Atheism Quotes

But she was finding it increasingly easy to believe that God, if there was a God, and if it was remotely possible that any godlike being who could order the disposition of particles at the creation of the Universe would also be interested in directing traffic on the M4, did not want her to fly to Norway either.

~ Douglas Adams

Where did that remark come from? Mormonism, as anyone can easily find out, is one of a number of Christian sects which came into being in the USA in the nineteenth century. It differs from mainstream Christianity on certain technical points which Dawkins would at least pretend not to understand. So why write four if you count Mormonism? Why not five if you count Mormonism and Christian Science? Or ten if you include Mormonism, Christian Science, Christedelphians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Reformed Judaism, Shi'ite Islam, Strict Baptists, Celtic Orthodox, Unitarians and Quakers? Does Dawkins think that the Mormons' adoptionist Christology is so far removed from the mainstream as to constitute a separate faith (while the Jehovah's Witnesses' arianism is not?) Or is he playing a numbers game, saying that the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints is so numerous as to count as a religion in its own right, distinct from Christianity. (But then, why not Four if you include Catholicism?) We never find out. Like Melchizidec, it comes from nowhere and it goes nowhere. It popped into Dawkins head and he wrote it down. It makes me doubt whether our author is fully in command of his brief.Four if you include Mormons. Honestly, you might just as well say Britain consists of three countries: England, Scotland and Wales – or four if you include Tooting Bec.

~ Andrew Rilstone

An educated man believing in a this-that vile sky-god rewarding him-her, but punishing your enemies with hell and fire, is uneducated.

~ Fakeer Ishavardas

Not knowing the answer to a question is not a valid excuse for making up a fairytale to explain it.

~ Armin Navabi

I'm not religious, and I'm not a Christian, but I do reserve the right to believe in the possibility of a God. It's kind of defending the indefensible, though; I'm critical of what religions are becoming, the more destructive they're becoming. But I think as an artist, particularly, it's a necessary part of what I do, that there is some divine element going on within my songs.

~ Nick Cave

Theistic claims that supernatural agency exists in the universe derive from ancient traditions of belief. The word 'atheist' is a theist's term for a person who does not share such beliefs. Theists think that atheists have a belief or set of beliefs, just as theists do but in the opposite sense, about theism-related questions. This is a mistake; atheists certainly have beliefs about many things, but they are not 'theistic-subject-matter-related beliefs' in any but a single negative sense. For atheism is the absence of 'theistic-subject-matter-related belief. Although it is true that 'absence of belief in supernatural agency' is functionally equivalent to 'belief in the absence of supernatural agency', theists concentrate on the latter formulation in order to make atheism a positive as opposed to privative thesis with regard to theistic-subject-matter-related matters. This is what makes theists think they are in a kind of belief football match, with opposing sets of beliefs vying for our allegiance. What is happening is that the theists are rushing about the park kicking the ball, but the atheists are not playing. They are not even on the field; they are in the stands, arguing that this particular game should not be taking place at all.

~ A.c. Grayling

If someone does not believe in fairies, he does not need to teach his children 'There are no fairies'; he can omit to teach them the word 'fairy'.

~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

The wrong approaches to faith and to skepticism are equally detrimental to the path. For the former declares its answers too soon and is later found false, the latter rejects sound answers altogether and hashes itself useless.

~ Criss Jami

Close analysis of ‘miracles’ have never led to any proof for a supernatural explanation, and, in fact, many have proven to be cheap magic tricks, hallucinations or primitive misunderstandings of natural phenomena.

~ Armin Navabi

Perhaps even atheism versus theism is an example of this principle that an apparent either/or can really be a both/and. For I suspect that the God you insist does not exist is probably a God I also insist does not exist, and perhaps the God I maintain does exist is a God you have never denied.

~ Peter Kreeft

An all-loving god would surely not damn his children to an eternity of torture simply for being born into a culture that believes in the wrong deity, follows the wrong holy book or attends the wrong type of church services.

~ Armin Navabi

There is no evidence to suggest that God helps people. There is, however, ample evidence that people can help themselves and each other.

~ Armin Navabi

It is a challenge to love someone who does not see the divine as you do, and much harder still to date someone who considers your spirituality a design flaw in an otherwise worthwhile human being.

~ Thomm Quackenbush

The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little goodevidence.

~ Carl Sagan

Every situation is of man's making and can only contain what man contains.

~ Milan Kundera

Scriptures may have grains of historical truth within them, but there is also ample hyperbole, speculation and mythology.

