It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap. I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for awhile. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. . Yann Martel
About This Quote

Isaac Asimov said: "It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap. I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics.

Doubt is useful for awhile. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we.

If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on." Even Christopher Hitchens was a firm believer in saying that one should "move on". I would say that there is a difference between doubt and doubt-mongering.

Disingenuous agnostics do not make a good point about atheism unless they can explain how it is different from religion. To say that all religion is the same is not only false but also an insult to all those who have struggled with faith and lost it. The point of this quote is that one should keep moving on with life even though you cannot prove one thing or another until the end of your time on Earth.

Source: Life Of Pi

Some Similar Quotes
  1. The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
  2. Damn it, how will I ever get out of this labyrinth? - Simon Bolivar
  3. That which is true must always remain true, though the applications may change greatly from generation to generation. It is the absence of such fundamental certainties, no doubt, that leads men into continual search for a satisfying religion, or that drives them away from their... - John A. Widtsoe
  4. The better men know the Lord, the better may the eternal truths we learn be applied in our daily lives. - John A. Widtsoe
  5. The immature think that knowledge and action are different, but the wise see them as the same. - Anonymous
More Quotes By Yann Martel
  1. I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he...
  2. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
  3. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of...
  4. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking...
  5. You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.
Related Topics