“The task of thought in our time is to replace the lost religious and metaphysical foundation of morals by a secular and naturalistic foundation.”
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Walter Terence Stace 36
British civil servant, educator and philosopher. 1886–1967Related quotes
“For me, development gives strongest foundation to the secularism.”
2008, Speech, 14 January 2008
"Physics and Reality" in the Journal of the Franklin Institute Vol. 221, Issue 3 (March 1936), Pages 349-382
1930s
Context: It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher. Why then should it not be the right thing for the physicist to let the philosopher do the philosophizing? Such might indeed be the right thing to do at a time when the physicist believes he has at his disposal a rigid system of fundamental laws which are so well established that waves of doubt can't reach them; but it cannot be right at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic as they are now. At a time like the present, when experience forces us to seek a newer and more solid foundation, the physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of theoretical foundations; for he himself knows best and feels more surely where the shoe pinches. In looking for an new foundation, he must try to make clear in his own mind just how far the concepts which he uses are justified, and are necessities.
[Chattanooga Times Free Press, 2004-02-22], quoted in * Herman Cain's 2004 Campaign: 'Godless' Gays And Planned Parenthood Eugenics
Huffington Post
Sam
Stein
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/05/herman-cain-abortion-planned-parenthood-2004-campaign_n_996631.html
2011-10-15
on Georgia constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage
"Exploring The Religious Naturalist Option", 13.7: Cosmos & Culture (23 November 2014) http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/11/23/366104014/exploring-the-religious-naturalist-option
Context: Scientific inquiry has provisioned us with a mind-boggling new core narrative — the epic of evolution, the epic of creation, the universe story, big history, everybody's story — where humans and human cultures are understood to be emergent from and, hence, a part of nature.
Naturalists adopt this account as their core narrative, with full recognition that these understandings will certainly deepen and may shift with further scientific inquiry. They adopt the story currently on offer and do not simply select features of the story that support preferred theories of nature. … A religious naturalist is a naturalist who has adopted the epic as a core narrative and goes on to explore its religious potential, developing interpretive, spiritual and moral/ethical responses to the story.
Importantly, these responses are not front-loaded into the story as they are in the traditions. Therefore, the religious naturalist engages in a process, both individually and in the company of fellow explorers, to discover and experience them. These explorations are informed and guided by the mindful understandings inherent in our human traditions, including art, literature, philosophy and the religions of the world.
The 5,000 Year Leap (1981)
Source: How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, Plume, New York (2009), p. 13
Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī, vol.3, p. 77
Religous Wisdom
“The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying”
"Science and Morals" (1886) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE9/S-M.html
1880s
Context: The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying; to give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge.
