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About this quote

What does it mean?
Modern science undermines traditional religious stories of salvation.
In plain terms
Astronomy makes old faith stories hard to believe.
What can you take from it?
New knowledge challenges old beliefs.

Where it applies

  • debates
  • faith crisis
  • learning history

Putting it to work

  • update beliefs
  • study science

Questions to consider

  • How does science affect your beliefs?

Another view

Faith and science can coexist peacefully.

More from Ralph Waldo Emerson

  1. All the thoughts of a turtle are turtles, and of rabbits, rabbits.

    Permalink to quote #26
  2. Quoted in Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Emerson, the Mind On Fire (Univ. of Calif Press 1995), p124

    Permalink to quote #28
  3. The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.

    Permalink to quote #25

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