Pascal Boyer quotes

“[R]eligious concepts are parasitic upon moral intuitions.”
-- Pascal Boyer

Source : Pascal Boyer (2001). “Religion Explained: The Human Instincts that Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors”, Random House (UK)

#Intuition Quotes #Nihilism Quotes #Moral Quotes

“The fundamentalist violence is, so is it, an attempt to increase the stakes, i.e. to discourage the potential desertions by showing that defection will cost them dear, that those who adopt other values will be persecuted or even killed.”
-- Pascal Boyer

#Violence Quotes #Cost Quotes #Stakes Quotes

“A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith,”
-- Pascal Boyer

#Traits Quotes

“Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature.”

“The most intractable of our experiences is the experience of Time-the intuition of duration, combined with the thought of perpetual perishing.”

“All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.”

“Meaning is malleable: take it out, you get nihilism and despair. Put it in, you get sacredness and something most special.”

“What can be broken, should be broken.”

“Like other lifeforms, we [humans] exist only to replicate ourselves.”

“While moral rules may be propounded by authority the fact that these were so propounded would not validate them.”

Source : "The Meaning of Life and Other Essays" by A.J. Ayer, ("The Meaning of Life"), 1990.

“The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.”

Source : Telegram to President John F. Kennedy, June 16, 1963.

“In some ways, what I learned is that you can take a character and breathe with them, and its up to the audience to interpret rather than you putting moral stamp on the character.”

Source : "The GQ+A: 'Rectify' Star Aden Young Doesn't Want To Know If He's Innocent Or Guilty". Interview with Jen Ortiz, www.gq.com. April 22, 2013.

“We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations.”