The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that religion has distorted true morality throughout history.
Arthur C. Clarke's quote reflects on the intricate relationship between morality and religion, proposing that the latter has often misappropriated or distorted moral principles. This perspective invites a critical examination of how religious beliefs can influence human ethical standards, potentially leading to conflicts and misunderstandings in society.
In practice
During a debate on moral values in a community forum, one might cite this quote to provoke thought on the influence of religion on ethics.
Nowhere in space will we rest our eyes upon the familiar shapes of trees and plants, or any of the animals that share our world. Whatsoever life we meet will be as strange and alien as the nightmare creatures of the ocean abyss, or of the insect empire whose horrors are normally hidden from us by their microscopic scale.
As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.
My favorite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'.
To feed men and not to love them is to treat them as if they were barnyard cattle. To love them and not respect them is to treat them as if they were household pets.
To become a philosopher, start by walking very slowly.
Your work is your own private megaphone to tell the world what you believe.
In the ideal world, philanthropy should be redundant or at least it should be at the edges, as innovation or risk capital. But it's far from an ideal world; the wealthy are cornering more and more opportunities and resources from this planet. So, the big challenge for philanthropy is... can it engage with the distribution of wealth itself?
A cannon fires only once but words detonate across centuries
Let there be nothing within thee that is not very beautiful and very gentle, and there will be nothing without thee that is not beautiful and softened by the spell of thy presence.
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