Positive Atheism Quotes - Page 15

• There is nothing with which it is so dangerous to take liberties as liberty itself.

  Andre Breton

  Atheism, Liberty, Danger

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• The one regret I have about my own abortions is that they cost money that might otherwise have been spent on something more pleasurable, like taking the kids to movies and theme parks.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Regret, Kids, Abortion

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

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• There is only one thing that arouses animals more than pleasure, and that is pain. Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told, everything you have read returns to your mind, as if you were being transported, not toward heaven, but toward hell. Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond (this, truly, diabolical) is established between you and him.

  Umberto Eco

  Pain, Animal, Heaven

  Umberto Eco (2014). “The Name of the Rose”, p.65, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.

  Lord Acton

  Atheism, Sin, Liable

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• Any hope that America would finally grow up vanished with the rise of fundamentalist Christianity. Fundamentalism, with its born-again regression, its pink-and-gold concept of heaven, its literal-mindedness, its rambunctious good cheer... its anti-intellectualism... its puerile hymns... and its faith-healing... are made to order for King Kid America.

  Florence King

  Christian, Kings, Cheer

  Florence King (1990). “Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye”, p.33, Macmillan

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• Open your mouth and shut your eyes and see what Zeus will send you.

  Aristophanes

  Eye, Atheism, Mouths

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• As you know, God is generally on the side of the big squadrons against the small ones.

  Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy

  God, Atheism, Sides

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• In the crowd, herd, or gang, it is a mass-mind that operates-which is to say, a mind without subtlety, a mind without compassion, a mind, finally, uncivilized.

  Robert M. Lindner

  Compassion, Mind, Atheism

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• The only hope I can see for the future depends on a wiser and braver use of the reason, not a panic flight from it.

  F. L. Lucas

  Atheism, Use, Panic

  F. L. Lucas (2015). “The Search for Good Sense: Four Eighteenth-Century Characters: Johnson, Chesterfield, Boswell and Goldsmith”, p.127, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• People make a lot of fuss about my kids having such supposedly 'strange names', but the fact is that no matter what first names I might have given them, it is the last name that is going to get them in trouble.

  Frank Zappa

  Funny, Humorous, Kids

  Frank Zappa, Peter Occhiogrosso (1990). “Real Frank Zappa Book”, p.247, Simon and Schuster

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• The awe and dread with which the untutored savage contemplates his mother-in-law are amongst the most familiar facts of anthropology.

  James G. Frazer

  Family, Mother, Men

  "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion". Book by James G. Frazer, 1890.

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• Thanks to the toleration preached by the encyclopedists of the eighteenth century, the sorcerer is exempt from torture.

  Honore de Balzac

  Atheism, Thanks, Century

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• There is a powerful desire by majorities to assert a religious identity for the country.

  Jack Balkin

  Country, Religious, Powerful

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• It turns out that the word atheism means much less than I had thought. It is merely the lack of theism.

  Dan Barker

  Mean, Atheism, Turns

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

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• Look at the posture of prayer. It is the posture of slavery, of bowing before your master. We are a proudly rebellious country. We kicked out the master. Now here comes the government telling us to humbly bow again.

  Dan Barker

  Country, Prayer, Government

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• It is wrong for a secular government to promote prayer. We think the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. What if the president declared a National Day of Cursing God because He failed us on September 11? Americans would say, "You've overstepped your authority." That's how we feel when he promotes prayer.

  Dan Barker

  Prayer, Thinking, Government

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• Basic atheism is not a belief. It is the lack of belief. There is a difference between believing there is no god and not believing there is a god - both are atheistic, though popular usage has ignored the latter.

  Dan Barker

  Believe, Differences, Atheism

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

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• Atheists are suffering from bad PR. What if Sesame Street had an atheist character?

  Dan Barker

  Atheist, Character, Suffering

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• The reasoning isn't crazy. It's technically correct. If you're being true to the idea that government must not take positions on religious questions, then the Ninth Circuit opinion is quite persuasive.

  Jack Balkin

  Religious, Crazy, Ideas

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• The orthodox faith painted God as a revengeful being, and yet people talk about loving such a being.

  P. T. Barnum

  People, Atheism, Orthodox

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• The trouble is that neutrality is confused with hostility. We're not disrupting churches, or interrupting people's prayers. We're not fighting religion.

  Dan Barker

  Prayer, Confused, Fighting

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• Prayer never changes the laws of nature.

  Dan Barker

  Prayer, Law, Atheism

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• A devotion to humanity is... too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.

  James A. Baldwin

  Humanity, Atheism, Causes

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• When church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued.

  Isaac Backus

  Church, Together, Atheism

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• Religious liberty in a nation is as real as the liberty of its least popular religious minority. Look not to the size of cathedrals or even to the words on the statute books for proof of the reality of religious freedom. Ask what is the fate of the Protestant in Spain, the Jew in Saudi Arabia, the Arab in Israel, the Catholic in Poland or the atheist in the United States.

  Paul Blanshard

  Religious, Atheist, Real

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