Home > Work > Blasphemy (Wyman Ford #2)
1 " Religion arose as an effort to explicate the inexplicable, control the uncontrollable, make bearable the unbearable. Belief in a higher power became the most powerful innovation in late human evolution. Tribes with religion had an advantage over those without. They had direction and purpose, motivation and a mission. The survival value of religion was so spectacular that the thirst for belief became embedded in the human genome. "
― Douglas Preston , Blasphemy (Wyman Ford #2)
2 " there was no reason why having a high iq would somehow protect you from the vicissitudes of life "
3 " You think of yourself as an "individual person", with a unique and separate mind. You think you are born and you think you die. All your life you feel separate and alone. Sometimes desperately so. You fear death because you fear the loss of individuality. All this is an illusion. You, he, she, those things around you living or not, the stars and galaxies, the empty space in between- these are not distinct, separate objects. All is fundamentally entangled. "
4 " A human being creates complexity by writing a novel on the surface of paper; a weather system creates complexity by writing waves on the surface of an ocean. What is the difference between the information carried in the words of a novel and the information carried on the waves of the sea? Listen, and the waves will speak, and someday, I tell you, you will write your thoughts on the surface of the sea. "
5 " the future is—and must be—profoundly hidden, even from God. Otherwise, life would have no meaning. "
6 " seventy percent of human beings fall in the average or below-average range in intelligence. In other words, more than two-thirds of all human beings are average, which is stupid enough, or they’re clinical morons. "
7 " She called it the Catastrophe-Inducing Agency "
8 " The Stanford-Binet curve demonstrates that seventy percent of human beings fall in the average or below-average range in intelligence. In other words, more than two-thirds of all human beings are average, which is stupid enough, or they’re clinical morons. "
9 " He had always found it easier to go up against an intelligent adversary. Stupid people were unpredictable. "
10 " The only constant in this town is its yearning for imbecility. "
