Questions - Quotes
The great moral questions of the present age are those about human rights, war, poverty, the vast disparities between rich and poor, the fact that somewhere in the third world a child dies every two and a half seconds because of starvation or remediable disease. The churches` obsessions over pre-marital sex and whether divorced couples can remarry in church appears contemptible in the light of this mountain of human suffering and need. By distracting attention from what really counts, and focusing it on the minor and anyway futile attempt to get people to conduct their personal lives only in ways the church permits, harm is done to the cause of good in the world.
When people are taught to let go of difficult questions and trust whatever religious authorities tell them? That it`s better to trust their feelings than their critical thinking skills? That evidence and reason are less important than faith? That "doubter" is a synonym for "sinner"? They become vulnerable to every cheater, chiseler, swindler, con artist, and late night infomercial huckster who` s lucky enough to cross their gullible paths.
If you genuinely loved God, wouldn`t you want to understand him as best you can? When faced with different ideas about God, wouldn`t you want to ask some questions, and look at the supporting evidence for the different views, and try to figure out which one is probably true? Doesn`t it seem insulting to God to treat that question as if it didn`t matter? There are profound differences between religions. They are not trivial. And the different religions cannot all be right. (Although, as atheists like to point out, they can all be wrong.)
We`re all born with curiosity, but at some point, school usually manages to knock that out of us. I feel that my main responsibility as a teacher isn`t to convey facts, but to rekindle that lost enthusiasm for asking questions.
Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.
Lies beget other lies. Unlike statements of fact, which require no further work on our part, lies must be continually protected from collisions with reality. When you tell the truth, you have nothing to keep track of. The world itself becomes your memory, and if questions arise, you can always point others back to it.
One of the most important gifts we can give our children is the confidence to say "I don`t know." It`s the foundation from which we begin our investigation of the world: asking questions, taking the necessary time to understand the answers, and searching for new answers when the ones we have in hand don`t seem to work. The feeling of not knowing is also the source of wonder and awe.
We live in a society where people are uncomfortable with not knowing. Children aren`t taught to say "I don`t know," and honesty in this form is rarely modeled for them. They too often see adults avoiding questions and fabricating answers, out of either embarrassment or fear, and this comes at a price. When children are embarrassed by or afraid of the feeling of not knowing, they are preoccupied with escaping their discomfort, rather than being motivated to learn. This robs them of the joy of curiosity. Let`s celebrate the feelings of awe and wonder in our children, as the foundation for all learning. Let`s teach children to say "I don`t know" and help them understand the power behind it. Let`s talk to them about how it feels to not know something. And, finally, let`s be honest with children about the limits of our own knowledge.
The personalized environment is very good at answering the questions we have but not at suggesting questions or problems that are out of our sight altogether. It brings to mind the famous Pablo Picasso quotation: "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
We philosophers are mistake specialists. (I know, it sounds like a bad joke, but hear me out.) While other disciplines specialize in getting the right answers to their defining questions, we philosophers specialize in all the ways there are of getting things so mixed up, so deeply wrong, that nobody is even sure what the right questions are, let alone the answers. Asking the wrongs questions risks setting any inquiry off on the wrong foot. Whenever that happens, this is a job for philosophers! Philosophy - in every field of inquiry - is what you have to do until you figure out what questions you should have been asking in the first place.
Myths, whether in written or visual form, serve a vital role of asking unanswerable questions and providing unquestionable answers. Most of us, most of the time, have a low tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty. We want to reduce the cognitive dissonance of not knowing by filling the gaps with answers. Traditionally, religious myths have served that role, but today - the age of science - science fiction is our mythology.
Advances are made by answering questions. Discoveries are made by questioning answers.
The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he is one who asks the right questions.