Life: A Self-sustaining chemical system
      capable of Darwinian evolution

    -- YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbZ2MFAbGrk
                (How to Spot an Alien, According to NASA!)

Science is the study of observable facts
and how they are best linked together.

    -- YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNijmxsKGbc
                (What Was The Miller-Urey Experiment?)

Where does truth come from? How do we obtain truth?

One of the ways people obtain truth is through repetition.

The more you say it the more true it is.

    -- Kevlin Henney
       YouTube: NDC { London } 16-24 January 2017

Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

    -- Greek philosopher Epicurus

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
    -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
       Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

"There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is
striking at the root."
    -- Henry D. Thoreau

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to
do nothing."
    -- Edmund Burke

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
    -- George Santayana

"You cannot legislate evil into non-existence."
    -- Unknown

"The underlying principal is this: claims that lack evidence and
run contrary to experience must be met with skepticism."
    -- Ryan Shaffer

"Thank God we don't get as much Government as we pay for!"
    -- Will Rogers

Libertarians focus narrowly on the injustices found in the
concentration of power in governments, but they fail to recognize
that same injustice in the wealthy and elite who have just as much
coercive (political) power. The libertarian ethos of protecting
person, property and liberty against force makes them blind to the
injustices that arise from manipulations which aren't technically
physical force, but just as coercive and just as unethical.
    -- Evan Dagger

Our civilization is still in a middle stage, no longer wholly guided
by instinct, not yet wholly guided by reason.
    -- Theodore Dreiser

Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
    -- Eric Hoffer

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the
night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
    -- George Orwell on a BBC broadcast, April 4, 1942 

For some reason, many people get confused with the grammar and structure
of the Second Amendment's wording. They have said that the first part
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free
state . . ." restricts the second part, so that only the militia has
the "right to keep and bear arms."

Try this one. "A well-educated people, being necessary to the security
of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall
not be infringed." Now, ask them if this means that only well-educated
people could keep and read books, or does it mean that everyone can
have books as a means to produce a well-educated people.

    -- Tom Gresham

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin, more
even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and
terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and
comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority,
careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit
of hell and is not afraid. It sees man, a feeble speck, surrounded  by
unfathomable depths of silence; yet it bears itself proudly, unmoving as if
it were lord of the universe. Thought is great and swift and free, the light
of the world, and the chief glory of man.
    -- Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight

Rule 303: If you have the means at hand, you have the responsibility to act.
    -- Beau of the Fifth Column

To succeed in the world, it is not enough to be stupid.
You must also be well-mannered.
    -- Voltaire

When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
    -- Unknown (Erroneous attributed to Sinclare Lewis)

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises,
for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
    -- Edmund Burke

Religion is viewed as true by the masses, false by the wise,
and useful by the powerful.
    -- David Stagg

If you let me control the textbooks, I will control the state.
    -- Adolf Hitler

The three sieves:
    1. The first sieve is the one of truth. Is it true?
    2. The second sieve is the sieve of good. Is it good?
    3. The third sieve is the sieve of necessary. Is it necessary?
    -- Socrates?

Extracts from an article ...

... but this doesn’t stop Anthony Destefano from describing atheists
as the "the most ... ignorant ... people on earth". This is typical of
the believers who have no use for facts when they contradict their faith.

He expresses this opinion in his new book "Inside the Atheist Mind:
Unmasking the Religion of Those Who Say "There is No God."

First, specifically his claim that atheism is a religion. Codswallop!
That is like describing 'not skiing' as a sport — or 'off' as a TV channel.

Atheism also fails the 'squabble test' of religion — the constant to
and fro among religious types about the right way to worship God.

The fact is there are no disputes over the correct way not to believe in God.       

    -- Published in The Critical Mind

Things that do not exist can not be the cause of things that exist.
    -- Unknown

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
    -- Horace Mann

The mind should develop a blind spot whenever
a dangerous thought presents itself.
Crimestop, they call it in Newspeak.

