Atheism Quotes - Page 28

• If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be — a Christian.

  Mark Twain

  Christian, Religious, Religion

  "Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations".

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• I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Almighty Creator. By fighting the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work.

  Adolf Hitler

  Fighting, Religion, Acting

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• As is well known, the priests are the most evil enemies—but why? Because they are the most impotent. It is because of their impotence that in them hatred grows to monstrous and uncanny proportions, to the most spiritual and poisonous kind of hatred. The truly great haters in world history have always been priests; likewise the most ingenious haters: other kinds of spirit hardly come into consideration when compared with the spirit of priestly vengefulness.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Spiritual, Atheist, Evil

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2010). “On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo”, p.33, Vintage

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• I am influenced at the present time by far higher considerations and by a nobler idea of duty than I ever was when I held the Evangelical belief.

  George Eliot

  Ideas, Belief, Consideration

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• The Jehovah of the Jews is a suspicious tyrant, who breathes nothing but blood, murder, and carnage, and who demands that they should nourish him with the vapours of animals. The Jupiter of the Pagans is a lascivious monster. The Moloch of the Phoenicians is a cannibal. The pure mind of the Christians resolved, in order to appease his fury, to crucify his own son. The savage god of the Mexicans cannot be satisfied without thousands of mortals which are immolated to his sanguinary appetite.

  Baron d'Holbach

  Christian, Son, Animal

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• Some Arrows slay but whom they strike - But this slew all but him - Who so appareled his Escape - Too trackless for a Tomb

  Emily Dickinson

  Arrows, Strikes, Tombs

  Emily Dickinson, Ralph William Franklin (1999). “The Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.602, Harvard University Press

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• I want to put on the table, not why 85% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject God, I want to know why 15% of the National Academy don’t.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Atheist, Science, Tables

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• As I see it, creative achievement is the very heart of the human enterprise... The destiny of man, of all men and of each man, is that he is condemned to invent what he will be - condemned if he is fearful but blessed if he welcomes the great adventure. We are responsible in the last analysis, not simply for what we are, but for what we will become; and that is a source of either high excitement or distress.

  Paul Kurtz

  Blessed, Adventure, Heart

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• The skeptic has no illusions about life, nor a vain belief in the promise of immortality. Since this life here and now is all we can know, our most reasonable option is to live it fully.

  Paul Kurtz

  Promise, Belief, Illusion

  Paul Kurtz (1986). “The Transcendental Temptation: A Critique of Religion and the Paranormal”

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• Supernatural entities simply do not exist. This nonreality of the supernatural means, on the human level, that men do not possess supernatural and immortal souls; and, on the level of the universe as a whole, that our cosmos does not possess a supernatural and eternal God.

  Corliss Lamont

  Mean, Men, Soul

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• God, once imagined to be an omnipresent force throughout the whole world of nature and man. has been increasingly tending to seem omniabsent. Everywhere, intelligent and educated people rely more and more on purely secular and scientific techniques for the solution of their problems. As science advances, belief in divine miracles and the efficacy of prayer becomes fainter and fainter.

  Corliss Lamont

  Prayer, Intelligent, Men

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• Dogma is a defensive reaction against doubt in the mind of the theorist, but doubt of which he is unaware.

  Harold Lasswell

  Mind, Doubt, Dogma

  Harold D. Lasswell (1986). “Psychopathology and Politics”, p.175, University of Chicago Press

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• Secular humanism proposes ... the complete implementation of the agenda of modernism ... what is necessary for it to occur is a ... New Enlightenment.

  Paul Kurtz

  Enlightenment, Agendas, Secular Humanism

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• An ideology can be defined as a group of beliefs that individuals borrow; most people borrow an ideology by identifying with a social group ... with a body of sacred documents and heroes.

  Robert E Lane

  Hero, People, Body

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• Humanists hold that ethical values are relative to human experience and need not be derived from theological or metaphysical foundations.

  Paul Kurtz

  Foundation, Needs, Ethical

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• We need to be skeptical of utopianists who offer unreliable totalistic visions of other worlds and strive to take us there. We need some ideals, but we also need to protect ourselves from the miscalculations and misadventures of visionaries.

  Paul Kurtz

  Other Worlds, Vision, Needs

  Paul Kurtz (1992). “The New Skepticism: Inquiry and Reliable Knowledge”

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• The overriding need is "to develop a new Planetary Humanism" that will seek to preserve human rights and enhance human freedom and dignity and will emphasize our commitment "to humanity as a whole." The underlying ethical principle "is the need to respect the dignity and worth of all persons in the world community." Thinkers as diverse as Peter Singer and Hans Küng also emphasize the need for a new global ethic beyond nationalistic, racial, religious, and ethnic chauvinism.

  Paul Kurtz

  Religious, Commitment, Ethical Principles

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• Many humanists have argued that happiness involves a combination of hedonism and creative moral development; that an exuberant life fuses excellence and enjoyment, meaning and enrichment, emotion and cognition.

  Paul Kurtz

  Moral Development, Creative, Excellence

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• Stereotypes are the mind's shorthand for dealing with complexities. They have two aspects: they are much blunter than reality; they are shaped to fit a man's preferences or prejudgments. Thus two principles are involved: differentiation or its lack, and biased preferential perception.

  Robert E Lane

  Reality, Men, Two

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• Three key humanist virtues are courage, cognition, and caring - not dependence, ignorance, or insensitivity to the needs of others.

  Paul Kurtz

  Ignorance, Caring, Keys

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• I light candles. I meditate. And I don't believe in anything. By default I move simultaneously towards mysticism and atheism. It's not something that's ever going to get fixed.

  Vanessa Veselka

  Believe, Moving, Candle

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Here, no mercy is shown. One hates one's fellow man to the glory of God.

  Selma Lagerlöf

  Hate, Men, Fellow Man

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• "Humanism" is to be human, to think, to analyze, and to probe. To respond and to be stimulated by all living things - beasts, fowl, and fishes. To respond through touch, sight, smell, and sound to all things in nature - both organic and inorganic-to colors, shapes, and textures - to not only look at a blade of grass but to really see a blade of grass. These things, to me, are what life and living are all about. I would call it "Humanism."

  Jacob Lawrence

  Thinking, Color, Smell

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• Changing ideas is a strain not to be lightly incurred, particularly when these ideas are intimately related to one's self-esteem ... men have elaborated an explanation for their situation in life... Their rationales are endowed with moral qualities.

  Robert E Lane

  Self Esteem, Men, Ideas

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• Human life has no meaning independent of itself. There is no cosmic force or deity to give it meaning or significance. There is no ultimate destiny for man. Such a belief is an illusion of humankind's infancy. The meaning of life is what we choose to give it. Meaning grows out of human purposes alone. Nature provides us with an infinite range of opportunities, but it is only our vision and our action that select and realize those that we desire.

  Paul Kurtz

  Independent, Opportunity, Destiny

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