Why aren't the gospels reliable?

Are the gospels evidence for a divine being? And further, evidence that Jesus was the son of that being? It should come as no great surprise that I'm not the first to ask those questions, and I shan't be the last. The historicity of Jesus is probably a topic which historians have given more undue attention to than any other. Please note, I am not a historian, not even particularly knowledgeable about historical events or even methods of historical analysis. So when coming out as an atheist to Christian friends, it was a question I wasn't really expecting. I had put more of my efforts into more "a priori" arguments about deities, and not thought about historical evidence. Ideally, properly appraising the evidence would mean hours of research and proper tuition. But I can afford neither the time nor the money of a tutor, and even then I wouldn't be able to hold a candle to the sheer volume or quality of historians before me. I can however try to produce reasons as to why I may dispute the evidence. Here I hope to formalise my argument a little more, and cache it for future use.

Context and implications

Existence of divinity is an extremely important claim, it requires a huge amount of evidence. I can accept that Julius Caesar did this and said that with fairly large margins of error. The reason I can is that it really doesn't matter to me. Historical evidence of a deity and especially the link of one person to said deity is a really important question. If such a deity is real, I need to profoundly change my behaviour; it's not something I am going to accept without very certain evidence. In other words, I am sticking to my null hypothesis because of the huge implications of the tested hypothesis. At this point, you may feel an urge to tell me that this makes me evil, as if I am somehow avoiding God. I can demonstrate the circular nature of this with two arguments. Firstly, imagine you tell me that by jumping off a cliff I will achieve eternal happiness and life. In this case, the consequences under my current theory (no belief in any such supernatural mechanisms) are dire. I would need stupendous amounts of evidence to convince myself to do it. It is the same for religion, it will literally change the way I live, that's a big deal. Secondly, you would exercise the same caution when evaluating other religions and their books, and you would implore me to do the same if I was to look at the historicity of Muhammed. If you are compelled to reply to that with, "I have looked at Islam, and it really was silly and unbelievable", just seriously consider whether perhaps your cultural or confirmation biases would have affected your judgement at all. For more about my choice of the null hypothesis, read this post.

Bayes' Theorem

One qualitative assessment of Bayes' theorem is the need to consider prior evidence. If you'd rolled a dice 1000 times and every time it came up a one, and a friend told you that your next roll would be a six, you should be a little skeptical. You would also be skeptical of a historical document which talked about unicorns and dragons, because you have never observed any yourself. This is not unreasonable, the claim is extraordinary, and to quote Sagan: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". If a historical document said that people generally went about doing normal peoplely things in the past, we'd be much less critical of it. It is not wrong to "view" the bible in such terms, it is indeed correct to require extraordinary evidence for the claims of miracles and of deity.

To use a further example: if you found a video of me shooting a laser out of my mouth, would you believe I possessed a power like some kind of gastronomical Cyclops? No, you would view the evidence in light of what you know about me, and about the source. You've never seen anyone shoot lasers out of their mouths, and you'd probably be right to say it's impossible within our current understanding of physics. Furthermore, you know that videos are easily and convincingly faked. It would be ridiculous and naive to believe I could. Of course, with the bible it is not so obvious, but think about the concepts which would lead you to reject or accept such claims.

Were they lying?

I was asked several times whether or not I thought the gospels were faked. I see this as a false dichotomy, on one end the early church conspired to mislead us and on the other, the whole bible is literally (like literally literally) true. In reality, humans are capable of everything from outright lies to honesty, but there's a lot in between where intentions are good but the outcomes are false. Biblical experts widely agree that none of the gospels were written by eye witnesses. It is perfectly plausible that the facts about Jesus were escalated, getting more and more fanciful as traditions began to form and people began to get caught up in this new messiah. Like a game of Chinese whispers, an increasingly fascinating story on top of someone who was probably a great teacher. Naturally, the accounts may all be true, but it is most certainly a large leap to suggest that it amounts to evidence. It is circular at best: there is a plausible pathway to the gospels being formed and not being literally true.

But how did a lie convince so many people? They plead. As people we are bombarded with huge amount of information from birth. Much of what we learn is simply copied and pasted from our culture and parents. Once a religion takes hold, it stays, and as I have mentioned before, strong religions remain. By definition. The weak religions die much more easily so the only ones that are left are the convincing ones. Obviously this is a theory, but it shows that there is a possible mechanism for convincing religions to form without any real truth behind them. Also, this argument falls apart when we consider other religions. How about Islam vs Christianity, both religions deny the authenticity of the other. Clearly convincing incorrect religions can form, convincing in fact to 2.2billion and 3.3billion respectively. People don't tend to lie, they bend facts with a whole slew of biases. Humans are really terrible sources for many reasons, especially in a religiously and emotionally charged environment.