It includes the power of not grasping analogies,
or failing to perceive logical errors,
or misunderstanding the simplest arguments ....
which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.
Crimestop, in short, means protecting stupidity.
    -- George Orwell, '1984'

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
    -- Benjamin Franklin

If you fail to plan for failure, you are planning
to fail as an engineer.
    -- Socaratica

Two things are infinite: The Universe and human stupidity; and I'm
not sure about the Universe.
    -- Albert Einstein

When men yield up the privilege of thinking,
the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
    -- Thomas Paine

To the rational mind nothing is inexplicable only unexplained.
    -- Dr. Who

The seven deadly sins:
  wealth without work
  pleasure without conscience
  knowledge without character
  commerce without morality
  science without humanity
  worship without sacrifice
  politics without principle
    -- Mahatma Gandhi

The truth may be puzzling.
It may take some work to grapple with.
It may be counterintuitive.
It may contradict deeply held prejudices.
It may not be consonant with
     what we desperately want to be true.
But our preferences do not determine what's true.
    -- Carl Sagan

Time, Distance, and Cover.
    --  Beau of the Fifth Column

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear;
and the oldest and strongest fear is fear of the unknown.
    --  H.P. Lovecraft

I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.
    -- Rudyard Kipling

From:  Analog Science Fact & Science Fiction magazine
       January/February 2020
Story: The Astronaut From Wyoming by Adam-Troy Castro and Jerry Oltinon
------------------------------------------------------------------------
start of story (slightly modified) ...

It was an age when the Universe had been opened for us. We knew how to
look at objects a thousand light-years away and map the molecules that
gave them form; we knew how things were put together and how they could
be taken apart; we knew how the Universe began and how it was likely to
end. We knew how to reason, and discover, and how to add new pages to
our increasing store of information.

It was also an age when ignorance was enshrined over knowledge. Every
local newspaper contained a horoscope. World leaders consulted
astrologers; psychic hotlines made millions; and a United States Senator
gained ten points in the polls by claiming to have been in contact with
Ancient Aztecs. We knew what comets were, where they came from, and what
they didn't foretell...but in a compound in San Diego, thirty-seven
intelligent, college-educated people took poison because they believed
that a comet called Hale-Bopp would take them to heaven if they died.   

We had knowledge and delusion. And we preferred delusion.

Hanlon's razor is a saying that reads: Never attribute to malice
that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Time, Distance, Cover
    Fight, Flight, Freeze
    Audio Exclusion
    Tunnel Vision
    -- Beau of the Fifth Column, YouTube Video

Let us indulge in some pointless analysis of a fictional universe
because the real one really sucks.
    -- YouTube Video, The Cycle of Time (Battlestar Theory)

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows
himself to be a fool.
  -- William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Also known as the Dunning-Kruger effect written centuries before
them published their better researched version.
  -- Richard A. Lovett 

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated,
Which, when looked at it in the right way, did not become still
more complicated.
  -- Anderson's Law 

Wise men speak because they have something to say;
Fools because the have to say something.
  -- Plato 

As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents,
more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. In some
great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach
their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be
occupied by a downright fool and narcissistic moron.
  -- H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade
they know they shall never sit in.
  -- Greek Proverb Quote, "Plant Trees" Wisdom Home Decor Wall Art

We know the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire.
  -- J. Robert Oppenheimer

Atheism happened when I wasn't looking.
Theism happened when I wasn't thinking.
  -- TheraminTrees, YouTube video

A long habit of not thinking a thing is wrong, gives it a superficial
appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry
in defense of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts
than reason.
  -- Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Torture the data until it confesses.
  -- Mancur Olson, The Login of Collective Action

Physics is the study of the natural world. We make observations of reality
and then try to find theoretical frameworks that explains those observations.
If those theories are good they are able to predict things beyond the
observations on which the theories were built. The better these predictions
the more universal and presumably the more correct the theory.
  -- "Space Time" YouTube Video

Education is not about filling buckets; It is about lighting fires.
  -- W.B. Yeats