ATHEISM QUOTES III
quotations about atheism
I think I use the term radical rather loosely, just for emphasis. 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. People will then often say, "But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?" This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I've been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I would choose not to worship him anyway.)
DOUGLAS ADAMS
American Atheist Magazine, winter 1998-1999
Atheism is a disease of the mind caused by eating underdone philosophy.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
WOODY ALLEN
Stardust Memories
Atheism has had a distinguished and varied lineage. It seems likely that doubt about religion is just as old as religion itself, although there is no way to prove what people believed or did not believe in cultures that have left us no literary evidence.
EMILY WILSON
"Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World review -- disbelief has been around for 2,500 years", The Guardian, March 9, 2016
We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.
GENE RODDENBERRY
The Humanist, March/April 1991
To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Mar. 8, 1711
I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man's place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"What I Believe"
The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief -- call it what you will -- than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.
A.A. MILNE
Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS
Pieces of Eight
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
GEORGE CARLIN
standup routine
An Atheist loves his fellow man instead of god. An Atheist believes that heaven is something for which we should work now--here on earth for all men together to enjoy. An Atheist believes that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction, and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it, and enjoy it. An Atheist believes that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment. He seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to know a god. An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An Atheist believes that deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.
MADALYN MURRAY O'HAIR
Petition for Relief, Murray v. Curlett, 1959
When it comes to religion, we're not two sides of the same coin, and you don't get to put your unreason up on the same shelf with my reason. Your stuff has to go over there, on the shelf with Zeus and Thor and the Kraken, with the stuff that is not evidence-based, stuff that religious people never change their mind about, no matter what happens.
BILL MAHER
Real Time with Bill Maher, Feb. 3, 2012
Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The Blind Watchmaker
No one is so much alone in the universe as a denier of God. With an orphaned heart, which has lost the greatest of fathers, he stands mourning by the immeasurable corpse of nature, no longer moved and sustained by the Spirit of the universe.
JEAN PAUL
Flower, Fruit and Thorn Pieces
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
In the first place, I'm sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don't care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth. They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while He was alive, they were about as much use to Him as a hole in the head. All they did was keep letting Him down. I like almost anybody in the Bible better than the Disciples. If you want to know the truth, the guy I like best in the Bible, next to Jesus, was that lunatic and all, that lived in the tombs and kept cutting himself with stones. I like him ten times as much as the Disciples, that poor bastard.
J. D. SALINGER
The Catcher in the Rye
If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.
DAVID ELLER
Atheism Advanced: Further Thoughts of a Freethinker
If you are right to believe that religious faith offers the only real basis for morality, then atheists should be less moral than believers. In fact, they should be utterly immoral. Are they? Do members of atheist organizations in the United States commit more than their fair share of violent crimes? Do the members of the National Academy of Sciences, 93 percent of whom do not accept the idea of God, lie and cheat and steal with abandon? We can be reasonably confident that these groups are at least as well behaved as the general population. And yet, atheists are the most reviled minority in the United States.
SAM HARRIS
Letter to a Christian Nation
For those who are born into atheism, it's a faith like any other. The only real atheist is an ex-believer.
GABRIEL LAUBER
Denken verdirbt den Charakter
Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy