ATHEISM QUOTES II
quotations about atheism
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
preface, Androcles and the Lion
It is often said, mainly by the 'no-contests', that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?
RICHARD DAWKINS
speech at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, Apr. 15, 1992
Though I dislike to differ with such a great man, Voltaire was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to begin with.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust.
ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL
Why I Am An Agnostic
It is the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon humanity, its paralyzing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism is fighting with all its power.
EMMA GOLDMAN
Mother Earth, Feb. 1916
All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to Robert E. Howard, Aug. 16, 1932
Saying atheism is a belief system is like saying not going skiing is a hobby. I've never been skiing. It's my biggest hobby. I literally do it all the time.
RICKY GERVAIS
"Does God Exist? Ricky Gervais Takes Your Questions", Wall Street Journal, Oct. 22, 2010
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI
Infidel
The legitimate powers of government extend to only such acts as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty gods, or no God.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Life and Selected Writings
I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed. On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical.
CHARLES DARWIN
letter to Asa Gray, May 22, 1860
Consider the long history of the activities inspired by moral fervour: human sacrifices, persecutions of heretics, witch-hunts, pogroms leading up to wholesale extermination by poison gases ... Are these abominations, and the ethical doctrines by which they are prompted, really evidence of an intelligent Creator? And can we really wish that the men who practised them should live for ever? The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident; but if it is the outcome of a deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Do We Survive Death?
The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
ERIC HOFFER
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
In regard to atheism, religious apologists have one and only one task: Produce credible real world evidence to back up their belief in whatever god(s) they believe in. Everything else they talk about, all the millions of words these people produce discussing every subject under the sun except this one, is precisely an evasion of their sole task, in regard to atheism. The vast majority of the rhetoric of religious apologetics is one huge profusion of red herring.
STEVE GREENE
"Not buying into nonsense rhetoric about gods is the default position", MyNews24, March 24, 2016
You don't have to be brave or a saint, a martyr, or even very smart to be an atheist. All you have to be able to say is "I don't know".
PENN JILLETTE
God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales
All religions, with their gods, their demi-gods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the prejudiced fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
My atheism ... is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
"On My Friendly Critics", Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies
Until someone claims to see Christopher Hitchens' face in a tree stump, idiots must stop claiming that atheism is a religion. There's one little difference: Religion is defined as the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, and atheism is -- precisely not that. Got it? Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position.
BILL MAHER
Real Time with Bill Maher, Feb. 3, 2012
I am not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion, I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Letters to a Young Contrarian
I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people.
KATHARINE HEPBURN
"Kate Talks Straight", Ladies Home Journal, Oct. 1, 1991
Scientists do not join hands every Sunday and sing "Yes gravity is real! I know gravity is real! I will have faith! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about the concept.
DAN BARKER
Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists