{"quotes":[{"text":"The logic behind patriotism is a mystery. At least a man who believes that his own family or clan is superior to all others is familiar with more than 0.000003% of the people involved.","author":"Criss Jami","tags":["arrogance","arrogant","belief","bias","clan","country","estimate","estimated","estimation","family","funny","funny-but-true","humor","illogical","inferior","inferiority","irrational","logic","mystery","nation","nationalism","patriot","patriotic","patriotism","people","percent","percentage","pride","prideful","sarcasm","sarcastic","stat","statistic","statistics","stats","superior","superiority","true"],"id":1099,"author_id":"Criss+Jami"},{"text":"I treat my thoughts like an old person treats their valuables: I cannot for the life of me proceed to throwing them out.","author":"Criss Jami","tags":["artist","belief","brain","cognition","confession","consideration","creativity","creed","death","discard","funny","funny-but-true","habits","honesty","humor","instinct","intellectual","intuition","irrational","knowledge","life","logic","mind","negativity","old-habits","old-person","opinion","original-thought","positivity","precious","psychology","rational","rationalization","sentimental","stubborn","think","thinker","thinking","thought","thoughts","tradition","treasure","valuable","wisdom"],"id":6887,"author_id":"Criss+Jami"},{"text":"It's time to demand that the faithful keep their personal choices, preferences and beliefs in irrational and sometimes dangerous things strictly private. Everyone is absolutely free to believe what they want, provided they do not harass others (or force, or kill them) .. But nobody has the right to insist on privileges simply because they are supporters of one or other of the world's many religions.'From: 'Gesels van een imaginaire god'('Scourges of an imaginary god').","author":"A.J. Beirens","tags":["atheism","beliefs","believe","bible","choices","christianity","dangerous","faith","faithful","god","harass","irrational","man","preferences","private","privilege","privileges","time"],"id":20887,"author_id":"A.J.+Beirens"},{"text":"Until now, human organization could only be based upon something negative which could not be conquered: SCARCITY, and something false: PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY... No wonder instead of producing stability, it produced the exact opposite.The current human organization based upon dealing with the consequences of scarcity and being considered responsible for our individual characteristics which we could never have chosen (our nature, our nurture, our “soul”, and all the choices they engender), will always lead to an irrational, hence unstable human organization causing perpetual conflicts, which is no organization at all.Today, we have the luxury to initiate a rational self-organization based upon two positives: -our HUMAN CONSENSUS; our common desires shared by all, and -the SCIENTIFIC PROJECT to achieve them.","author":"Haroutioun Bochnakian","tags":["accountability","consensus","determinism","false","free-will","human-organization","humanism","irrational","organization","personal-accountability","rational","scarcity","science","unreasonable"],"id":39152,"author_id":"Haroutioun+Bochnakian"},{"text":"The traditional arguments for the existence of God have been fairly thoroughly criticised by philosophers. But the theologian can, if he wishes, accept this criticism. He can admit that no rational proof of God's existence is possible. And he can still retain all that is essential to his position, by holding that God's existence is known in some other, non-rational way. I think, however, that a more telling criticism can be made by way of the traditional problem of evil. Here it can be shown, not that religious beliefs lack rational support, but that they are positively irrational, that the several parts of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another, so that the theologian can maintain his position as a whole only by a much more extreme rejection of reason than in the former case. He must now be prepared to believe, not merely what cannot be proved, but what can be disproved from other beliefs that he also holds.","author":"John Leslie Mackie","tags":["argument","argument-from-evil","atheism","atheist-argument","atheistic-philosophy","inconsistent","irrational","philosophy","philosophy-of-atheism","problem-of-evil","rational-proof","rational-support","reason","rejection-of-reason","theology"],"id":41438,"author_id":"John+Leslie+Mackie"},{"text":"Behind every flinch is a fear or an anxiety - sometimes rational, sometimes not. Without the fear, there is no flinch. But wiping out the fear isn't what's important - facing it is.","author":"Julien Smith","tags":["afraid","anxiety","courage","courageous","facing-fear","fear","flinch","irrational","rational"],"id":42435,"author_id":"Julien+Smith"},{"text":"Earthquake means destruction; dictator means destruction! In the case of earthquake, you need a strong building; in the case of dictator, you need an educated rational mind, because an irrational ignorant mind always serves the dictator!","author":"Mehmet Murat ildan","tags":["despotism","despots","destruction","dictator","dictator","dictator","dictatorship","dictatorships","earthquake","ildan-words-of-wisdom","irrational","mind","murat-ildan-sayings","rational"],"id":54963,"author_id":"Mehmet+Murat+ildan"},{"text":"Government as we now know it in the USA and other economically advanced countries is so manifestly horrifying, so corrupt, counterproductive, and outright vicious, that one might well wonder how it continues to enjoy so much popular legitimacy and to be perceived so widely as not only tolerable but indispensable. The answer, in overwhelming part, may be reduced to a two-part formula: bribes and bamboozlement (classically 'bread and circuses'). Under the former rubric falls the vast array of government 'benefits' and goodies of all sorts, from corporate subsidies and privileges to professional grants and contracts to welfare payments and health care for low-income people and other members of the lumpenproletariat. Under the latter rubric fall such measures as the government schools, the government's lapdog news media, and the government's collaboration with the producers of professional sporting events and Hollywood films. Seen as a semi-integrated whole, these measures give current governments a strong hold on the public's allegiance and instill in the masses and the elites alike a deep fear of anything that seriously threatens the status quo.","author":"Robert Higgs","tags":["anarchy","austrian-school-of-economics","belief","capitalism","coercion","collectivism","communi","democracy","empire","free","free-markets","freedom","irrational","laissez-faire","libertarian","liberty","markets","non-aggression-principle","peace","politics","prosperity","self-ownership","slavery","socialism","statism","subjugation","superstition","taxation","theft","totalitarianism","trade","useful-idiots","voluntaryism","voluntaryist"],"id":57284,"author_id":"Robert+Higgs"},{"text":"Think about the precedents you are setting. It's the Left that runs the world on reckless emotionalism. Don't join.","author":"Michelle Malkin","tags":["emotionalism","irrational","left-wing","liberalism","political","politics"],"id":59759,"author_id":"Michelle+Malkin"},{"text":"As utterly irrational as it might seem, the greed within me has the most limited vision I can possibly imagine as it has eyes only for the few things it doesn’t have, and it is completely blind to all the many remarkable things that it does.","author":"Craig D. Lounsbrough","tags":["blind","blindness","desires","eyesight","flawed","greed","greedy","inaccurate","irrational","needs","possessions","privilege","rational","selfish","selfishness","skewed","vision","wants"],"id":69346,"author_id":"Craig+D.+Lounsbrough"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":44,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}