But if science may be said to be blind without philosophy, it is true also that philosophy is virtually empty without science.
A.J. AyerThe misfortunes which God is represented in the book of Job as allowing Satan to inflict on Job, merely to test his faith, are indications, if not of positive malevolence, at least of a suspicious and ruthless insecurity, which is characteristic more of a tyrant than of a wholly powerful and benevolent deity.
A.J. AyerWhile moral rules may be propounded by authority the fact that these were so propounded would not validate them.
A.J. AyerThere is philosophy, which is about conceptual analysis - about the meaning of what we say - and there is all of this ... all of life.
A.J. AyerIf one takes full account of the persecution of heretics, the frequency and savagery of the religious wars which Christianity had endangered, the harm caused, especially to children, by the pernicious doctrine of original sin, a case could be made for saying that the world would have been better off without Christianity.
A.J. Ayer