Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.
Douglas AdamsRead
"I refuse to prove that I exist" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing." _x000D_ "Oh," says man, "but the Babel Fish is a dead give-away, isn't it? It proves You exist, and so therefore You don't. Q.E.D." _x000D_ "Oh, I hadn't thought of that," says God, who promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote explores the tension between faith and proof in the context of existence and belief in God.
In this humorous dialogue between God and a human, Douglas Adams presents a philosophical argument about the nature of belief. It highlights how proof can undermine faith; if God were to provide evidence of existence, it would negate the very essence of faith that defines His nature. The character of man cleverly points out that the existence of the Babel Fish, a creature that facilitates understanding, serves as a paradoxical proof of God's existence, leading to the ironic conclusion that if proof exists, then God cannot, as faith is inherently about belief without certainty.
Themes
FaithExistenceProofLogicGodPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about faith vs. science, you might reference this quote to illustrate the complexities of belief.
More from Douglas Adams
All quotes →"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Ask a glass of water."
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Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen. [...] Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer.
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Computers are still technology because we are still wrestling with it: it's still being invented; we're still trying to work out how it works. There's a world of game interaction to come that you or I wouldn't recognise. It's time for the machines to disappear. The computer's got to disappear into all of the things we use.
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What the computer in virtual reality enables us to do is to recalibrate ourselves so that we can start seeing those pieces of information that are invisible to us but have become important for us to understand.
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We are stuck with technology when all we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.
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