Conclusion

The problem with looking back and making theories around the evidence is that there are an infinite number of possibilities that fit with any given set of evidence. It is no surprise that both theories fit. This is invariably what happens with all kinds of historical theories, I'm not saying history is wholesale tosh, far from it. Historians know how difficult it is to make concrete statements about past events. Obviously, this applies to all historical theories, even the one that Jesus was not divine. With the bar for proving the existence of a deity is so very high and the theoretical quality of the source is so low, it is inadequate to make even a weak claim.

In-groups and Stockholm Syndrome: The Musical

By what criteria do we judge music? It's some fuzzy quality, that when we listen to it, makes us want to float on the music; take it all in and absorb it. It's a quality that expresses emotions quickly and effectively, good music makes you feel empowered, it lifts you up a little bit in every way. Even sad music can lift you a little, reminding you that you're not the first person to feel that, or by temporarily allowing you to sympathise.

Uncharacteristically vague descriptions aside, music is a truly pervasive and powerful tool. Music can turn a crowd, a simple look at football chants shows us the powerful effects. It effectively polarises, perhaps when used socially it taps straight into our wish to be similar. Sometimes, this makes me wonder back about the "quality" of music. The most powerful music I have experienced sometimes correlates weakly with any ideas of high art: maybe a euphoric but cheesy Christian song, a primitive chant inducing solidarity or a shallow and repetitive beat that makes me go crazy.

The only common factor is that the music was a social act. I went along with the flow, it was the feeling of belonging and social acceptance that lifted me. Even if the song was annoying at first, it would grow on me because everyone else was enjoying it. Perhaps it's a big jump to say music is just Stockholm syndrome, but your music taste is defined almost entirely by what you listen to and what group you identify with. Perhaps there is some backward causation too, we are often drawn to people similar to us (in a mildly xenophobic way). I am over-simplifying what is an extremely complex behavior, but I can't seem to escape the feeling of that music quality is near arbitrary.

With a similar disregard for precise words and actual meaning as my first paragraph, read this review of Alt-J's "An Awesome Wave" from NME.

Alt-J indulge in impatient, complex songwriting. From the twisted a cappella interludes offsetting the distorted vocal and jagged guitars of ‘Intro’, to the wafting clap-happy breeze of ‘Dissolve Me’, each song flits between genres with the rapidity with which one would imagine Alt-J completed their algebra homework. ‘Breezeblocks’, starts as a smooth R&B groove before switching to a magnificent, clattering and sinister plea: “Please don’t go – I love you so!” The ‘In Rainbows’-indebted ‘Something Good’ is awash with piano and soaring melody. And while ‘An Awesome Wave’ might begun as some half-baked stab at a cinema concept album – ‘Matilda’’s drab strum is a paean to Luc Besson’s troubled child-star in Leon – it’s all the better for the added grit, real-life misery and heartache, as ‘Fitzpleasure’ attests. It’s a welcome injection of dirge, adding yet more sounds to the mix with rasping bass riffs and storming vocal before ‘Taro’’s finale, which fizzles disappointingly to the finish line.

Perhaps I have a unreasonably pessimistic view of art criticism but this previous paragraph strikes me as achieving very little. Sure, for someone who has experienced the album before, it does recall the feeling of listening to it. But, as a piece for expressing how good the album is to someone not in the indie rock in-group, it's useless. I suppose if we think we fit into NME's intended group it could work as a recommendation. It would express "I liked this, and as we like the same things, so will you". But we (I included) occasionally try to convince people outside of our music group that our music possesses some absolute, intrinsic quality. I'm probably being typically autistic and missing the point of such discussions but it always seems that we have the wrong end of the stick. Music taste is defined by who we hang out with and who we idolise. The music speaks to something within us, our identity and our experiences with no reference to intrinsic quality.

How do I conclude? Probably with the shocking revelation that music as an art is subjective, who knew eh? Well, not many, me included. I often thought of music as somehow different, as if there was a way to show that Justin Beiber's music is shit and Alt-J's is amazing. Of course, the stupidity of my statement appears now that I think about it, but as with many things, its trivial but not obvious.

