“ The picture of a universe of infinitely many wholly unrelated substances is at least as hard to understand as the monism of Spinoza, and far less easy to reconcile with appearances. Roger Scruton
“ Why should we place Christ at the top and summit of the human race? Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than ? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than ? Was h… Robert G. Ingersoll
“ So I close this long reflection on what I hope is a not-too-quaveringly semi-Semitic note. When I am at home, I will only enter a synagogue for the or of a friend's child, or in order to have a deba… Christopher Hitchens
“ With the growth of civilisation in Europe, and with the revival of letters and of science in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ethical and intellectual criticism of theology once more recomm… Thomas Henry Huxley
“ Contact with secular and Christian ways of thinking increased Spinoza’s dissatisfaction with the biblical interpretations he received from the rabbis, who in turn frowned on his interest in natural sc… Roger Scruton
“ The philosopher and the scientist emphasize different features of the world, follow different interests and inspire different passions in the soul. But the aim of their study is in each case the same:… Roger Scruton
“ We must inevitably conclude, therefore, that the main influences over Spinoza’s thought during his formative years were not those philosophers, such as Descartes, to whom he later devoted his attentio… Roger Scruton
“ Religious quarrels,’ he added, ‘do not arise so much from ardent zeal for religion, as from men’s various dispositions and love of contradiction, which causes them habitually to distort and condemn ev… Roger Scruton
“ While Spinoza did not condemn marriage, he rejected it for himself, perhaps fearing the ‘ill temper of a woman’, and in any case recognizing in matrimony a threat to his scholarly interests. Roger Scruton
“ In the event things got worse, and Spinoza gave up the idea of publishing the Ethics, believing that it would create such a cloud of hostility as to obscure, in the minds even of reasonable people, th… Roger Scruton
