Best 1717 quotes in «atheist quotes» category

I discuss my beliefs less because I bed my atheist, who cannot believe in much more sacred than our kisses.

I do not go to church. I don’t go to Christian church or Jew church or any other church. I don’t go to church at all. Not ever. A perfect Sunday for me is spent drinking green tea while reading the Sunday New York Times. Yikes! Why don’t I just turn in my Al-Qaeda membership form and call it a day? As if that wasn’t bad enough, not only do I not go to church: I don’t believe in God. How can I say the Pledge of Allegiance if I don’t believe in God? How can I spend our American currency which pledges “In God We Trust?” How can I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God? Answer: I can’t. It’s a real problem. Don’t get me wrong – I’d like to believe in God. I wish I did, especially if He was the kind of God that thought America was #1. But I don’t, which to many people is the same as not believing in America. Up until recently, I thought those people were lunatics.

I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one, it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men.

I do not judge the individual based on their belief. If I were to, then I would, undoubtedly, be no better than the (religious) system that I frown upon.

I don't believe in atheists. I have never seen a real one.

I don't believe in experts or atheist, they don't exist.

I don't believe in God, I only believe in Al Pacino, and that's the truth.

I don't know what I believe. I guess that makes me a Christmas tree agnostic." He smiles. "I like it and you're a Yom Kippur atheist.

I don't profess any religion; I don't think it’s possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words ‘spiritual’ or ‘spirituality.' [Interview, The New Yorker, Dec. 26, 2005]

I don't think it is a good mental health practice to fantasize that you know the infinite thoughts of imaginary entities.

I fear no hell, just as I expect no heaven. Nabokov summed up a nonbeliever’s view of the cosmos, and our place in it, thus: “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” The 19th-century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle put it slightly differently: “One life. A little gleam of Time between two Eternities.” Though I have many memories to cherish, I value the present, my time on earth, those around me now. I miss those who have departed, and recognize, painful as it is, that I will never be reunited with them. There is the here and now – no more. But certainly no less. Being an adult means, as Orwell put it, having the “power of facing unpleasant facts.” True adulthood begins with doing just that, with renouncing comforting fables. There is something liberating in recognizing ourselves as mammals with some fourscore years (if we’re lucky) to make the most of on this earth. There is also something intrinsically courageous about being an atheist. Atheists confront death without mythology or sugarcoating. That takes courage.

I feel the gods are pretty dead, though I suppose I ought to know that however, to be somewhat more philosophical in the matter, if atheism means simply not being a theist, then of course I'm an atheist. [Letter to Max Otto]

If God created man in his image... Does God have a functioning penis? And does God manually handle every penis he creates? Or does he outsource the job to penis-manufacturing elves?

If God really valued loyalty, He would have blessed every single believer before He even considered blessing a single nonbeliever.

If everything must have a cause, of course, this also applies to God; if God can exist in isolation, then why not the universe?

If hunger could please God, millions hadn't starved to death.

If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.

If I do not personify God, you call me an atheist. But I do not personify God because I refuse to limit God to the boundaries of my imagination... or yours.

[From a New York Times biography from May 27, 2010 entitled Introduction to Simone de Beauvoir's 'The Second Sex'] Beauvoir herself was as devout an atheist as she had once been a Catholic, and she dismisses religions — even when they worship a goddess — as the inventions of men to perpetuate their dominion.

If I were in his(Prophet Muhammad) presence, I would wash his feet.

[From a May 1, 2004 article entitled "Still Up to Mischief" from The Guardian reporting on and quoting Altman] Still, it's worth noting that by the age of 20 this whistle- blower had resisted two of the most powerful institutions - church and army, both. He is an atheist, 'And I have been against all of these wars ever since.

If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks.

If the Bible is accurate in its assertions (a generous statement on our part), then we must also observe that anyone who ultimately comes to God does so because God made it happen. But this seems to imply that God makes it happen for some but doesn’t make it happen for others. Why? Is this fair? Is this good? Is this justice? Is this love?

If the number of religious converts who converted during a season of intense suffering is high, then does that mean that the number of religious abstainers who abstained because their life was already satisfying is correspondingly low? If so, does this argue for or against religion’s relevance in the world? If theistic religion is attractive, useful, and remedial only for those broken people in the most dismal of needful situations, then is this truly the work of a God or is it just the human psyche gravitating toward a comforting solution?

If there is a God you must see it (literally), even clearer than you see this page, otherwise it is better not to believe. It is better to be an outspoken atheist, than a hypocrite.

If you describe yourself as "Atheist," some people will say, "Don't you mean 'Agnostic'?" I have to reply that I really do mean Atheist. I really do not believe that there is a god - in fact I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one. It's easier to say that I am a radical Atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it's an opinion I hold seriously. It's funny how many people are genuinely surprised to hear a view expressed so strongly. In England we seem to have drifted from vague wishy-washy Anglicanism to vague wishy-washy Agnosticism - both of which I think betoken a desire not to have to think about things too much.

If you are a pastor there is no way you can lose faith without losing face, you are considered the devil incarnate by your former congregation

If you invoke faith as justification for your belief, you must accept the same from others. And every person who retreats to faith bears a measure of responsibility for every act of hate and violence justified by it.

If you doubt the existence of God, look in the mirror, and if you are still in doubt after that, look within.

