Atheism Quotes - Page 82

Atheism is the opium of the mathematicians. Atheism is the religion of Mathematics.

Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.

[Regarding] the convention that clergymen are more virtuous than other men. Any average selection of mankind, set apart and told that it excels the rest in virtue, must tend to sink below the average.

There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.

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.

Nothing enlarges the gulf of atheism more than the wide passage that lies between the faith and lives of men pretending to teach Christianity.

A little Religion, and a little Honesty, goes a great way in Courts.

The United States Constitutional Convention, except for three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary.

It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around.... It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.

The one function that most gods seem to have in common is to give human existence some ultimate purpose - and, while it is not possible to disprove an ultimate purpose, there does not seem to be any evidence for it. This is not to say, of course, that there is no purpose in life at all: we all make our own purposes as we go through life. And life does not lose its value simply because it it not going to last forever.

To imagine that "God moves in mysterious ways" is to put up a smokescreen of mystery behind which fantasy may survive in spite of all the facts.

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade.

Piety's hard enough to take among the poor who have to practice it. A rich man's piety stinks. It's insufferable.

We have learned the answers, all the answers: it is the question that we do not know.

If God is God He is not good, if God is good He is not God; take the even, take the odd.

[G]et two-thirds of the states to alter the Constitution; come out with their national religion, and then let the people get their throats ready.

I find that the whole weight of relieving human misery and distress falls on the shoulders of those Heretics and Infidels; and though great part of this distress has been occasioned by those ravening wolves' hopeful converts.

Even now, there are still days so beautiful, I almost believe in God.

The evaporation of 4 million who believe in this crap would leave the world a better place.

I know that a creed is the shell of a lie.

They are mostly Americans and almost all are Protestant. Many have a strong grounding in the Bible. In Jerusalem, they suddenly take off their clothes or shout prophecies on street corners, only to revert to normal after a few days' treatment.

Jerusalem has been - and for many, still is - a metaphor for destruction and the vengeance of an offended God. She is the city where believers have killed unbelievers to give life to faith.

Damning, with bell, book and candle / Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal. / A rite permitting Satan to enslave him / Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.

In theology, the state of a luckless mortal prenatally damned. The doctrine of reprobation was taught by Calvin, whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, others are predestined to salvation.

I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities.