To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
Interpretation
The quote warns against accepting ignorance as divine truth.
Isaac Asimov's quote emphasizes the importance of knowledge and the dangers of equating ignorance with a higher power. He argues that attributing our lack of understanding to God is an avoidance of responsibility for seeking truth and understanding the world around us. This stance calls for a rejection of complacency in the pursuit of knowledge and a criticism of those who cling to ignorance in the name of faith.
In practice
In a TED Talk about the importance of critical thinking.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
Each man must have his I; it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble.
I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
The need is not really for more brains, the need is now for a gentler, a more tolerant people than those who won for us against the ice, the tiger and the bear. The hand that hefted the ax, out of some old blind allegiance to the past fondles the machine gun as lovingly. It is a habit man will have to break to survive, but the roots go very deep.
Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded.
Ideas are like wandering sons. They show up when you least expect them.
Why God has instituted Prayer:β To communicate to his creatures the dignity of causation.
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