Research and other random shit

Christopher Hitchens, a notable rationalist passed away today. He wrote a best-seller book — "God Is Not Great" which is definitely on my shelf of books to read. In the meanwhile, I have been reading Richard Dawkin’s book "The God Delusion". This book has amassed a number of beautiful quotations. A few gems among this collection are:

When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.

– Robert Pirsig

Darwinism is the story of humanity’s liberation from the delusion that its destiny is controlled by a power higher than itself?

– Phillip E. Johnson

… if by "God" one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying… it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.

– Carl Sagan

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart

– H. L. Mencken

An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles – except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don’t yet understand.

–Richard Dawkins

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind

–Albert Einstein