rational

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.

Fighting is found everywhere in the animal kingdom and nowhere so much as among human animals. Animals fight to get what they want--food, sex, territory, control, etc.--because there are other animals who want the same thing or who want to stop them from getting it. The same is true of human animals, except that we have developed more sophisticated techniques for getting our way. Being "rational animals," we have institutionalized our fighting in a number of ways, one of them being war. Even though we have over the ages institutionalized physical conflict and have employed many of our finest minds to develop more effective means of carrying it out, its basic structure remains essentially unchanged. In fights between brute animals, scientists have observed the practices of issuing challenges for the sake of intimidation, of establishing and defending territory, attacking, defending, counterattacking, retreating, and surrendering. Human fighting involves the same practices. Part of being a rational animal, however, involves getting what you want without subjecting yourself to the dangers of actual physical conflict. As a result, we humans have evolved the social institution of verbal argument. We have arguments all the time in order to try to get what we want, and sometimes these "degenerate" into physical violence.

Facts do not fall in the face of discomfort.

The hope is indeed that some will experience and believe: The purpose of a number of spiritual gurus is to demonstrate to God-fearing men faux spirituality.

[Earl, on liking someone] Because, honestly, the rational part of me know for a rock-solid fact that I would never, ever get with Madison Hartner. But that was just the rational part of me. There's always a stupid irrational part of you, too, and you can't get rid of it. You can never completely kill off that tiny absurd spark of hope that this girl-against all odds, although she could date any guy at school, not to mention guys at college, and even though you look like the Oatmeal Monster and are a compulsive eater and suffer from constant congestion and say so many stupid things per day that it seems like a Stupid Things company is paying you to do it- this girl might like you.

A non-religious prison when awaken would make others sleep. Therefore his sleeping is good. A religious person when awaken will awaken others. Therefore his awakening is good.

A non-religious person when awaken would make others sleep. Therefore his sleeping is good. A religious person when awaken will awaken others. Therefore his awakening is good.

By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man__very man__s an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.

Man__ life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose . If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man__or the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life.

Imagination is a place where a rational mind travels in time to meet it's god, "The Infinite Mind"!

Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice _ and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man _ by choice; he has to hold his life as a value _ by choice; he has to learn to sustain it _ by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues _ by choice.A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man__ Life is its standard of value.All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.

Man__ life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being__ot life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement__ot survival at any price, since there__ only one price that pays for man__ survival: reason.

I treat my thoughts like an old person treats their valuables: I cannot for the life of me proceed to throwing them out.

Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one__ values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness__o value the failure of your values__s an insolent negation of morality.

This, in every hour and every issue, is your basic moral choice: thinking or non-thinking, existence or non-existence, A or non-A, entity or zero.

Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death.

Whatever the degree of your knowledge, these two__xistence and consciousness__re axioms you cannot escape, these two are the irreducible primaries implied in any action you undertake, in any part of your knowledge and in its sum, from the first ray of light you perceive at the start of your life to the widest erudition you might acquire at its end.