Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.
Thomas NagelRead
I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, I hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a desire for atheism to be true, highlighting discomfort with the faith of intelligent individuals.
In this quote, Thomas Nagel articulates a deep-seated conflict between his atheistic beliefs and the presence of religious faith among knowledgeable individuals. He expresses not only a personal disbelief in God but also a fervent hope for the nonexistence of a deity, suggesting that the idea of a God contradicts the nature of the universe as he understands it. This reflects a philosophical struggle with the implications of belief and the nature of reality, emphasizing an internal desire for a universe free of divine oversight.
Themes
AtheismBeliefIntelligenceReligionUniverse
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate about morality and religion, this quote could illustrate the viewpoint of an atheist.
More from Thomas Nagel
All quotes →To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.
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It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. We are supposed to abandon this naïve response, not in favor of a fully worked out physical/chemical explanation but in favor of an alternative that is really a schema for explanation, supported by some examples. What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story has a nonnegligible probability of being true.
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There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality.
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Altruism itself depends on a recognition of the reality of other persons, and on the equivalent capacity to regard oneself as merely one individual among many.
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Once we see an aspect of what we or someone else does as something that happens, we lose our grip on the idea that it has been done and that we can judge the doer and not just the happening.
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