The true religion, it is said, is service to mankind; but this service seems to take the form of securing for him an unconditional victory over nature. Now this attitude is impious, for, as has been noted, it violates the belief that creation or nature is fundamentally good, that the ultimate reason for its laws is a mystery, and that acts of defiance such as are daily celebrated by the newspapers are subversive of cosmos.
Richard M. WeaverIn the countries of Europe, one after another, the gentleman has been ousted by politicians and entrepreneurs, as materialism has given rewards to the sort of cunning incompatible with any kind of idealism.
Richard M. WeaverLife without prejudice, were it ever to be tried, would soon reveal itself to be a life without principle.
Richard M. WeaverTriumphs against the natural order of living exact unforeseen payments. At the same time that man attempts to straighten a crooked nature, he is striving to annihilate space, which seems but another phase of the war against substance. We ignore the fact that space and matter are shock absorbers; the more we diminish them the more we reduce our privacy and security.
Richard M. WeaverThe semanticists are exactly wrong in regarding language as an obstruction or series of pitfalls. Language, on the contrary, appears as a great storehouse of universal memory, or it may be said to serve as a net, not imprisoning us but supporting us and aiding us to get at a meaning beyond present meaning through the very fact that it embodies others' experiences.
Richard M. WeaverNow, with the general decay of religious faith , it is the scientists who must speak ex cathedra, whether they wish to or not.
Richard M. WeaverThe prevailing attitude towards nature is that form of heresy which denies substance and, in doing so, denies the rightfulness of creation. We have said - to the point of repletion, perhaps - that man is not to take his patterns from nature; but neither is he to waste himself in seeking to change her face.
Richard M. Weaver