If I thought that everything I did was determined by my circumstancse and my psychological condition, I woudl feel trapped.

What we take ourselves to be doing when we think about what is the case or how we should act is something that cannot be reconciled with a reductive naturalism, for reasons distinct from those that entail the irreducibility of consciousness. It is not merely the subjectivity of thought but its capacity to transcend subjectivity and to discover what is objectively the case that presents a problem....Thought and reasoning are correct or incorrect in virtue of something independent of the thinker's beliefs, and even independent of the community of thinkers to which he belongs. (p. 71)

If I thought that everything I did was determined by my circumstancse and my psychological condition, I woudl feel trapped.

What is it like to be a bat? What is it like for a bat to be a bat?

It isn't just that I don't believe in God, and naturally, hope there is no God. I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.

Humans are addicted to the hope for a final reckoning, but intellectual humility requires that we resist the temptation to assume that tools of the kind we now have are in principle sufficient to understand the universe as a whole.

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, I hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.