Positive Atheism Quotes - Page 19

• When every event was a miracle, when there was no order or system or law, there was no occasion for studying any subject, or being interested in anything excepting a religion which took care of the soul. As man doubted the primitive conceptions about religion, and no longer accepted the literal, miraculous teachings of ancient books, he set himself to understand nature.

  Clarence Darrow

  Book, Teaching, Men

  "Why I Am an Agnostic: Including Expressions of Faith from a Protestant, a Catholic and a Jew". Book by Clarence Darrow, 1929.

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• A prison is confining to the body, but whether it affects the mind, depends entirely upon the mind.

  Clarence Darrow

  Mind, Atheism, Body

  Clarence Darrow (1995). “Why I Am an Agnostic and Other Essays”

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• As he was pummeled into one tight spot after another, emerging each time breathless and in amazed chagrin, Bryan flushed, with spots of anger in his cheeks. His whole body sagged. Before our very eyes, he became a beaten man.

  E. Haldeman-Julius

  Eye, Men, Atheism

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• It is like confessing to a murder.

  Charles Darwin

  Atheism, Murder, Confessing

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• Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven.

  Richard Dawkins

  Powerful, Believe, People

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• Not a single one of your ancestors died young. They all copulated at least once.

  Richard Dawkins

  Atheism, Young, Ancestor

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• Society bends over backward to be accommodating to religious sensibilities but not to other kinds of sensibilities. If I say something offensive to religious people, I'll be universally censured, including by many atheists.

  Richard Dawkins

  Religious, Atheist, People

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• The state authorities have no place in the church of God, no right to control and persecute the conscience.

  Hans Denck

  Atheism, Church, Authority

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• Has it ever occurred to you how lucky you are to be alive? More than 99 percent of all the creatures that have ever lived have died without progeny, but not a single one of your ancestors falls into that group! ... Not a single one of your ancestors, all the way back to the bacteria, succumbed to predation before reproducing, or lost out in the competition for a mate.

  Daniel Dennett

  Fall, Competition, Atheism

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• The plain message conveyed by the new administration is that George W Bush's America is a Christian nation, and that non-Christians are welcome into the tent so long as they agree to accept their status as a tolerated minority rather than as fully equal citizens. In effect, Bush is saying: "This is our home, and in our home we pray to Jesus as our savior. If you want to be a guest in our home, you must accept the way we pray."

  Alan Dershowitz

  Christian, Jesus, Home

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• But the United States is neither a Christian nation nor the exclusive home of any particular religious group. Non-Christians are not guests. We are as much hosts as any Mayflower-descendant Protestant. It is our home as well as theirs. And in a home with so many owners, there can be no official sectarian prayer. That is what the First Amendment is all about, and the first act by the new administration was in defiance of our Constitution.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Christian, Religious, Prayer

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• There can be no doubt ... of our dependence upon forces beyond our control. Primitive man was so impotent in the face of these forces that g , especially in an unfavorable natural environment, fear became a dominant attitude, and, as the old saying goes, fear created gods.

  John Dewey

  Attitude, Men, Primitive Man

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• It has been petrified into a slavery of thought and sentiment, as intolerant superiority on the part of the few and an intolerable burden on the part of the many.

  John Dewey

  Atheism, Slavery, Burden

  John Dewey (2012). “Human Nature and Conduct”, p.331, Courier Corporation

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• There is nothing left worth preserving in the notions of unseen powers, controlling human destiny, to which obedience and worship are due.

  John Dewey

  Destiny, Atheism, Unseen

  John Dewey (1960). “A Common Faith”, p.7, Yale University Press

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• Criticism of the commitment of religion to the supernatural is thus positive in import.

  John Dewey

  Commitment, Criticism, Atheism

  William James, John Dewey, John M. Capps, Donald Capps (2005). “James and Dewey on Belief and Experience”, p.245, University of Illinois Press

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• Religions have been universal in the sense that all the people we know anything about have had a religion. But the differences among them are so great and so shocking that any common element that can be extracted is meaningless.... The older apologists for Christianity seem to have been better advised than some modern ones in condemning every religion but one as an impostor, as at bottom some kind of demon worship or at any rate a superstitious figment.

  John Dewey

  Differences, People, Atheism

  John Dewey, Larry Hickman, Thomas M. Alexander (1998). “The Essential Dewey: Pragmatism, education, democracy”, p.403, Indiana University Press

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• Sweet Skepticism of the Heart That knows and does not know And tosses like a Fleet of Balm Affronted by the snow.

  Emily Dickinson

  Sweet, Heart, Snow

  Emily Dickinson (1955). “Poems: including variant readings critically compared with all known manuscripts”, Belknap Press

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• They address an Eclipse every morning, whom they call their "Father."

  Emily Dickinson

  Morning, Father, Atheism

  Emily Dickinson, James Reeves (1959). “Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.10, Heinemann

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• When we think of his lone effort to live and its bleak reward, the mind turns to the myth "for His mercy endureth forever," with confiding revulsion.

  Emily Dickinson

  Thinking, Forever, Effort

  Emily Dickinson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Emily Dickinson (Illustrated)”, p.2349, Delphi Classics

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• At least to pray is left - is left Oh Jesus - in the Air - I know not which thy chamber is - I'm knocking everywhere.

  Emily Dickinson

  Jesus, Air, Atheism

  Emily Dickinson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Emily Dickinson (Illustrated)”, p.136, Delphi Classics

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• Gentleness and peacefulness regulate our proceedings; theirs are dictated by fury. We employ reason, they accumulate faggots. They preach nothing but love, and breathe nothing but blood. Their words are humane, but their hearts are cruel.

  Denis Diderot

  Heart, Blood, Atheism

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• By dipping us children in the Bible so often, they hoped, I think, to give our lives a serious tint, and to provide us with quaintly magnificent snatches of prayer to produce as charms while, say, being mugged for our cash or jewels.

  Annie Dillard

  Prayer, Children, Thinking

  Annie Dillard (2016). “An American Childhood”, p.126, Canongate Books

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• Science may have come a long way, but as far as religion is concerned, we are first cousins to the !Kung tribesmen of the Kalahari Desert. Except for the garments, their deep religious trances might just as well be happening at a revival meeting or in the congregation of a fundamentalist TV preacher.... As we move further from the life of ignorance and superstition in which religion has its roots, we seem to need it more and more.... Why has religion become a force just when we'd have thought it would be losing ground to secularism?

  Phil Donahue

  Religious, Cousin, Moving

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• Nonbelievers are protected by the religion clauses of the Constitution not because secular humanism is a religion, which it is not, but because when the government acts on the basis of religion it discriminates against those who do not "believe" in the governmentally favored manner.

  Norman Dorsen

  Believe, Government, Atheism

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• Zealous groups threaten to infringe civil liberties when they seek government support to impose their own religious views on nonadherents. This has taken many forms, including attempts to introduce organized prayer in public schools, to outlaw birth control and abortion, and to use public tax revenues to finance religious schools.

  Norman Dorsen

  Religious, Prayer, Taken

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