Positive Atheism Quotes - Page 38

• As you know, a theory in physics is not useful unless it is able to predict underlined effects which we would otherwise expect.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Atheism, Able, Physics

  Richard P. Feynman (2008). “Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman”, p.116, Hachette UK

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• No! Not for a second! I immediately began to think how this could have happened. And I realized that the clock was old and was always breaking. That the clock probably stopped some time before and the nurse coming in to the room to record the time of death would have looked at the clock and jotted down the time from that. I never made any supernatural connection, not even for a second. I just wanted to figure out how it happened.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Thinking, Nurse, Atheism

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• Once we were driving in the midwest and we pulled into a McDonald's. Someone came up to me and asked me why I have Feynman diagrams all over my van. I replied, "Because I am Feynman!" The young man went, "Ahhhhh!"

  Richard P. Feynman

  Men, Mcdonalds, Atheism

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• The supernatural does not exist.

  Camille Flammarion

  Atheism, Doe

  Camille Flammarion (2012). “Death and Its Mystery”, p.39, David & Charles

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• You cannot ... transmute some incoherent mixture of words into sense merely by introducing the three-letter word "God" to be its grammatical subject.

  Antony Flew

  Atheism, Three, Mixtures

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• If it is to be established that there is a God, then we have to have good grounds for believing that this is indeed so. Until and unless some such grounds are produced we have literally no reason at all for believing; and in that situation the only reasonable posture must be that of either the negative atheist or the agnostic. So the onus of proof has to rest on the proposition of theism.

  Antony Flew

  Atheist, Believe, Atheism

  Antony Flew, John Shosky (1998). “Philosophical Essays”, p.6, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Pascal makes no attempt in this most famous argument to show that his Roman Catholicism is true or probably true. The reasons which he suggests for making the recommended bet on his particular faith are reasons in the sense of motives rather than reasons in the sense of grounds. Conceding, if only for the sake of the present argument, that we can have no knowledge here, Pascal tries to justify as prudent a policy of systematic self-persuasion, rather than to provide grounds for thinking that the beliefs recommended are actually true.

  Antony Flew

  Thinking, Self, Atheism

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• In the ordinary, everyday understandings of the words involved, to say that someone survived death is to contradict yourself; while to assert that all of us live forever is to assert a manifest falsehood, the flat contrary of a universally known truth: namely, the truth that all human beings are mortal. For when, after some disaster, the 'dead' and the 'survivors' have both been listed, what logical space remains for a third category?

  Antony Flew

  Space, Forever, Understanding

  Antony Flew (2000). “Merely Mortal?: Can You Survive Your Own Death?”

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• However far back we may be able to trace the - so to speak - internal history of the Universe, there can be no question of arguing that this or that external origin is either probable or improbable. We do not have, and we necessarily could not have, experience of other Universes to tell us that Universes, or Universes with these particular features, are the work of Gods, or of Gods of this or that particular sort.

  Antony Flew

  Atheism, May, Able

  Antony Flew (1984). “God, freedom, and immortality: a critical analysis”

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• Someone tells us that God loves us as a father loves his children. We are reassured. But then something awful happens. Some qualification is made.... We are reassured again. But then perhaps we ask: what is this assurance of God's (appropriately qualified) love worth, what is this apparent guarantee really a guarantee against? Just what would have to happen not merely (morally and wrongly) to tempt but also (logically and rightly) to entitle us to say "God does not love us" or even "God does not exist"?

  Antony Flew

  Children, Father, Atheism

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• Atheists are often charged with blasphemy, but it is a crime they cannot commit... When the Atheist examines, denounces, or satirises the gods, he is not dealing with persons but with ideas. He is incapable of insulting God, for he does not admit the existence of any such being... We attack not a person but a belief, not a binge but an idea, not a fact but a fancy.

  George William Foote

  Atheist, Ideas, Insulting

  "Who Are the Blasphemers? (June 1882)". "Flowers of Freethought". Book by George William Foote, p. 112, www.ftarchives.net. 1893.

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• Proclaim a theology of divine righteousness which demands justice, respect, tolerance, compassion, inclusiveness, trust in the ultimate efficacy of divine zeal, and the rigorous pursuit of peace in the midst of competing interests and faith claims.

  James A. Forbes

  Compassion, Justice, Tolerance

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• Sudden conversion ... is particularly attractive to the half-baked mind.

  E. M. Forster

  Mind, Atheism, Half

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• The fact that all our ape cousins - chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans - can acquire signs - is powerful evidence that our hominid ancestors' first language was gestural and that the vocal version of language was a relatively recent development. My own guess is that vocal language began emerging about 200,000 years ago.

  Roger Fouts

  Cousin, Powerful, Years

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• The chimps love holidays - in fact Tatu actually anticipates them and asks about them.

  Roger Fouts

  Holiday, Atheism, Facts

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• Growing up on a farm taught me a reverence for all forms of life. We were a large and poor farm family, so that meant that we had to kill and eat our animal friends. When you do that you are aware of the sacrifice that someone is making so that you may live. My mother always made sure we were thankful for those precious gifts.

  Roger Fouts

  Mother, Growing Up, Sacrifice

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• Being an atheist is a matter not of moral choice, but of human obligation.

  John Fowles

  Atheist, Choices, Atheism

  John Fowles (2010). “Wormholes”, p.28, Random House

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• Some of the old laws of Israel are clearly savage taboos of a familiar type thinly disguised as commands of the Deity.

  James G. Frazer

  Israel, Law, Atheism

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• Theologians are all alike, of whatever religion or country they may be; their aim is always to wield despotic authority over men's consciences; they therefore persecute all of us who have the temerity to tell the truth.

  Frederick The Great

  Country, Men, Atheism

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• The true believer is in a high degree protected against the danger of certain neurotic afflictions; by accepting the universal neurosis he is spared the task of forming a personal neurosis.

  Sigmund Freud

  Atheism, Tasks, Affliction

  The Future of an Illusion Ch. 8

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• The rest of our enquiry is made easy because this God-Creator is openly called Father. Psycho-analysis concludes that he really is the father, clothed in the grandeur in which he once appeared to the small child.

  Sigmund Freud

  Children, Father, Atheism

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• Counterfeit tolerance includes the opportunism of one who seeks, or accepts, tolerance for himself, as a minority, but who would deny it to others if ever he should be in a position to grant it.

  Carl Joachim Friedrich

  Tolerance, Atheism, Minorities

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• I have long been convinced that the Christian Eucharist is but a continuation of the Eleusinian mysteries. St Paul, in using the word teleiois, almost confirms this.

  James Anthony Froude

  Christian, Long, Atheism

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• The Bible should be taught so early and so thoroughly that it sinks straight to the bottom of the mind where everything that comes along can settle on it.

  Northrop Frye

  Mind, Atheism, Taught

  Northrop Frye, Germaine Warkentin (2006). “Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962”, p.475, University of Toronto Press

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• It is a curiosity of human nature that lack of self-assurance seems to breed an exaggerated sense of power and mission.

  J. William Fulbright

  Self, Curiosity, Atheism

  J. William Fulbright (2011). “The Arrogance of Power”, p.36, Random House

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