Boghossian Quotes & Sayings

The Street Epistemologist is a philosopher and a fighter. She has savvy and street smarts that come from the school of hard knocks. She relentlessly helps others by tearing down falsehoods about whatever enshrined "truths" enslave us. — Peter Boghossian

Certainty is an enemy of truth: examination and reexamination are allies of truth. — Peter Boghossian

Socrates said that a man doesn't want what he doesn't think he lacks. That is, if you believe you have the truth then why would you seek another truth? — Peter Boghossian

An educated theologian: someone who's better at rationalizing what they're pretending to know. — Peter Boghossian

Up to now, most atheists have simply criticized religion in various ways, but the point is to dispel it. In A Manual For Creating Atheists, Peter Boghossian fills that gap, telling the reader how to become a 'street epistemologist' with the skills to attack religion at its weakest point: its reliance on faith rather than evidence. This book is essential for nonbelievers who want to do more than just carp about religion, but want to weaken its odious grasp on the world.

(Review of Dr. Peter Boghossian's book, 'A Manual For Creating Atheists') — Jerry A. Coyne

The only way to avoid eternal punishment for sins we never committed from this all-loving God is to accept his son - who is actually himself - as our savior. So ... God sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself. Barking mad! — Peter Boghossian

Reasoning away faith means helping people to abandon a faulty epistemology, but reasoning away religion means that people abandon their social support network. — Peter Boghossian

If there is a god maybe it rewards those who don't believe on the basis of insufficient evidence
and punishes those who do. — Peter Boghossian

Pat Tillman (for abandoning an incredibly promising football career to give his life for his country). — Peter Boghossian

When we teach people that suspending moral judgments is a virtue, the necessary outcome is moral horror. — Peter Boghossian

If one had sufficient evidence to warrant belief in a particular claim, then one wouldn't believe the claim on the basis of faith. "Faith" is the word one uses when one does not have enough evidence to justify holding a belief, but when one just goes ahead and believes anyway. — Peter Boghossian

Reprogram minds into employing reason instead of faith, science instead of superstition. — Peter Boghossian

Faith taints or at worst removes our curiosity about the world, what we should value, and what type of life we should lead. Faith replaces wonder with epistemological arrogance disguised as false humility. Faith immutably alters the starting conditions for inquiry by uprooting a hunger to know and sowing a warrantless confidence. — Peter Boghossian

Doubt is your intellectual conscience pleading with you to be honest with yourself. — Peter Boghossian

The sins of the fathers are to be born by their children's children's children? What sort of justice is that? This goes against half a millennium's worth of Western jurisprudence. — Peter Boghossian

Faith is an unclassified cognitive illness disguised as a moral virtue. — Peter Boghossian

Your religious beliefs typically depend on the community in which you were raised or live. The spiritual experiences of people in ancient Greece, medieval Japan or 21st-century Saudi Arabia do not lead to belief in Christianity. It seems, therefore, that religious belief very likely tracks not truth but social conditioning." - Gary Gutting, "The Stone," New York Times, September 14, 2011 — Peter Boghossian