If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that actions and the overall character of a person matter more than mere words in determining one's worth or morality.
Isaac Asimov's quote critiques the notion of faith by contrasting the true essence of morality and righteousness with empty religious rhetoric. He suggests that a deity, if one existed, would value integrity and the totality of a person's actions over superficial declarations of faith, highlighting the importance of authenticity in one's life and choices.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the difference between faith and action at a philosophy club.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man's deeper nature is soon found out.
As long as we insist on relating to it strictly on our own terms-as strange to us or subject to us-the wilderness is alien, threatening, fearful. We have no choice then but to become its exploiters, and to lose, by consequence, our place in it. It is only when, by humility, openness, generosity, courage, we make ourselves able to relate to it on its terms that it ceases to be alien.
The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.
A man may acquire a taste for wine or brandy, and so lose his love for water, but should we not pity him.
Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions.
The forgiveness of God is one thing, but the proof that we want that forgiveness is the energy we expend to make amends for the wrong.
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