Why Believe? Quotes

“To insist that the world is not now as it ought to be is to assume that there is some way the world ought to be. To say that the world is broken is to assume that it has some purpose that has been thwarted. To say that humans are wicked is to assume that they have transgressed some objective moral standard that humans are obligated to obey. If there is no God, then what would these claims mean?”
― Neil Shenvi, Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity

“If our moral experience is, after all, an illusion, then it must be an utterly unique illusion that we cannot throw off and—what’s more significant—that we don’t seem to want to throw off. Perhaps we ought to consider the possibility that the indelible nature of our moral experience is the consequence of an objective moral standard whose existence we can’t escape. But if objective morality exists, then it fits much more naturally into a theistic view of reality than an atheistic view.”
― Neil Shenvi, Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity

“My contention is that no one is experientially a moral relativist. All of us, as human beings, are aware of the existence of moral reality. A recognition of moral duty, good and evil, and right and wrong are inescapable features of our shared humanity.”
― Neil Shenvi, Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity

“However, it’s naive to think that rejecting the supernatural and embracing science will allow us to remain in the comforting, familiar world of raindrops, and roses, and whiskers on kittens. If modern physics has done nothing else, it has shown us that reality is unavoidably weird.”
― Neil Shenvi, Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity

“At first, this ethic of love strikes us as rightly as beautiful. Yet, if we take it seriously, we will recognize that by its very goodness, it condemns us.”
― Neil Shenvi, Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity

“It is in the harsh light of the Golden Rule ("whatever you wish that others do to you, do also to them," Matt. 7:12) that we are most terribly exposed.”
― Neil Shenvi, Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity