before i lose my style

execrablefrippery:

“Disbelief in God was cutting-edge in the 1600′s and is still cutting edge at age 15. I’m not saying you should believe in God after those two landmarks; I’ll leave that up to you. I’m just saying, it seems a bit absurd to use the question of someone’s belief or disbelief in God as one of the chief pillars of your judgment about that person’s intellectual caliber. … What bothers me … is the depressing reminder that some atheists would prefer an idiot atheist to a brilliant theist. There really are people out there, apparently, who think that any run-of-the-mill bad boy eliminator is truly a better thinker than Thomas Aquinas. They would ‘have problems’ with Aquinas, after all, simply because of the God question. … It’s intellectually very important to be able to admire and utilize authors whose world-views are nothing like your own.”

(via cedars)