It is my firm conviction that man has nothing to gain, emotionally or otherwise, by adhering to a falsehood, regardless of how comfortable or sacred that falsehood may appear. Anyone who claims, on the one hand, that he is concerned with human welfare, and who demands, on the other hand, that man must suspend or renounce the use of his reason, is contradicting himself. There can be no knowledge of what is good for man apart from knowledge of reality and human nature, and there is no manner in which this knowledge can be acquired except through reason. To advocate irrationality is to advocate that which is destructive to human life. . George H. Smith
About This Quote

John Stuart Mill (5th Viscount of Epping) was an English philosopher, economist, and civil servant. He was a leading theorist in the field of political economy and wrote Principles of Political Economy (1848), one of the most influential economics books ever written. In this quote he is saying that it is not possible to know what is good for society and definitely not how to achieve it without reason.

Source: Atheism: The Case Against God

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  1. It is my firm conviction that man has nothing to gain, emotionally or otherwise, by adhering to a falsehood, regardless of how comfortable or sacred that falsehood may appear. Anyone who claims, on the one hand, that he is concerned with human welfare, and who...
  2. [A]ny being with the supposed capacity to create the logically impossible must himself be logically impossible.
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  5. If a supernatural being is to be exempt from natural law, it cannot possess specific, determinatecharacteristics. These attributes would impose limits and these limits would restrict the capacitiesof this supernatural being. In this case, a supernatural being would be subject to the causalrelationships that mark...
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