Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:
- Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
- Do not quote yourself.
- Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
- Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.
Ayn Rand, to a Catholic Priest.
Philosophers have played a game going way back where they believe that popular religion comes in handy as a fiction for keeping the mob in line, but they view themselves as god-optional. The philosophes in the Enlightenment started the experiment of letting the mob in on the truth, and the experiment has apparently gone so far in parts of Europe like Estonia that some populations have lost familiarity with christian beliefs, or even how to pronounce Jesus' name in their own language. Or so Phil Zuckerman claims:
https://books.google.com/books?id=C-glNscSpiU... (read more)