Best 2951 quotes in «atheism quotes» category

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.

She thoroughly understands what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts.

Since it is no longer permissible to disparage any single faith or creed, let us start disparaging all of them... A religion is a belief system with no basis in reality whatever. Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful.

Silence is sometimes an argument of Consent.

Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.

Since I was both an atheist and an absurdist, I had decided that the most absurd thing I could do would be to develop an intimate relationship with the God I didn't believe in.

Since you must admit that there is nothing outside the universe, it can have no limit and is accordingly without end or measure. It makes no odds in which part of it you may take your stand; whatever spot anyone may occupy, the universe stretches away from him just the same in all directions without limit.

Since no one really knows anything about God, those who think they do are just troublemakers.

Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.

Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

Skepticism is my nature, freethought is my methodology, agnosticism is my conclusion after 25 years of being in the ministry, and atheism is my opinion.

Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.

Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespeare, it is simply disgraceful.

Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all.

Society has traditionally always tried to find scapegoats, well here I am.

Society bends over backward to be accommodating to religious sensibilities but not to other kinds of sensibilities. If I say something offensive to religious people, I'll be universally censured, including by many atheists.

Sins are indispensable to every society organized on an ecclesiastical basis; they are the only reliable weapons of power; the priest lives upon sins; it is necessary to him that there be sinning.

Sir Richard Steele has observed, that there is this difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England: the one professes to be infallible, the other to be never in the wrong.

So great was the preference given to sacred over profane learning that Christianity had been in existence fifteen hundred years, and had not produced a single astronomer.

Some Arrows slay but whom they strike - But this slew all but him - Who so appareled his Escape - Too trackless for a Tomb

Some atheists are quite explicit that their atheism comes first. One of the most famous is Richard Lewontin, a professor of genetics, who said it wasn't science that compelled him to accept a materialistic explanation of the universe. It was an a priori materialism.

Some are Atheists by Neglect; others are so by Affectation; they, that think there is no God at some times; do not think so at all times.

Some of the old laws of Israel are clearly savage taboos of a familiar type thinly disguised as commands of the Deity.

Someone tells us that God loves us as a father loves his children. We are reassured. But then something awful happens. Some qualification is made.... We are reassured again. But then perhaps we ask: what is this assurance of God's (appropriately qualified) love worth, what is this apparent guarantee really a guarantee against? Just what would have to happen not merely (morally and wrongly) to tempt but also (logically and rightly) to entitle us to say "God does not love us" or even "God does not exist"?

Some reputed saints that have been canonized ought to have been cannonaded.

Some president wishes to be re-elected, and thereupon speaks about the Bible as "the corner-stone of American Liberty." This sentence is a mouth large enough to swallow any church, and from that time forward the religious people will be citing that remark of the politician to substantiate the inspiration of the Scriptures.

Some ... sexist evil probably predates religion and can be ascribed to our biology, but there is no question that religion promulgates and renders sacrosanct attitudes toward women that would be unseemly in a brachiating ape.

Some theists, observing that all 'effects' need a cause, assert that God is a cause but not an effect. But no one has ever observed an uncaused cause and simply inventing one merely assumes what the argument wishes to prove.

Sometimes the devil tempts me to believe in God.

So much wrong could religion induce.

Sometimes they reasoned thus: "The Messiah ought to do such a thing, now Jesus is the Messiah, therefore Jesus has done such a thing." At other times, by an inverse process, it was said: "Such a thing has happened to Jesus; now Jesus is the Messiah; therefore such a thing was to happen to the Messiah.

Some will say, Is not God alone the Prolific? I answer, God only Acts & Is, in existing beings or Men.

So natural to mankind is intolerance ... that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized.

Sooner or later, false thinking brings wrong conduct.

So, of course, Gish's presentation was well received, which it would have been the case had he only gotten up and said "praise the Lord" and sat back down.

Something which is against natural laws seems to me rather out of the question because it would be a depressive idea about God. It would make God smaller than he must be assumed. When he stated that these laws hold, then they hold, and he wouldn't make exceptions. This is too human an idea. Humans do such things, but not God.

Spirituality authors, who are generally forgiving of most human foibles ... take a hard line on intellectualism.... Skepticism they view with contempt, as the refuge of the unenlightened.

Strange but true: those who have loved God most have loved men least.

Stripping away the irrational, the illogical, and the impossible, I am left with atheism. I can live with that.

Such expression is impossible in a cramped atmosphere. As I have no desire to offer civil disobedience I cannot write freely. As the author of satyagraha I cannot, consistently with my profession, suppress the vital part of myself for the sake of being able to write on permissible subjects. ... It would be like dealing with the trunk without the head.

Suppose there were groups of secularists at hospitals who went round the terminally ill and urged them to adopt atheism: 'Don't be a mug all your life. Make your last days the best ones. People might suppose this was in poor taste.

Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.

Supposing all the great points of atheism were formed into a kind of creed, I would fain ask whether it would not require an infinite greater measure of faith than any set of articles which they so violently oppose.

Suppress prostitution, and capricious lusts will overthrow society.

Superstition is an enemy to civil liberty.

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia should be commended for acknowledging that his views are so strong that - should the Pledge case reach the Supreme Court - he wouldn't be able to maintain the requisite impartiality.

Sure, I love fairy tales.

Surely the ass who invented the first religion ought to be the first ass damned