Best 1717 quotes in «atheist quotes» category

Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics. This is why, when pressed, the atheist will often attempt to hide his lack of conviction in his own beliefs behind some poorly formulated utilitarianism, or argue that he acts out of altruistic self-interest. But this is only post-facto rationalization, not reason or rational behavior.

Strange a God who mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness, then invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none Himself; who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon Himself; and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship Him!

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

Surely the immutable laws of the universe can teach more impressive and exalted lessons than the holy books of all the religions on earth.

Surely you do not believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof?

Take Bach or Schubert: Their music was dedicated to God but filled and shaped their worldly lives. If you are a committed atheist, you lean back and miss all the richness of that history.

Take a nation, tell the people there is no God, tell them there is nothing beyond the grave, and they will lose heart, lose their morale. They will become such a shiftless, lazy, apathetic, lethargic people that you won't be able to get half of them to work. Many will not be motivated by anything.

Tell me," said the atheist , "Is there a God really?" Said the master, "If you want me to be perfectly honest with you, I will not answer." Later the disciples demanded to know why he had not answered. "Because the question is unanswerable," said the Master. "So you are an atheist?" "Certainly not. The atheist makes the mistake of denying that of which nothing may be said... and the theist makes the mistake of affirming it.

Tell me there is a God in the serene heavens that will damn his children for the expression of an honest belief! More men have died in their sins, judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves in all the forests in the wide world ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in Hell; that these men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and that they are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this doctrine as the most infamous of lies.

Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what so ever.

Thank God, I am still an atheist.

Thank God I'm an atheist.

Thank you God for making me an atheist.

Thank you, but I'm afraid I can't accept your compliment. You see, I'm an atheist, so if I'm also God, that would mean that I don't believe in myself, and at this point in my life, I don't need the added insecurity.

That is the whole trouble with being a heretic. One usually must think out everything for oneself.

The alternative which I favor is to renounce all euphemisms and grasp the nettle of the word atheism itself, precisely because it is a taboo word carrying frissons of hysterical phobia. Critical mass may be harder to achieve than with some non-confrontational euphemism, but if we did achieve it with the dread word atheist, the political impact would be all the greater.

That the world is in a bad shape is undeniable, but there is not the faintest reason in history to suppose that Christianity offers a way out.

The actual number of atheists is quite small outside of Europe and Manhattan.

That's true that I'm "not religious as that term is conventionally understood," though I've never been an atheist. Atheism is an active faith; it says, "I believe there is no God." But I don't know what I believe. I was brought up a Lutheran in Jamestown, North Dakota. I have trouble with faith. I'm not proud of this. I don't think it makes me an intellectual. I would believe if I could, and I may be able to before it's over. I would welcome that.

The 21st century - and the atheists - needs the presence of religion, just as religion must deal with the real challenges and the thinkers of the day in order to sharpen the conscience and the intelligence of those who study the timeless sacred texts in a spirit of responding to the questions of their time.

The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.

The antitheist is quick to excoriate all religious belief by generically laying the blame at the door of all who claim to be religious, without distinction. By the same measure, why is there not an equal enthusiasm to distribute blame for violence engendered by some of the irreligious?

The annoying thing about being an atheist is that you'll never have the satifaction of saying to believers, 'I told you so.'

The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.

The atheist barista (who's obsessed with astrology) asked me, "So what's your sign?" I responded, "The sign of the cross." I think she spit in my coffee.

The atheism and nihilism of my earlier years now seems shallow, and even a bit cocky.

The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.

The atheist does not say 'there is no God,' but he says 'I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God'; the word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. ... The Bible God I deny; the Christian God I disbelieve in; but I am not rash enough to say there is no God as long as you tell me you are unprepared to define God to me.

The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion. According to Renan, "The day after that on which the world should no longer believe in God, atheists would be the wretchedest of all men.

The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself; but is the Theist any other? Well, perhaps; for he has seen the shadow of God and clutched at it.

The atheists are for the most part imprudent and misguided scholars who reason badly who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis the eternity of things and of inevitability.

The Atheist complains about the wind. The Christian prays for it to change. The Satanist adjusts his sails.

The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should guard against the encroachment of religion in areas where it has no place, and in particular the control of education by religious authority. The attempts to ban the teaching of evolution or other scientific theories -- a feeble echo of medieval church tyranny and hostility to learning, but an echo nonetheless are serious threats to freedom of inquiry and should be vigorously combated.

The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself.

The atheist risk everything for the present and the future, on the basis of a belief that we are uncaused by any intelligent being. We just happen to be here. That one is willing to live and die in that belief is a very high price to pay for conjecture.

The atheists traditionally hold their conventions from Good Friday to Easter Sunday during the hours Christ spent in the grave.

The Atheist waits for proof of God. Till that proof comes he remains, as his name implies, without God. His mind is open to every new truth, after it has passed the warder Reason at the gate.

The atheist is cheating whenever he makes a moral judgment, acting as though it has an objective reference, when his philosophy in fact precludes it.

... the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion ... that is to say all those who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers.

The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window.

The being we call god is merely a pawn working for a powerful and rational force in some far-off galaxy. This force is trying to weed out people who are irrational by seeing who would be stupid enough to believe in his god illusion so easily. Those that believe in this illusion, he will send to eternal damnation and he will deliver the rational beings, those who stoically refused to believe in a god, to heaven.

The believer in God has to account for the existence of unjust suffering; the atheist has to account for everything else.

The best reply to an atheist is to give him a good dinner and ask him if he believes there is a cook.

The atheist proposition is the following - most of the time - it may not be said that there is no god; it may be said that there is no reason to think that there is one.

The Bible: a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind.

The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it.

The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.

...the Bible is such a book of lies and contradictions there is no knowing which part to believe or whether any.

The atheist view is correspondingly life-affirming and life-enhancing, while at the same time never being tainted with self-delusion, wishful thinking, or the whingeing self-pity of those who feel that life owes them something.

The atheist worldview of life is a materialistic culture that frees humanity from superstition.