I love easy wins

I was looking before at the book "The spirit level". It is a deeply divisive and influential book, with many people both supporting it and some making some seemingly valid criticisms of it. Right now, I don't want to take a side, I think of equality as a matter of morality; even if the evidence pointed the other way, I'd still want a more equal society. I want instead to consider what was going on in my head when I was looking into the book.

I was initially drawn to this book because of my left leaning. It looked great, evidence to justify my belief. My belief that an equal society is morally good means I want an equal society by any means (obviously within reason). When I find evidence which can achieve these ends, I jump for joy. But as you should be able to see, I am guilty of several fallacies: creating sides in a multifaceted debate, confirmation bias and the is-ought fallacy.

It doesn't end there though, I decided to check out criticism of the book, although I admit I went into war mode. I was looking for criticism so I could strike it down with my towering intellect and clearly correct information. As it happened, I brought only a pointed stick to a gun fight in both senses. My mind crawled away, wounded, cursing the day it ever decided to fight this battle and I gave up. Oh I can't be bothered with this it exclaimed.

And this reminded me of my previous post, I had missed something crucial. Not only do I give myself undue credit, not only am I prone to type one errors and not only that I turn debates into war. But I am also lazy! I like easy wins, unfortunately this was no easy win for my left centred brain. It struck me: I derive pleasure from winning, from being correct and shooting down other arguments, of course I will develop a complex where I avoid hard debates where my views will be challenged. I actually prefer to remain wrong and have a nice side to sit on and throw stones from than be buffeted by other people arguments and really engage with it.

You could call this self-flagellation, an in a way it is, I am pointing out my error in the hope that it will stick in my mind. To reiterate: Reality and morality are distinct and sometimes at odds with each other. The aim is to find the correct answer not for one side to win. I should not seek self affirming arguments. And to add to this: I should seek hard arguments and stop being so bloody lazy.

If you want to take a look at the debate:

A talk from the author summing it up: http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html

The blog of the book called the spirit level delusion: http://spiritleveldelusion.blogspot.co.uk/
A free pdf critique of the book: http://www.environnement.ens.fr/IMG/file/stages/A%20critical%20reading%20of%20The%20Spirit%20Level_Milos%20Simic-2.pdf

And heed my warnings.

Critical Thinking: Fallacies and Bias

Introduction

You are a good person and correct about pretty much everything. Or so we like to tell ourselves on a daily basis. I'm not being facetious, we literally do. Our inability to correctly critically assess our own views leads to regular and serious social problems, examples include racism, rejection of good scientific theories and debilitation of our political system. Key to become more correct is understanding your own limitations, this is not a discussion of how to persuade people with fancy words or emotive devices, but how to strive to be less flawed. (Note to reader, this is as much an exercise to help me as you).

A fallacy is simply an incorrect argument, and they can come in any shape or size. Often what is meant by "fallacy x" and perhaps a more helpful definition is: an incorrect logical construction or argument which humans often fall into. Bias can mean almost the same in this context, a tendency for humans to think in a certain way which can often lead to incorrect conclusions. Some of these biases may even be obvious, you may palm off the severity of them, saying: "I notice myself doing these all the time and stop myself." Maybe you are a cognitive superman and stop yourself all the time, but I doubt it because you are most probably human. Even if you are exceptional, these biases take a lot of work to find and minimise. You will never be done either, it is a process of continuous improvement, it is both unhelpful and inaccurate to think you will ever finish. Enjoy instead every time you eliminate some bias, becoming a little less wrong.

Fallacies and Bias

In general (there may be exceptions), fallacies and biases stem from a few human traits. Firstly, we view ourselves in an overly positive light and others in a negative light. We dismiss our own flaws, and assume we are correct more than we are. Second, we are overly prone to type 1 errors (false positives). After all, it is better to over-sensitive and avoid a harmless thing than be under-sensitive and ignore a dangerous one. This, apart from making us survive better, means we tend to see patterns in events that aren't there. Another major issue with human reasoning is our tendency to see a discussion as war. We are built to form groups, tight knit groups who believe broadly similar things. This is obvious in politics, where battles which should be about ideas and data become battles about groups and parties (Check out Politics is the Mind-Killer on Less Wrong for more).

