Herbert J. Muller Quotes

“It has become too easy to see that the luckless men of the past lived by mistakes, even absurd beliefs, so we may well fail in a decent respect for them, and forget that historians of the future will point out that we too lived by myths.”

“Religion can no longer rest its claims on a dogmatic supernaturalism, because any dogma that is irreconcilable with tested knowledge must be rejected.

One sentence sums up the dark and deadly pages of Chistian history: If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.”

“Science remains the author of our major problem, in its gift of tremendous power that has been terribly abused; but for the wise use of this power we need more, not less, of the objective dispassionate scientific spirit.

For our philosophical purposes we need more of its integrity and its basic humility, its respect at once for the fact and the mystery.”

“The First Crusade set off on its two-thousand-mile jaunt by massacring Jews, plundering and slaughtering all the way from the Rhine to the Jordan.

In the temple of Solomon, wrote the ecstatic cleric Raimundus de Agiles, one rode in blood up to the knees and even to the horses bridles, by the just and marvelous judgment of God.”

“The sense of community is indispensable to full self-realization.”

“To say that a man is made up of certain chemical elements is a satisfactory description only for those who intend to use him as a fertilizer.”

“It is open to question whether men today, despite the enormous increase in their knowledge, wealth and power, can yet endure a universe that leaves them alone, or can manage to live in freedom.”

“Technology has taught us how to become gods before we have learned to be men.”

“Businessmen are notable for a peculiarly stalwart character, which enables them to enjoy without loss of self-reliance the benefits of tariffs, franchises, and even outright government subsidies.”

“Few have heard of Fra Luca Pacioli, the inventor of double-entry bookkeeping; but he has probably had much more influence on human life than has Dante or Michelangelo.”

“This doctrine of the material efficacy of prayer reduces the Creator to a cosmic bellhop of a not very bright or reliable kind.”