Friends Church Sign of the Week
I drive past Glendora Friends Church and their well-placed sign quite often. It never fails to astonish me that their few precious seconds of community outreach this sign represents are usually filled with the most vacuous and risible platitudes. And, as is so common with church signs: occasionally they dispense actual wisdom, but on those occasions they also dispense with religion.
So, since I’ve got to drive by their insipid sign every week, I thought I’d start a little push back here on my blog. Enjoy.
Faith hopes against the evidence.
Translation: Unless you learn to ignore the evidence, you will lose your faith.
“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” — Benjamin Franklin
“Faith is believing something you know ain’t true.” — Mark Twain
“We may define “faith” as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of “faith.” We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.” — Bertrand Russell
“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” — Richard Dawkins
July 20th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
I’m wondering where you got the Magellan quote. I don’t find it in any of the canon of Magellan historiography, not in Gines de Mafra’s account, in Antonio Pigafetta’s, Francisco Albo’s, the Genoese Pilot’s, the Leiden narrative, the anonymous Portuguese’s, not in Magellan’s own Last Will and Testament. It is not in Bishop de las Casas book either.
Where then did it come from?
July 20th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Vicente,
Good question. I am not a Magellan scholar– the quote is widely available on the Internet (google for it), but of course that is no sign of its authenticity. If you would like to refer me to a bona fide Magellan scholar (perhaps writing on the web?) who says this is not an authentic quote, I would be happy to remove it.
September 29th, 2007 at 5:53 am
There is no source for Magellan’s quote. Nowhere can you find such a remark in any of the eyewitness accounts, in any contemporary work. It is in fact a fabrication.
No scholar can be named who has ever cited such a quote.
November 5th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Vicente,
You are repeating yourself, and apparently have not understood what I said. I am not asking you for a scholar that has cited the quote: I am asking you for a scholar who will repudiate it.
December 12th, 2007 at 3:16 am
The quote is a fabrication of Robert Green Ingersoll. It is found in his essay “Individuality.” This may be accessed [here].
It’s in the fourth paragraph of his essay:
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions, — some one who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said, “The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church.” On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.
This was first pointed out, as far as I know, by Dr. Tom Gorski in his website “Knowing What Ain’t So” [here]. Dr. Gorski is one of four founders of the The North Texas Church of Freethought.
December 12th, 2007 at 3:25 am
Vicente,
I accept your reference, and have removed the offending quote. Thank you!