A.J. Ayer Quotes, Rivals Quotes, Tests 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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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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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

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

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

It is time, therefore, to abandon the superstition that natural science cannot be regarded as logically respectable until philosophers have solved the problem of induction. The problem of induction is, roughly speaking, the problem of finding a way to prove that certain empirical generalizations which are derived from past experience will hold good also in the future.

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No moral system can rest solely on authority.

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

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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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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

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

Even logical positivists are capable of love.

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The ground for taking ignorance to be restrictive of freedom is that it causes people to make choices which they would not have made if they had seen what the realization of their choices involved.

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Tags : A.J. Ayer Quotes , Ignorance Quotes , People Quotes

I do not believe in God. It seems to me that theists of all kinds have very largely failed to make their concept of a deity intelligible; and to the extent that they have made it intelligible, they have given us no reason to think that anything answers to it.

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

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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 is possible to be a meta-physician without believing in a transcendent reality; for we shall see that many metaphysical utterances are due to the commission of logical errors, rather than to a conscious desire on the part of their authors to go beyond the limits of experience.

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

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