I have a firm belief in such things as, you know, the water, the Earth, the trees and sky. And I'm wondering, it is increasingly difficult to find those elements in nature, because it's nature I believe in rather than some spiritual thing. Interviewer: You're not a religious man? No. And I do suppose that science has taken, to a large extent and for a number of people, has taken the place of religion. Interviewer: What do you mean by that? That one can have more belief in scientific cures or scientific miracles than you do in God miracles. It's inevitable that we will eventually diffuse into nothingness . . .

I had a standing agreement with god. I'd agree to believe in him, barely, so long as he let me sleep in on Sundays.

If you read many books, you may or may not become an atheist, but if you read 'nature', you will surely become a theist!

I get diarrhea more often than the average Muslim.

I had given up the church, more because of its complicity with slavery than from a full understanding of the foolishness of its creeds.

I know why this is Lucy's favorite song. Lucy believes in a world that's fair. As she recites, clear and crisp, I realize I believe in that world, too. I just don't believe in a god who will create it for us. I think we'll have to do it on our own.

I have often felt that when an Atheist asks "Where is your God?" it means even he has an innermost desire to see 'The One' whom he has been rejecting all his life and when an unbeliever asks "Where is your God?" it means he is fed-up with the hand crafted God he has been meaninglessly serving all his life and in his heart even he wants to see the wonder working true living God in all His glory.

I know many people who believe in God, and I expected to find Him on my way to the South Pole if he exists. My religious experiences were very different however, [only] involving myself, nature and the universe.

I have no problem with god - it's his fan club that scares me.

I implore the atheist not to judge the religious and I implore the religious to not find fault with the atheist. Be a good religious person, or be a good atheist person. How? By putting an end to faultfinding. All do what they believe in their best interest to do and with a little insight and understanding, all can see that the only way anyone can do any good service to the world, is by being thankful for what is been given him, by looking inwards to correct his own faults instead of the perceived faults of others, and by keeping his eye upon his own horizon; not upon the perceived horizons of anybody else.

I just cannot help but feel as though [Christianity] cheapens life. After all, what we must conclude at the end of the day is this disheartening and somewhat debilitating possibility: everything you think, feel, hope for, long for, experience, taste, smell, touch, learn, comprehend, discover, create, work toward, work on, and do, means absolutely nothing to the Christian God if you do not have faith in Jesus.

It is not possible to be intellectually honest and believe in gods. And it is not possible to believe in gods and be a true scientist.

I'm an Atheist. I don't believe in God, Gods, Godlets or any sort of higher power beyond the universe itself, which seems quite high and powerful enough to me. I don't believe in life after death, channeled chat rooms with the dead, reincarnation, telekinesis or any miracles but the miracle of life and consciousness, which again strike me as miracles in nearly obscene abundance. I believe that the universe abides by the laws of physics, some of which are known, others of which will surely be discovered, but even if they aren't, that will simply be a result, as my colleague George Johnson put it, of our brains having evolved for life on this one little planet and thus being inevitably limited. I'm convinced that the world as we see it was shaped by the again genuinely miraculous, let's even say transcendent, hand of evolution through natural selection.

In any modern society encouraging your child to cut himself is an unthinkable act, but only with religious belief becomes part of the culture, and demands respect.

I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same fifty percent rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don't...Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe...same as the voodoo lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles. It's all the same...so just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself...

Interesting Avil, the priests and the acolytes of the various religions and temples of Torea build their whole lives on a lie. At first, as children they believe it. Maybe as they grow older and more wise they see the absurdness of their beliefs, but by that time they have invested time and emotional energy into those beliefs, then seeing them crumble and fall apart would be too hard for them to bear. So the protect the lie, they shore it up with more lies and they ebb out their short lives, knowing what they preach is untrue, but preaching it all the same... Almost as if preaching it hard enough will make it true... Are they trying to convince their congregation? Or themselves? You are wiser than you look Avil.

In the world of so-called civilized and intelligent humans, there are only two accepted ways to see religion - one is the way of the believer, and the other is the one of the non-believer. But there is a third way - the way of the real religious person - the way of the real scientist - the way of the real yogi. It is the way where you see religion as it is, that is, an organized structure which helps people go through their daily life with as little hitch as possible. And as such, every organized structure has its pros and cons.

In women he doesn't trust! He is an atheist.

I should like to preface my remarks with a personal statement in order that my later remarks will not be misunderstood. I consider myself an atheist.

It goes without saying that even those of us who are going to hell will get eternal life—if that territory really exists outside religious books and the minds of believers, that is. Having said that, given the choice, instead of being grilled until hell freezes over, the average sane human being would, needless to say, rather spend forever idling in an extremely fertile garden, next to a lamb or a chicken or a parrot, which they do not secretly want to eat, and a lion or a tiger or a crocodile, which does not secretly want to eat them.

It is easy to see all that separates this mode of being in the world from the existence of a nonreligious man. First of all, the nonreligious man refuses transcendence, accepts the relativity of ' 'reality," and may even come to doubt the meaning of existence. The great cultures of the past too have not been entirely without nonreligious men, and it is not impossible that such men existed even on the archaic levels of culture, although as yet no testimony to their existence there has come to light. But it is only in the modern societies of the West that nonreligious man has developed fully. Modern nonreligious man assumes a new existential situation; he regards himself solely as the subject and agent of history, and he refuses all appeal to transcendence. In other words, he accepts no model for humanity outside the human condition as it can be seen in the various historical situations. Man makes himself, and he only makes himself completely in proportion as he desacralizes himself and the world. The sacred is the prime obstacle to his freedom. He will become himself only when he is totally demysticized. He will not be truly free until he has killed the last god.