“Religion can get on with any sort of astronomy, geology, biology, physics. But it cannot get on with a purposeless and meaningless universe. If the scheme of things is purposeless and meaningless, then the life of man is purposeless and meaningless too. Everything is futile, all effort is in the end worthless. A man may, of course, still pursue disconnected ends, money, fame, art, science, and may gain pleasure from them. But his life is hollow at the center. Hence the dissatisfied, disillusioned, restless, spirit of modern man.”

—  Walter Terence Stace

p.7-6.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update July 12, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Religion can get on with any sort of astronomy, geology, biology, physics. But it cannot get on with a purposeless and …" by Walter Terence Stace?
Walter Terence Stace photo
Walter Terence Stace 36
British civil servant, educator and philosopher. 1886–1967

Related quotes

Ludwig Klages photo

“Everything purposeful is meaningless, and everything meaningful is purposeless.”

Ludwig Klages (1872–1956) German psychologist and philosopher

Source: Rhythmen und Runen (1944), p. 280

Ken Ham photo

“Atheism is a religion of death. Though atheists make their own “meaning” or “purpose” while alive, ultimately atheism is all meaningless, purposeless, and utterly hopeless.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

“When You Die You’re Done” https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2016/08/02/when-you-die-youre-done/, Around the World with Ken Ham (August 2, 2016)
Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

C.G. Jung photo

“Man cannot stand a meaningless life.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
Paul Tillich photo

“Enthusiasm for the universe, in knowing as well as in creating, also answers the question of doubt and meaninglessness. Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge. And meaninglessness is no threat so long as enthusiasm for the universe and for man as its center is alive.”

Paul Tillich book The Courage to Be

Source: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 121

Stanley Kubrick photo

“The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Quoted in Halliwell's Filmgoer's and Video Viewer's Companion (1988), p. 403. Seems that this sentence first appeared in an 1968 Playboy Interview "Stanley Kubrick on Mortality, the Fear of Flying, and the Purpose of Existence: 1968 Playboy Interview" http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/07/26/stanley-kubrick-playboy-interview/
Context: The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed.

“Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.”

George Gaylord Simpson (1902–1984) American paleontologist

George Gaylord Simpson (1967) The Meaning of Evolution, revised edition. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 345.

“It's the pointless things that give your life meaning. Friendship, compassion, art, love. All of them pointless. But they're what keeps life from being meaningless.”

Tim Winton (1960) Australian writer
Leo Tolstoy photo

“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.”

Leo Tolstoy book A Confession

Source: Confession (1882), Ch. 5, translated by David Patterson, 1983
Source: A Confession

Jerry Coyne photo

“Yes, secularism does propose a physical and purposeless universe, and many (but not all) of us accept the notion that our sense of self is a neuronal illusion. But although the universe is purposeless, our lives aren’t. This conflation of a purposeless universe (i. e., one not created for a specific reason) with purposeless human lives is a trick that the faithful use to make atheism seem nihilistic and dark. But we make our own purposes, and they’re real. Right now my purpose is to write this piece, and then I’ll work on a book, and later I’ll have dinner with a friend. Soon I’ll go to Poland to visit more friends. Maybe later I’ll read a nice book and learn something. Those are real purposes, not illusory purposes to which Douthat wants us to devote our only life.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" Douthat on the rampage against secularism, gets it all wrong http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/douthat-on-the-rampage-against-secularism-gets-it-all-wrong/" December 23, 2013

Related topics