Lastly, and a more general point which encapsulates the others: we aren't designed for this. Long, certain logical processes may be accurate but they are slow. It's not all bad, as I said with type one errors, with our limited processing power evolution has provided us with decent heuristics to survive. Heuristics are essentially cutting corners when it comes to finding solutions. They are far more efficient than proper logic, even if not perfect, complete or always correct solutions. In days gone by, when our minds were preoccupied by more basic needs, this was great. In fact it is tautological to say, those who survived to reproduce were better at surviving in that primitive environment. That's great, everyone loves survival. The problem arises when we focus our mind on one problem, our heuristics cloud our vision; offering their needlessly quick and half-arsed ideas, when we have all the time in the world. Evolution is an imperfect process, and contrary to popular belief (due to our knack for type 1 errors) it did not and does not "aim" for a perfect being. In this case, it has produced a being which is not very good at logical deduction, instead one which is good at surviving and reproducing.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to find evidence that agrees with their hypotheses. We don't like the feeling of being wrong or the effort of having to think to change our opinion (I'm speaking from experience). So as a coping device, we either avoid, suppress or deride such evidence. This can express itself in all kinds of ways. One example is when we seek out friends who agree with us, I'm not judging this practice as wrong, we all need down time (check out is-ought fallacy). Nevertheless, we should be aware of it, because sometimes it can lead us to another fallacy: the false-consensus effect (there are many other ways this can arise). We can also avoid conflicting evidence by only reading news-sources that agree with us. In the same regard we can be over-critical of people who disagree with us, (a little more of this later) or automatically put up barriers if we think they might. You may feel yourself do this, try reading two conflicting newspapers and feel yourself glide over one opinion but ridicule another. Of course, it is time consuming to do this, to question evidence you agree with and entertain evidence you don't (maybe you can see why we evolved this bias). I am by no means saying all evidence is equal, one important conclusion of Bayes theorem is that we take into account prior observations, but naturally we aren't sensitive enough (hence the bias). Don't waste your time seriously appraising evidence of the boogie-man, but do occasionally ask yourself, "is it my level of trust for this evidence reasonable or am I unfairly ignoring it/giving it undue credit?" And be willing to change your hypothesis in the light of sufficient evidence.

Attribution bias

Wikipedia sums this bias up very well with a story:

"For example, when a driver cuts us off, we are more likely to attribute blame to the reckless driver (e.g., “What a jerk!”), rather than situational circumstances (e.g., “Maybe they were in a rush and didn’t notice me")."

The situation acts in reverse when it is us cutting up the other driver, and although the bias is a little broader than this (and is very much worthy of a further read) it stems from a simple idea: we want to portray ourselves as positively as possible. To counteract this bias, remember that everyone else is like you.

Cultural bias

We see evidence through the lens of our current theories, we saw that in the confirmation bias. However, many of there theories are first formed and learnt from our culture. By culture I mean in the broadest possible definition, including the culture of your friend groups, the culture of humanity, the culture of your educational establishment etc. Perhaps it would be better to refer to it as environmental bias, what are the people around you saying? Again, this is a bias of magnitude not type, don't throw out everything your culture tells you; our ability to absorb and pass on huge amounts of culture is one of the few things which separates us from other primates. Remember that nothing is sacred, no idea above reproach. The fact that religion practically runs in families should serve as a stark reminder to question received knowledge. Cultural bias can be much more subtle, one interesting example is the obsession of western nations to enforce democracy on countries with authoritarian rule. However, we are surprised when the country votes for a despotic leader again, "they are silly", we exclaim, "why would you not want a secular and liberal democracy?!" Culture is powerful and paints everything you think: question the accepted norm.

Ingroup-outgroup formation and bias

This is a particularly toxic bias: we love to make sides, seek to widen gaps and reduce proper argumentation to throwing shit around. What do I mean?

We need no encouragement to produce sides, as the robbers cave experiment suggests. I would highly recommend reading it, but to quickly sum it up: two isolated groups were formed, and upon discovering each other, started a constantly escalating war which also standardised behaviour within the groups. See also, the two sided debating chambers of the House of Commons and the Cambridge union. But what is wrong with a bit of back and forth in a debate as long as we don't fight?

Firstly, issues are rarely two sided or even three sided, the best solution (and remember that is our goal) is somewhere on a many dimensional map of the solutions (x amount of this and y amount of this... etc). Reality and people are complicated, and so are the solutions to our problems, I don't want a choice between only two. Furthermore, I and you need no encouragement to conform to a binary choice. That isn't all of it though, our tendency to take sides often leads to poor argumentation. We provide our own side concessions and don't question, all the while demonising and criticising the enemy. We see the discussion as a war, where our side needs to win. To question your side is betrayal and making concessions is losing vital ground. This serves only to widen the gaps as insults become personal, make our own views more ardent and produce a more stark binary. Choices are rarely binary so don't take sides, you are trying to find the truth not win a war.

