The humanitarian philosophies that have been developed (sometimes under some religious banner and invariably in the face of religious opposition) are human inventions, as the name implies - and our species deserves the credit. I am a devout atheist - nothing else makes any sense to me and I must admit to being bewildered by those, who in the face of what appears so obvious, still believe in a mystical creator. However I can see that the promise of infinite immortality is a more palatable proposition than the absolute certainty of finite mortality which those of us who are subject to free thought (as opposed to free will) have to look forward to and many may not have the strength of character to accept it. Thus I am a supporter of Amnesty International, a humanist and an atheist. I believe in a secular, democratic society in which women and men have total equality, and individuals can pursue their lives as they wish, free of constraints - religious or otherwise. I feel that the difficult ethical and social problems which invariably arise must be solved, as best they can, by discussion and am opposed to the crude simplistic application of dogmatic rules invented in past millennia and ascribed to a plethora of mystical creators - or the latest invention; a single creator masquerading under a plethora of pseudonyms. Organisations which seek political influence by co-ordinated effort disturb me and thus I believe religious and related pressure groups which operate in this way are acting antidemocratically and should play no part in politics. I also have problems with those who preach racist and related ideologies which seem almost indistinguishable from nationalism, patriotism and religious conviction. Harry W. Kroto
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More Quotes By Harry W. Kroto
  1. It's a civic virtue to be exposed to things that appear to be outside your interest. In a complex world, almost everything affects you — that closes the loop on pecuniary self-interest. Customers are always right, but people aren't.
  2. Ambient awareness is the experience of knowing what’s going on in the lives of other people – what they’re thinking about, what they’re doing, what they’re looking at – by paying attention to the small stray status messages that people are putting online. We’re now...
  3. Memory has always been social. Now we’re using search engines and computers to augment our memories, too.
  4. As Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman document in their book Networked, people who are heavily socially active online tend to be also heavily socially active offline; they’re just, well, social people.
  5. The humanitarian developers behind World of Warcraft have also discovered a way to bribe gamers into turning off their computers and going outside. If you log off for a few days, your character will be more 'rested' when you resume playing, a mode that temporarily...
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