hate cheaters and oath breakers, turns out to be a good way to reduce cheating and oath breaking.”
The Righteous Mind (2012)
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Jonathan Haidt 28
American psychologist 1963Related quotes
Traveling Mercies; on page 22 of Bird by Bird she attributes this to "my priest friend Tom"
“We can see God's reflection in everything he created.”
Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 148
1960, Speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association
2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)
Context: My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction. And we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service. But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty or an immigrant realizes her dream. My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our hearts with pride. They are the words of citizens and they represent our greatest hope. You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course. You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time -- not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.
“It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.”
Fragment 385, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Science and Spirit interview (2004)
Context: A great many people say we have language and imagination to posit creators, interveners, and agencies that we can't actually prove. And yet some people experience God within them--these experiences are not drawn-up hypotheses. It's possible those of us who don't feel God within them have deficient brains that aren't capable of such experiences; or alternatively, the people who experience these things have brains that somehow create them. As near as I can tell, the jury is out on that. I may be a non-theist who doesn't include a god concept in my religious orientation because I have an incompetent brain, or perhaps theists have brains giving them inaccurate information.
“God forbid that Judges upon their oath should make resolutions to enlarge jurisdiction.”
Reeves v. Buttler (1715), Gilbert, Eq. Ca. 196; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 137.
Preface, p. ix
In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (2002)