
“Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings.”
2000s, The End of Faith (2004)
“Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings.”
2000s, The End of Faith (2004)
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/324171554491596803 (16 April 2013)
Twitter
“Christian theology is the grandmother of Bolshevism.”
Source: The Hour of Decision
“Physic and Theology go together”
The Philosophy of Antoninus
Context: According to the subdivision of Cleanthes, Physic and Theology go together, or the study of the nature of Things, and the study of the nature of the Deity, so far as man can understand the Deity, and of his government of the universe. This division or subdivision is not formally adopted by Antoninus, for... there is no method in his book; but it is virtually contained in it.
A statement in this passage is sometimes paraphrased: "Men are better than their theology."
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: I think that our popular theology has gained in decorum, and not in principle, over the superstitions it has displaced. But men are better than this theology. Their daily life gives it the lie. Every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves the doctrine behind him in his own experience; and all men feel sometimes the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate. For men are wiser than they know. That which they hear in schools and pulpits without after-thought, if said in conversation, would probably be questioned in silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on Providence and the divine laws, he is answered by a silence which conveys well enough to an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to make his own statement.