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Fri 3 Feb, 2006 09:01 am
Quote:Atheist Quotes
This collection of quotes has been assembled from thinkers from a wide range of fields, including philosophers, psychologists, and scientists. Not all of those quoted below would call themselves atheists, and not all of the quotations are simple attacks on religion, but all of them represent an interesting perspective on the atheist world-view.
John Adams
"Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it."
Isaac Asimov
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
Mikhail Bakunin
"I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."
Justin Brown
"If the Bible is mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust it to tell us where we're going?"
Wiliam K Clifford
"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."
Richard Dawkins
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."
"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
"We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators." [The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press (1989), p201]
"Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth, and the Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of ants." [The Blind Watchmaker, Oxford University Press (1988), p316]
Albert Einstein
"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever.... This is a somewhat new kind of religion."
Epicurus
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?"
Ludwig Feuerbach
"It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image."
Benjamin Franklin
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
Sigmund Freud
"It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be."
David Hume
"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish." [Of Miracles]
Robert Ingersoll, The Gods
"Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms."
"This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves."
"Hands that help are far better than lips that pray."
"If a man would follow today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly, the teachings of the new, he would be insane."
Thomas Jefferson
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
Karl Marx
"The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion."
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, & the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
Delos B. McKown
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike."
John Stuart Mill
"In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another are nature's everyday performances. Killing, the most criminal act recognized by human laws, nature does once to every being that lives, and in a large proportion of cases after protracted tortures such as only the greatest monsters whom we read of ever purposely inflicted on their living fellow creatures." [Utility of Religion]
Huang Po
"The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see."
Bertrand Russell
"I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them."
"We may define "faith" as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence."
Stephen F Roberts
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism
"The existentialist... thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him; there can no longer be an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because the fact is we are on a plane where there are only men. Dostoievsky said, ?'If God didn't exist, everything would be possible.' That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to. He can't start making excuses for himself."
George Bernard Shaw
"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."
George in Tom Stoppard, Jumpers
"If God exists, he certainly existed before religion. He is a philosopher's God, logically inferred from self-evident premises. That he should have been taken up by a glorified supporters' club is only a matter of psychological interest."
Mark Twain
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
"Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of."
Hi,
Since you seldom venture out of humour, I was just wondering from which perspective you post this.
Thanks for the quick reply. I'll be going now.
How does God choose who wins the lottery?
He doesn't. It is determined by little balls in a sphere and where they drop or pop determines the winning numbers. If you buy the right ticket, you win. Lotteries are open to atheists, agnostics and those who have a religion of their choice.
My own favorite atheist quote is the most recent one from Charles Darwin:
"HEYYYYYYYYYY, can sombody turn the AC up just a tiny bit, it's way the hell too hot in this frickin place.... OWWWWWWW, SHEEEEIIITT Bzzlqrvz watch it with that spear, I was just askin....."
Right, money is not evil. The love of money is evil.
Just as guns (loaded) do not kill...people kill ~~~ the love of money is what is evil...not the money
So the person is evil not the money.
Do you think the person would still be evil without any money?
Evil knows no bounds between a rich man and a poor man
Intrepid wrote:Just as guns (loaded) do not kill...people kill ~~~ the love of money is what is evil...not the money
Good. Show me you're not evil by sending me all of your money.
P
I would do that, if I had any :-)
GEORGE CARLIN ON RELIGION
In the Bullshit Department, a businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman. 'Cause I gotta tell you the truth, folks. When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy ****!
But I want you to know something, this is sincere, I want you to know, when it comes to believing in God, I really tried. I really, really tried. I tried to believe that there is a God, who created each of us in His own image and likeness, loves us very much, and keeps a close eye on things. I really tried to believe that, but I gotta tell you, the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize, something is fucked up.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being. This is the kind of **** you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently-run universe, this guy would've been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago. And by the way, I say "this guy", because I firmly believe, looking at these results, that if there is a God, it has to be a man.
No woman could or would ever **** things up like this. So, if there is a God, I think most reasonable people might agree that he's at least incompetent, and maybe, just maybe, doesn't give a ****. Doesn't give a ****, which I admire in a person, and which would explain a lot of these bad results.
So rather than be just another mindless religious robot, mindlessly and aimlessly and blindly believing that all of this is in the hands of some spooky incompetent father figure who doesn't give a ****, I decided to look around for something else to worship. Something I could really count on.
