Atheism Quotes - Page 7

• Nothing is destroyed until it is replaced.

  Auguste Comte

  Computer, Destroyed, Replaced

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• First, whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'Tis for no other cause but quietness sake.

  Laurence Sterne

  Passion, Men, Sake

  'Tristram Shandy' (1759-67) bk. 2, ch. 17

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• Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

  Richard Dawkins

  Atheist, Religion, Might

  Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.18, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Atheists don't hate fairies, leprechauns, or unicorns because they don't exist. It is impossible to hate something that doesn't exist. Atheists - like the painting experts hated the painter - hate God because He does exist.

  Ray Comfort

  Atheist, Hate, Philosophical

  "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think: Answers to Questions from Angry Skeptics". Book by Ray Comfort, 2009.

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• If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circustance.

  Theodore Dreiser

  Atheist, Men, Soul

  Theodore Dreiser (2015). “The Genius”, p.859, Booklassic

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• There's a Chaplain who never visited the front.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Foxholes, Chaplains, Fronts

  Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.128, Penguin

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• Atheism is easy in fair weather.

  Ronald Dunn

  Weather, Easy, Fairs

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• I can't believe in the God of my Fathers. If there is one Mind which understands all things, it will comprehend me in my unbelief. I don't know whose hand hung Hesperus in the sky, and fixed the Dog Star, and scattered the shining dust of Heaven, and fired the sun, and froze the darkness between the lonely worlds that spin in space.

  Gerald Kersh

  Lonely, Dog, Stars

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• The Bible: a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Faith Religion, Wickedness

  Thomas Paine (1861). “The Age of Reason, etc”, p.7

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• The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Government, Political

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Inaugural addresses and messages. Replies to public addresses. Indian addresses. Miscellaneous: 1. Notes on Virginia; 2. Biographical sketches of distinguished men; 3. The batture of New Orleans”, p.400

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• The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, "There's a Chaplain who never visited the front.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Atheist, Religion, Foxholes

  Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.128, Penguin

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• Atheism can never be an institution ... it can never be more than a destitution.

  Robert Collyer

  Institutions

  "Yesterday in the Pulpit". The New York Times, www.nytimes.com. March 6, 1882.

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• I would, like any other scientist, willingly change my mind if the evidence led me to do so. So I care about what's true, I care about evidence, I care about evidence as the reason for knowing what is true. It is true that I come across rather passionate sometimes - and that's because I am passionate about the truth... I do get very impatient with humbug, with cant, with fakery, with charlatans.

  Richard Dawkins

  Knowing, Mind, Passionate

  "Belief" Interview, www.bbc.co.uk. October 22, 2009.

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• What good fortune for those in power that people do not think.

  Adolf Hitler

  Fear, Thinking, People

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• If the Bible is mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust it to tell us where we're going ?

  Justin Brown

  Bible, Religion, Mistaken

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• The atheist has no hope.

  James Freeman Clarke

  Atheist, No Hope

  James Freeman Clarke (1870). “Steps of Belief: Or, Rational Christianity Maintained Against Atheism, Free Religion, and Romanism”, p.63

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• This is one of the great social functions of science - to free people from superstition

  Steven Weinberg

  People, Superstitions, Social

  Freethought Today, April 2000.

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• No philosophical theory which I have yet come across is a radical improvement on the words of Genesis, that 'In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth'.

  C. S. Lewis

  Philosophical, Heaven, Religion

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.80, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Cults and prophets proclaiming the imminent end of the world have been with us for several millennia, and it has been another sour sort of fun to ridicule them the morning after, when they discover that their calculations were a little off. But, just as with Marxists, there are some among them who are working hard to "hasten the inevitable," not merely anticipating the End Days with joy in their hearts, but taking political action to bring about the conditions they think are the prerequisites for that occasion.

  Daniel Dennett

  Morning, Fun, Heart

  Daniel C. Dennett (2007). “Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon”, p.294, Penguin UK

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• I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.

  Mother Teresa

  Beautiful, Passion, Thinking

  "The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice". Book by Christopher Hitchens, p. 11, 1995.

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• Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, religion no longer offers an explanation for anything important.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religion, Important, Telescopes

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• Atheism can benefit no class of people; neither the unfortunate, whom it bereaves of hope, nor the prosperous, whose joys it renders insipid, nor the soldier, of whom it makes a coward, nor the woman whose beauty and sensibility it mars, nor the mother, who has a son to lose, nor the rulers of men, who have no surer pledge of the fidelity of their subjects than religion.

  François-René de Chateaubriand

  Mother, Son, Men

  "The Genius of Christianity". Book by François-René de Chateaubriand, Part IV, Book VI, Chapter XII. Translated by Charles I. White, D.D. Baltimore: John Murphy, 1871, p. 665, 1802.

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• If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed.

  George Carlin

  Best God, Diseased, Can Do

  George Carlin (2002). “Napalm & Silly Putty”, Hyperion

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• History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Believe, Government

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.193, Cambridge University Press

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• The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists from getting flabby. Let us be duly thankful for out blessings.

  Garrett Hardin

  Dog, Atheist, Blessing

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