“Skepticism about life and nature is most often expressed by those who take it for granted that belief is an indulgence of the superstitious — indeed their opiate, to quote a historical cosmologist most profoundly dead. Granted, that to look up at the stars comes close to compelling disbelief — how can such a chance arrangement be other than an elaboration — near infinite — of natural impulses? Yes, on the other hand, who is to say that the arrangement of the stars is more easily traceable to nature, than to nature's molder? What is the greater miracle: the raising of the dead man in Lazarus, or the mere existence of the man who died and of the witnesses who swore to his revival?”
"How Is It Possible to Believe in God?" on NPR Morning Edition (23 May 2005) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4656595.
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William F. Buckley Jr.43
American conservative author and commentator 1925–2008Related quotes
Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa
Source: Holism and Evolution (1926), p. 337
Norbert Wiener (1894–1964) American mathematician
Source: [Wiener, N., A New Theory of Measurement: A Study in the Logic of Mathematics, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, s2-19, 1, 1921, 181–205, 0024-6115, 10.1112/plms/s2-19.1.181]
“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”
Aldous Huxley book Brave New World
"Variations on a Philosopher" in Themes and Variations (1950)
Source: Brave New World
Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War
Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter III, Some Implications Of The First Image, p. 42
“It's strange that those we miss the most
Are those we take for granted.”
John Betjeman (1906–1984) English poet, writer and broadcaster
"The Hon. Sec." line 39, from High and Low (1966).
Poetry
Elisha Gray (1835–1901) American electrical engineer
Familiar Talks on Science, Volume 1, 1899, p. 196
Nature's Miracles (1900)