The fact that people have religious experiences is interesting from the psychological point of view, but it does not in any way imply that there is such a thing as religious knowledge...Unless he can formulate this 'knowledge' in propositions that are empirically verifiable, we may be sure that he is deceiving himself.
A.J. AyerThe traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful.
A.J. AyerIf the assertion that there is a god is nonsensical, then the atheist's assertion that there is no god is equally nonsensical, since it is only a significant proposition that can be significantly contradicted.
A.J. AyerIt appears, then, that ethics, as a branch of knowledge, is nothing more than a department of psychologyand sociology.
A.J. AyerI saw a Divine Being. I'm afraid I'm going to have to revise all my various books and opinions.
A.J. AyerWe shall maintain that no statement which refers to a 'reality'transcending the limits of all possible sense- experience can possibly have any literal significance.
A.J. AyerThe principles of logic and mathematics are true simply because we never allow them to be anything else. And the reason for this is that we cannot abandon them without contradicting ourselves, without sinning against the rules which govern the use of language, and so making our utterances self-stultifying. In other words, the truths of logic and mathematics are analytic propositions or tautologies.
A.J. Ayer