In politics these effects are blown up and their effects are too terrible to fathom, I would recommend reading politics is the mind-killer.

Ad Hominem

A famous politician once concluded "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?". He was stupid => his policies were stupid => we should do the opposite.

Ad Hominem is a decent heuristic, stupid person says stupid things, a bad tree bears bad fruit. But it isn't a valid method of refuting a specific argument. The truth of statement is entirely separated from the person saying it. If you have enough time, there is no need even to consider who is saying it. Simple statements about whether one thing implies another require no context. With all the time and resources in the world, more complex claims could be tested with your own evidence and all logical steps could be checked. Realistically though, it is useful to have context and possible motivations if it is a particularly complex argument. It is useful to know where someone is coming from to watch out for specific flaws, but remember when you do it. In your mind, you must separate the person and the idea. (To link it to the previous bias, bear in mind a discussion is not a battle between two people or even ideologies or cultures, the truth is unconcerned with the frame and participants of the debate.)

I feel I must defend poor George Bush, in my example I remarked at his grammatical slip. On this basis and on his mannerisms, you may conclude that George Bush was stupid, maybe he was. I don't care to be honest, good grammar and spelling are probably only weakly correlated with intelligence, or at least weaker than you think. Even if it was, it wouldn't be the point, the truth could appear badly spelt on the side of a railway track or uttered by a pompous fool and it would still be true.

An extension of this fallacy is the tendency to reject wholesale the views of the stupid or the evil. I don't think I can explain this any better than Eliezer Yudkowsky, see Reversed stupidity is not Intelligence.
The stupid and evil occasionally get it right.

Is-ought fallacy

The is-ought fallacy is the movement between statements of reality and statements of ethics without suitable justification. How things are (is) and how things ought to be are separate questions. We see a specific type a lot, when people appeal to nature; flogging food with all "natural flavours" and accusing homosexuality of being unnatural and therefore wrong. It's not that either statement must therefore be wrong, it just requires justification (you'll probably struggle more with the latter statement, I hope).

The connection between reality and morality should be reasoned and not simply implied.

Conclusion

These are literally a tiny sample, check out List of cognitive biases on wikipedia (less wrong also has some very good articles on such things). I have attempted to pick particularly common ones, but this is of course shaped by my experience and personal biases. Perhaps you would have picked different ones, but that's not the point, I just wanted to point out to you (and me) how often and how badly wrong we are. The answer to "why?" might be from our culture and genes, but don't blame your ancestors too much, wondering whether we are in the matrix isn't very helpful when a tiger is bearing down at you. If your ancestor had been having an existential crisis at that point, you may not be here to read this (maybe you wish s/he had). Corner cutting heuristics are much quicker, but take your time and don't skip the logical steps, there's often no need. If a decision is important enough to take your time about it, keep the logical steps short to avoid falling in such holes.

Critical Thinking: What and why?

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is what all thinking should be. The process of critical thinking is to sceptically assess an argument, checking that the conclusion and any implications along the way are justified. By definition, it is the method of making argumentation as correct as possible. Inwardly, it is spotting errors in your beliefs and arguments and correcting them. Outwardly, it is spotting flaws with what people say, not with the purpose degrading or insulting them, but in an effort to make the statement correct.

Why bother with it? 

The truth matters! Say we have a decision to make, about the welfare of people or a strategy to achieve something, there is a most effective solution. In order to find that solution, correct argumentation is required along with relevant evidence. Critical thinking is appraising the solutions, finding flaws in the logic, attempting to find that solution. In general, humans are very poor at this, we are not built for proper critical thinking. To add to this, we are also even more terrible at accepting where we are wrong. Critical thinking is quite possibly the most important process to learn. It is learning how to find the truth. For this reason, we shouldn't just grudgingly accept that we must study it. We have to wholeheartedly embrace it as a method, enjoying finding truth in the process. Our aim is make critical thinking a mind set, our default mode of thinking.

"The habits of mind that characterize a person strongly disposed toward critical thinking include a desire to follow reason and evidence wherever they may lead, a systematic approach to problem solving, inquisitiveness, even-handedness, and confidence in reasoning."

