Atheist Quotes - Page 21

There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.

Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up the old ones.

Often times when I meet atheists and we talk about the god they don’t believe in, we quickly discover that I don’t believe in that god, either.

It’s a strange myth that atheists have nothing to live for. It’s the opposite. We have nothing to die for. We have everything to live for.

If there is a God, why did he make me an atheist?

I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca-or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame, the Shwe Dagon, the temples of Kyoto or, of course, the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

Being an atheist frees you up to live this life properly, happily, and fully.

If the bible were published as fiction, no reviewer would give it a passing grade. There are some vivid scenes and quotable phrases but there's no plot, no structure, a tremendous amount of filler and the characters are painfully one dimensional. Whatever you do, don't read the bible for a moral code. It advocates prejudice, cruelty, superstition and murder. Read it because we need more atheists.

Atheists often denounce Christianity as harsh and negative. But in reality it offers a much more positive view of the human person than any competing religion or worldview. It is so appealing that adherents of other worldviews keep free-loading the parts they like best.

I say again that I am an atheist. I do not believe in God.

I refuse to believe in a god who is the primary cause of conflict in the world, preaches racism, sexism, homophobia, and ignorance, and then sends me to hell if I'm 'bad'.

When did atheists become so evangelical? I mean, if you don't believe something to be true, wouldn't you just ignore it? That's certainly what I do. Whether it's leprechauns or a congressional debt reduction plan - if I'm convinced it's fiction, I simply put it out of my mind. Not the atheists. They are obsessed with faith and religious practice. Their identities and their works are one big reaction to that which they hate. No longer content to simply dismiss God and those who follow in Him, the New Atheists have created a cult of unbelief.

If only I wasn't an atheist, I could get away with anything. You'd just ask for forgiveness and then you'd be forgiven. It sounds much better than having to live with guilt.

It's an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don't try to make it posthumous.

I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.

Believe nothing, No matter where you read it, Or who has said it, Not even if I have said it, Unless it agrees with your own reason And your own common sense.

The ultimate creative thinking technique is to think like God. If you're an atheist, pretend how God would do it.

Science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise, it'd stop. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you.

I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God. That should be all that needs to be said about it: no evidence, no belief.

Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely soley upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.

The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.

At Oxford University, the certainties of my atheist faith (and atheism is a faith) began to crumble

When the stakes are this high- when calling God by the right name can make the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, it is impossible to respect the beliefs of others who don't believe as you do.

The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.

If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world.