This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The virtue of using evidence is precisely that we can come to an agreement about it. But if you listen to two people who are arguing about something, and they each of them have passionate faith that they're right, but they believe different things - they belong to different religions, different faiths, there is nothing they can do to settle their disagreement short of shooting each other, which is what they very often actually do.
Disagreement | Evidence | Faith | Nothing | People | Virtue | Virtue |
There's only any point in believing something if it's not true. And it's not just faith itself: it's the idea that faith is a virtue and the less evidence there is, the more virtuous it is. Things for which there is mere evidence are just too easy, and it's no test of faith. In order to have a test of your faith, you must be asked to believe really daft things like the transubstantiation, you know, the blood of Christ turning into wine, and stuff. That is so manifestly absurd that you've got to be a really great believer in order to believe it. You're actually showing off your believing credentials by the ability to believe something like that. If it were an easy thing to believe, substantiated by facts, then it wouldn't be any great achievement.
Ability | Absurd | Evidence | Faith | Order | Virtue | Virtue |
As several studies during this period have confirmed, once the relationship between GDP growth and energy consumption is corrected for energy quality, much of the historic evidence for energy-economy decoupling disappears.
Energy | Evidence | Growth | Relationship |
There are limits. The evidence is clear: We are reaching those limits. It is no longer a matter of saying,
Evidence |
You cannot be both sane and well educated and disbelieve in evolution. The evidence is so strong that any sane, educated person has got to believe in evolution.
Evidence |
Richard Wright, fully Richard Nathaniel Wright
Don't leave inferences to be drawn when evidence can be presented.
Evidence |
Confidence arises from faith when troubles make it the stronger. Therefore it is a true evidence of grace, when confidence increase with opposition, great troubles breeding great confidence.
Confidence | Evidence | Faith | Troubles |
Richard Wagner, fully Wilhelm Richard Wagner
This is a new idea, and we didn't know how it would turn out, although there has been mixed evidence from other studies suggesting that tanning increases endorphin production, which could be addictive... Certainly this could explain why educational interventions haven't been more successful.
Evidence |
Richard L. Evans, fully Richard Louis Evans
The swift passing of the seasons brings all of us at time to think upon the length of life, as friends and loved ones come and leave, and as we ourselves face always such uncertainties. Not one of us knows how long he will live, how long his loved ones will live. "No one can be ignorant that he must die," said Cicero, "nor be sure that he may not this very day." But beyond all this -- beyond all fretting, worrying, and brooding about the length of life -- there is evidence everywhere to quiet our hearts, to give us peace and faith for the future, and assurances that we can count on. Spring returned again this year. We knew it would -- and it did. And just so surely as all this, life has purpose, plan, and pattern that includes eternal continuance with loved ones waiting. And with all sorrows, loss of loved ones, loneliness, there is this that we may know: That in a universe which runs so well, the Power who runs it well is that same Power who knows each human heart, and quiets and softens sorrow, and gives assurances we so much seek, as each day brings its undisclosed events. We come; we live; we leave. Our loved ones leave -- but we and they live always and forever. Don't fret. Don't doubt. Don't cling to grieving. Don't fight life, or give up, or brood, or be bitter and rebellious, or let go of faith in the future. All of us know loneliness; all of us search ourselves, and ask for answers. Trust Him, who has done so much so well, to do all things well. Trust Him to bring peace and comfort and quietness and assurance to your soul inside. "Once more the Heavenly Power makes all things new." (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Early Spring"). This you can count on.
Comfort | Day | Eternal | Evidence | Faith | Life | Life | Lord | Peace | Power | Quiet | Search | Soul | Time | Trust | Universe | Will | Loss | Friends | Think |
Richard E. Byrd, fully Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.
I paused to listen to the silence. My breath, crystallized as it passed my cheeks, drifted on a breeze gentler than a whisper. The wind vane pointed toward the South Pole. Presently the wind cups ceased their gentle turning as the cold killed the breeze. My frozen breath hung like a cloud overhead. The day was dying, the night was being born-but with great peace. Here were the imponderable processes and forces of the cosmos, harmonious and soundless. Harmony, that was it! That was what came out of the silence-a gentle rhythm, the strain of a perfect chord, the music of the spheres, perhaps. It was enough to catch that rhythm, momentarily to be myself a part of it. In that instant I could feel no doubt of man's oneness with the universe. The conviction came that that rhythm was too orderly, too harmonious, too perfect to be a product of blind chance-that, therefore, there must be purpose in the whole and that man was part of that whole and not an accidental offshoot. It was a feeling that transcended reason; that went to the heart of a man's despair and found it groundless. . . . For those who seek it, there is inexhaustible evidence of an all-pervading intelligence. Man is not alone.
Day | Despair | Doubt | Enough | Evidence | Heart | Man | Music | Oneness | Purpose | Purpose |
The deeper question about remedies is not whether ancient religious forms can reform and thus provide these remedies, but whether new forms of nature-related spirituality might emerge that cohere with a modern evolutionary/ecological worldview, and could provide a basis for environmental concern and action... I believe there is strong evidence that such religion is emerging and gathering strength.
Evidence | Question | Reform | Religion | Spirituality |
There really isn't any clear evidence that very small micro- businesses -- mom and pop operations -- will benefit.
Good science is more than the mechanics of research and experimentation. Good science requires that scientists look inward--to contemplate the origin of their thoughts. The failures of science do not begin with flawed evidence or fumbled statistics; they begin with personal self-deception and an unjustified sense of knowing.
Evidence | Good | Research | Science | Self-deception | Sense |
Roland B. Gittelsohn, fully Roland Bertram Gittelsohn
I think there is a form of spiritual as well as clinical schizophrenia abroad in the land. I find it when I see men who check their reason and all empirical evidence when they enter a church or synagogue, and I find it in men who forget everything they have learned about faith when they enter a laboratory or a physician’s office. I think they are almost equally derelict in their approach to the human being.
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist.
Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
The person who loves God cannot help loving every man as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified. But when they amend their lives, his delight is indescribable and knows no bounds. A soul filled with thoughts of sensual desire and hatred is unpurified. If we detect any trace of hatred in our hearts against any man whatsoever for committing any fault, we are utterly estranged from love for God, since love for God absolutely precludes us from hating any man.
Death | Eternal | Evidence | Grace | Human nature | Lord | Nature | Passion | Power | Suffering |
He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him.
Well-ordered self-love is right and natural.
Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.