And immediately, I thought of the sun. Happened like that. Overnight I became a sun-worshipper. Well, not overnight, you can't see the sun at night. But first thing the next morning, I became a sun-worshipper. Several reasons. First of all, I can see the sun, okay? Unlike some other gods I could mention, I can actually see the sun. I'm big on that. If I can see something, I don't know, it kind of helps the credibility along, you know? So everyday I can see the sun, as it gives me everything I need; heat, light, food, flowers in the park, reflections on the lake, an occasional skin cancer, but hey. At least there are no crucifixions, and we're not setting people on fire simply because they don't agree with us.
Sun worship is fairly simple. There's no mystery, no miracles, no pageantry, no one asks for money, there are no songs to learn, and we don't have a special building where we all gather once a week to compare clothing. And the best thing about the sun, it never tells me I'm unworthy. Doesn't tell me I'm a bad person who needs to be saved. Hasn't said an unkind word. Treats me fine. So, I worship the sun. But, I don't pray to the sun. Know why? I wouldn't presume on our friendship. It's not polite.
I've often thought people treat God rather rudely, don't you? Asking trillions and trillions of prayers every day. Asking and pleading and begging for favors. Do this, gimme that, I need a new car, I want a better job. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday His day off. It's not nice. And it's no way to treat a friend. But people do pray, and they pray for a lot of different things, you know, your sister needs an operation on her crotch, your brother was arrested for defecating in a mall. But most of all, you'd really like to **** that hot little redhead down at the convenience store. You know, the one with the eyepatch and the clubfoot? Can you pray for that? I think you'd have to. And I say, fine. Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan?
Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a Divine Plan. What's the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and **** up Your Plan?
And here's something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? "Well, it's God's will." "Thy Will Be Done." Fine, but if it's God's will, and He's going to do what He wants to anyway, why the **** bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It's all very confusing.
So to get around a lot of this, I decided to worship the sun. But, as I said, I don't pray to the sun. You know who I pray to? Joe Pesci. Two reasons: First of all, I think he's a good actor, okay? To me, that counts. Second, he looks like a guy who can get things done. Joe Pesci doesn't **** around. In fact, Joe Pesci came through on a couple of things that God was having trouble with.
For years I asked God to do something about my noisy neighbor with the barking dog, Joe Pesci straightened that ********** out with one visit. It's amazing what you can accomplish with a simple baseball bat.
So I've been praying to Joe for about a year now. And I noticed something. I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same 50% rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don't. Same as God, 50-50. Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe, the wishing well and the rabbit's foot, same as the Mojo Man, same as the Voodoo Lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles, it's all the same: 50-50. So just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself.
And for those of you who look to The Bible for moral lessons and literary qualities, I might suggest a couple of other stories for you. You might want to look at the Three Little Pigs, that's a good one. Has a nice happy ending, I'm sure you'll like that. Then there's Little Red Riding Hood, although it does have that X-rated part where the Big Bad Wolf actually eats the grandmother. Which I didn't care for, by the way.
And finally, I've always drawn a great deal of moral comfort from Humpty Dumpty. The part I like the best? "All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again." That's because there is no Humpty Dumpty, and there is no God. None, not one, no God, never was. In fact, I'm gonna put it this way. If there is a God, may he strike this audience dead! See? Nothing happened. Nothing happened? Everybody's okay? All right, tell you what, I'll raise the stakes a little bit. If there is a God, may he strike me dead. See? Nothing happened, oh, wait, I've got a little cramp in my leg. And my balls hurt. Plus, I'm blind. I'm blind, oh, now I'm okay again, must have been Joe Pesci, huh? God Bless Joe Pesci. Thank you all very much. Joe Bless You!
catch22 wrote:This collection of quotes has been assembled from thinkers from a wide range of fields, including philosophers, psychologists, and scientists. Not all of those quoted below would call themselves atheists
Right, so what's your point?
catch22 wrote:and not all of the quotations are simple attacks on religion,
Right, so what's your point?
catch22 wrote:but all of them represent an interesting perspective on the atheist world-view.
Since, in context, some of them do not support the atheist world view this rationale for including them is quite a stretch, to say the least.
First, you gotta buy a ticket, farmerman.
Dog bless you, edgar.
Ramen.
Here's one of my favourites:
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centures since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov.
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