I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams.... Man...is above all the plaything of his memory.
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...although both the Academics and the Pyrrhonian Skeptics say that they believe some things, yet here too the difference between the two philosophies is quite plain. For the word believe has different meanings; it means not to resist but simply to follow without any strong impulse or inclination, as the boy is said to believe his tutor; but sometimes it means to assent to a thing of deliberate choice and with a kind of sympathy due to strong desire, as when the incontinent man believes him who approves of an extravagant mode of life. Since, therefore, Carneades and Cleitomachus declare that a strong inclination accompanies their credence
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I am continually amazed by the credence given to religious claims in the intellectual community; and, as a human being, i am appaulled by the psychological damage caused by religious teachings-damage that often takes years to counteract.
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