A.J. Ayer Quotes, Branches Quotes, Ethics Quotes

It appears, then, that ethics, as a branch of knowledge, is nothing more than a department of psychologyand sociology.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Branches Quotes , Ethics Quotes

We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Ifs And Quotes , Significant Quotes

To make our position clearer, we may formulate it in another way. Let us call a proposition which records an actual or possible observation an experiential proposition. Then we may say that it is the mark of a genuine factual proposition, not that it should be equivalent to an experiential proposition, or any finite number of experiential propositions, but simply that some experiential propositions can be deduced from it in conjunction with certain other premises without being deducible from those other premises alone.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Numbers Quotes , Finite Number Quotes

While moral rules may be propounded by authority the fact that these were so propounded would not validate them.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , May Quotes , Facts Quotes

It seems that I have spent my entire life trying to make life more rational and that it was all wasted effort.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Effort Quotes , Insightful Quotes

Why should you mind being wrong if someone can show you that you are?

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Mind Quotes , Should Quotes

If the assertion that there is a god is nonsensical, then the atheist's assertion that there is no god is equally nonsensical, since it is only a significant proposition that can be significantly contradicted.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Atheist Quotes , Atheism Quotes

The only possible basis for a sound morality is mutual tolerance and respect: tolerance of one another’s customs and opinions; respect for one another’s rights and feelings; awareness of one another’s needs.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Rights Quotes , Tolerance Quotes

Theism is so confused and the sentences in which "God" appears so incoherent and so incapable of verifiability or falsifiability that to speak of belief or unbelief, faith or unfaith, is logically impossible.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Confused Quotes , Atheism Quotes

No morality can be founded on authority, even if the authority were divine.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Ethics Quotes , Morality Quotes

If 'god' is a metaphysical term, then it cannot be even probable that a god exists. For to say that 'God exists' is to make a metaphysical utterance which cannot be either true or false. And by the same criterion, no sentence which purports to describe the nature of a transcendent god can possess any literal significance.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Religion Quotes , Atheism Quotes

Even logical positivists are capable of love.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Logical Quotes

The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Philosophical Quotes , Philosopher Quotes

No moral system can rest solely on authority.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Insightful Quotes , Morality Quotes

There never comes a point where a theory can be said to be true. The most that one can claim for any theory is that it has shared the successes of all its rivals and that it has passed at least one test which they have failed.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Rivals Quotes , Tests Quotes

A prevalent fallacy is the assumption that a proof of an afterlife would also be a proof of the existence of a deity. This is far from being the case. If, as I hold, there is no good reason to believe that a god either created or presides over this world, there is equally no good reason to believe that a god created or presides over the next world, on the unlikely supposition that such a thing exists.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Believe Quotes , Afterlife Quotes

But if science may be said to be blind without philosophy, it is true also that philosophy is virtually empty without science.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Philosophy Quotes , May Quotes

If one takes full account of the persecution of heretics, the frequency and savagery of the religious wars which Christianity had endangered, the harm caused, especially to children, by the pernicious doctrine of original sin, a case could be made for saying that the world would have been better off without Christianity.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Religious Quotes , Children Quotes

I saw a Divine Being. I'm afraid I'm going to have to revise all my various books and opinions.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Book Quotes , Saws Quotes

The misfortunes which God is represented in the book of Job as allowing Satan to inflict on Job, merely to test his faith, are indications, if not of positive malevolence, at least of a suspicious and ruthless insecurity, which is characteristic more of a tyrant than of a wholly powerful and benevolent deity.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , God Quotes , Religious Quotes