For further reading on critical thinking, see wikipedia. For a much better explanation of pretty much the whole of rationality, check out Less Wrong.

quote from The National Assessment of College Student Learning: Identification of the Skills to be Taught, Learned, and Assessed, NCES 94–286, US Dept of Education, Addison Greenwod (Ed), Sal Carrallo (PI).


This post is dedicated to Yasmin Slattery :D

Ambiguity and Faith

Let's assume God is reasonable, what do I mean by this? I mean he abides by basic logical rules and if he wants us to believe in him, has left enough evidence or enough a priori facts to convince a reasonable person he exists. I think this is reasonable, and feels almost like the minimum he could do. Of course, this already is a little flawed: if someone is of low intelligence, how can they be expected to work this out (therefore God discriminates based on intelligence)? Especially if they are surrounded by "evil-doers" (whatever that means). But I digress, lets continue this simple point to some kind of conclusion.

One example of a common argument for a God is the cosmological argument. This says

1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. A causal loop cannot exist.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.

I don't want to delve particularly deeply on the points, for much better philosophers than I have already been there. I merely want to highlight that there exists areas of ambiguity.

• Our facts about causation is based on a posteriori knowledge, making 2 and 3 somewhat ambiguous. Some physicists have suggested that time does funny things near the start of the universe, allowing for a chain of infinite causation.
• 4 Concludes that an infinite, non-contingent "being" exists. However, it gives no indication as to what the being is like. It may not even be sentient. If you did want to conclude it was intelligent and conscious, then it may be a God who doesn't interfere, or does interfere but doesn't give two shits about our eternal welfare. It's certainly far from certain that its the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (or any other).

For many others, check out the Wikipedia or if you don't like Wikipedia, I'm sure there are many other good resources out there. The point is, even if you think I am incorrect about these counter-positions, you must concede there is at least some ambiguity (i.e. it is entirely reasonable, from the evidence, to conclude there is no God). Then, because of the ambiguity of this argument (and of many others I don't have time to list), it is unreasonable (see definition of reasonable at top) of god to expect us to make that choice. The arbitrariness and ambiguity behind the decision makes it uncharacteristic of a reasonable God.

A common defence is that cynical people who require conclusive evidence and that take the position that logically we should start off as an agnostic, are denying God. Somehow, this cynicism or reluctance to have faith without evidence is a bad quality. Conversely, faith is rewarded and considered a good quality. Despite, logically being an inferior way of making decisions. This contradicts my premise, suggesting that such a God is unreasonable. Maybe God exists and is unreasonable, although if that is the case, then God help us all.

Favourite Quotes

This will seem an eclectic mix of quotes, and it is. It isn't supposed to be greater than the sum of its parts, its just a load of quotes I thought were good at the time. It should also be remembered that quotes are often poor examples of good logic. Rather they are succinct and beautiful expressions of said logic.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Aristotle

Although it can be seen as pompous to quote Aristotle or other Greek philosophers, you would miss out on some great wisdom. This quote nicely sums up the level of open-mindedness we need, an ability to listen to ideas and critically appraise them without accepting them.

"Don't let your morals get in the way of doing what's right." Isaac Asimov (as Salvor Hardin)
"If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul." Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov uses the wise Salvor Hardin as his mouthpiece to succinctly express the danger of blindly sticking to dogma. The second quote also partially expresses the same sentiment, along with Asimov's personal belief.
"[the puddle remarks] This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" Douglas Adam
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams produces a pithy rebuttal to the Anthropic principal and sums up Occam's Razor.

"The fact if your own existence is the most astonishing fact you will ever have to confront. Don't you dare ever get used to it. Don't you dare ever say that life is boring, monotonous or joyless. One obvious way to express this is the improbability of your own personal existence." Richard Dawkins

A reminder for us that our biology and evolution is indeed beautiful and should not be dismissed as mundane. (On a related note I would recommend reading Mundane Magic)

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower." Karl Marx
Often the phrase in italics is plucked out of this this quote, but without context it ignores much of what Karl Marx what attempting to say. Whether or not you agree with Marx on this is another question.

"They whip out their sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs and shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and miss spellings but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language. Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of the tops of their tongues against the tops of the teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss. Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it. Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite please, affirm and tickle those they talk to? Do they? I doubt it." Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry criticising the tendency for grammar nazis to insist on language purity while missing out on the flexible and beautiful, but messy, qualities of language.
"I see these rappers that say things like 'no homo' and such;It always seems maybe the lady doth protest too much..." Scroobius Pip

"If your faith can move mountains, then it should be able to withstand critism " Ruben2287 (reddit)