47 Quotes by Wendy Kaminer

Jargon seems to be the place where the right brain and the left brain meet.

Faith is not a function of stupidity but a frequent cause of it.

What makes fantastic declarations believable is, in part, the vehemence with which they're proffered. Again, in the world of spirituality as well as of pop psychology, intensity of personal belief is evidence of truth. It is considered very bad form - even abuse - to challenge the veracity of any personal testimony that might be offered in a twelve-step group or on a talk show, unless the testimony itself is equivocal... Whatever sells, whatever many people believe strongly, must be true.

Patriotism does not oblige us to acquiesce in the destruction of liberty. Patriotism obliges us to question it, at least.

Like heterosexuality, faith in immaterial realities is popularly considered essential to individual morality.

Tolerance is thin gruel compared to the rapture of absolute truths. It's not surprising that religious people are often better protected by atheists and agnostics than each other.

Under the rubric of religious freedom, we respect the right to worship differently much more than the right to worship not at all.

There are only two states of being in the world of codependency - recovery and denial.

The press and the public like certainty and affirmation of popular biases. But real science thrives on the capacity for doubt.