~ Armin Navabi

It is likely that religious beliefs have been so widespread because they tap into the psychological desires of many people, not because there is any external proof of their veracity.

~ Armin Navabi

Science doesn't claim to have absolute certainty about the world; it creates models that provide the best explanation based on the available evidence. If additional evidence is found, the model can be changed.

~ Armin Navabi

The impasse was this: If I let myself speculate even tentatively about that something, if I acknowledged the possibility of a nonhuman agent or agents, some mysterious Other, intervening in my life, could I still call myself an atheist?

~ Barbara Ehrenreich

The Ten Commandments, for example, were no more challenging than the Girl Scout oath, and why should anyone be tempted to put one false god ahead of another?

~ Barbara Ehrenreich

My religious friends - and my friends were almost all Catholics or Protestants or occasionally something more exotic like Jewish or Greek Orthodox - were convinced that God had a plan for us, and since God was good, it was a good plan, which we were required to endorse even without having any idea what it was. Just sign the paperwork; in other words, don't overintellectualize.

~ Barbara Ehrenreich

You call yourself an Atheist because you don’t believe in the supernatural. But one thing you do not realize is that your unbelief in the supernatural is a belief in its own nature.

~ King Samuel Benson

An unknown cause is not the same as divine intervention.

~ Armin Navabi

The path of life on our planet and maybe many others does not need a divinity to thrive, it needs no excuse to live, owes no debt to the universe because it is a part of the universe, no driving force other than the primal forces of physics and chemistry are needed, those two sets created biology, and if you backtrack all of the life on the Earth, you inevitably end up looking at stardust.

~ Steve Merrick

Nothing can penetrate the loneliness of the human heart except the highest intensity of the sort of love the religious teachers have preached.

~ Bertrand Russell

I guess, like some guy once said, if triangles invented a god, the chances are high it would have three sides.

~ Michael Marshall Smith

Remember young man, unceasingly,' Father Paissy began, without preface, 'that the science of this world, which has become a great power, has, especially in the last century, analysed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred of old. But they have only analysed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is marvelous. Yet the whole world still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it Has it not lasted nineteen centuries, is it not still a living, a moving power in the individual soul and in the masses of the people? It is still as strong and living even in the souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Religion + Good Works = Good WorksSolve for Religion.

~ Dan Barker

Storyboarded by the West Coast’s finest, the ceiling celebrated the exploits of that most durable of action heroes—God.

~ Michael Marshall Smith

This is God's world, so everything, even if it intends to efface God, bears witness to God – understood and interpreted through biblical eyeglasses.

~ James Macdonald

I believe in steel swords, gold coins, and man's wits. (...) And I believe there once were dragons. I've seen their skulls, after all.

~ George R.r. Martin

Blindness to knowledge was his mother and despair of death his father. Darkness and fear gave birth to God. Awareness of truth will kill him.

~ C.j. Anderson

Prior to Flew, major apologies for atheism were those of Enlightenment thinkers (David Hume, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Friedrich Nietzsche).Major philosophers of Flew’s generation who were atheists: W. V. O. Quine and Gilbert Ryle. But none took the step of developing book-length arguments to support their personal beliefs.In later years, atheist philosophers who critically examined and rejected the traditional arguments for God’s existence: Paul Edwards, Wallace Matson, Kai Nielsen, Paul Kurtz, J. L. Mackie, Richard Gale, Michael Martin. But their works did not change the agenda and framework of discussion the way Flew’s innovative publications did.

~ Antony Flew

There's almost always a church youth group at the soup kitchen. I have yet to see an atheists' youth group. Yeah, I know, religious people don't have a monopoly on doing good. I'm sure that there are many agnostics and atheists out there slinging mashed potatoes at other soup kitchens. I know the world is full of selfless secular gropus like Doctors without Borders. But I've got to say: It's a lot easier to do good if you put your faith in a book that requires you to do good.

~ A.j. Jacobs

Humanity without religion is equivalent to a slave without its chains. To end human fear is to end human faith. Beyond the dread of death humanity has no need for delusions of an afterlife. A single human mind void of religion can accomplish more than a thousand thoughtful of God.

~ C.j. Anderson

If the creation of the Universe was left up to a atheist, we would still have nothing.

~ Josko J. Sestan

Either blasphemy is a victimless crime or its victim is powerful enough to take care of himself without any help from you.

~ Richard Dawkins

Our atheist thoughts go out to his family following their loss.

~ Brian Spellman

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.

~ Richard Dawkins

Just when the gods had ceased to be, and the Christ had not yet come, there was a unique moment in history, between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, when man stood alone.

~ Gustave Flaubert