If language is to be of any use to us, then we ought to try and preserve the meaning of words, and 'god' historically has not meant the laws of nature.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of preserving the true meaning of language, particularly in the context of the word 'god' and its historical connotations.
Steven Weinberg's quote highlights the pivotal role that language plays in shaping our understanding and perceptions of complex concepts like 'god'. He suggests that if we are to use language effectively, we must be diligent in maintaining the integrity of words and their meanings, particularly when discussing topics that have historically been misrepresented or misconstrued, such as the relationship between divinity and the laws of nature.
In practice
In a lecture about linguistics, one might quote Weinberg to emphasize the significance of word meanings.
It was one time when people thought the value of the fine structure constant was important. Now of course it's still important, of course, as a practical matter,but we now know that the value it has is a function, that in any fundamental theory you derive the fine structure constant as a function of all sorts of mass ratios and so on and it's not really that fundamental.
Americans swept away the instruments of English hereditary inequality - entails and titles of nobility - even before we had a constitution.
It's very difficult to convince other countries that they shouldn't pursue nuclear weapons programs if we ourselves are actively developing a component of a strategic defense system.
[Science] is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
I'm offended by the kind of smarmy religiosity that's all around us, perhaps more in America than in Europe, and not really that harmful because it's not really that intense or even that serious, but just... you know after a while you get tired of hearing clergymen giving the invocation at various public celebrations and you feel, haven't we outgrown all this? Do we have to listen to this?
Imitation is the sincerest flattery.
True terror is a language and a vision. There is a deep narrative structure to terrorist acts, and they infiltrate and alter consciousness in ways that writers used to aspire to.
Whatever that be which thinks, understands, wills, and acts, it is something celestial and divine.
When we talk about our lives, long or short, brief and tragic or enduring beyond comprehension, we impose a continuity on them, and that continuity is a lie.
Like dear St. Francis of Assisi I am wedded to Poverty: but in my case the marriage is not a success.
If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.
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