And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways', Yossarian continued 'There's nothing mysterious about it, He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatalogical mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?
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That's the kind of God you people talk about - a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much revernece can you have for a supreme being who finds it necassary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His system of creation?
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Many phenomena - wars, plagues, sudden audits - have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man, but whenever students of demonology get together the M25 London orbital motorway is generally agreed to be among the top contenders for exhibit A.
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I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.
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Only a human being who is deeply moved by awe and who remains in a state of reverence does not fall prey to the will-to-explore-and-dominate that which shows itself to him, but remains all ears and eyes for the summons of the awe-inspiring phenomena. The awe-inspired person does not want to get hold of or to possess what he reveres, with the aid of his intellectual concepts. He seeks only to get himself into the frame of mind appropriate to the revered object--one which renders him open to its summons and makes his vision clear for its beckonings. He knows: if he manages to comply with the phenomenon that is worthy of his awe so perfectly that he catches sight of its entire truth, he has succeeded also in releasing himself from the chaos of all delusions.
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A new vision and understanding of something demands a new way of talking about it, for the old terminology gets in the way of this effort. Stubbornly entrenched behind the words coined by a particular conceptual orientation are its secrete prejudices. Any attempt to open out an adequately human vista onto the phenomena of undisturbed existence must include a critique of the most important idea of traditional biology, physiology, and psychology.
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The chess board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But we also know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.
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The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.
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The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work.
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Every man is more than just himself he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again.
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The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer the activity must lie in the phenomenon.
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Religion is a superstition that originated in man`s mental inability to solve natural phenomena. The Church is an orgainized institution that has always been stumbling to block progress.
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Fascism is a European inquietude. It is a way of knowing everything -- history, the State, the achievement of the proletarianization of public life, a new way of knowing the phenomena of our epoch.
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Science advances through tentative answers to a series of more and more subtle questions which reach deeper and deeper into the essence of natural phenomena.
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A considerable number of persons are able to protect themselves against the outbreak of serious neurotic phenomena only through intense work.
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I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are impossible.
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The world is full of strange phenomena that cannot be explained by the laws of logic or science. Dennis Rodman is only one example.
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There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.
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Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles.
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The manifestation of poetry in external life is formal perfection. True sentiment grows within, and art must represent internal phenomena exte...
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