Atheism Quotes
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Atheism leads a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue.
Francis Bacon
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The distrust and suspicion which men everywhere evidence toward their adversaries, at all states of historical development, may be regarded as the immediate precursor to the notion of ideology.
Karl Mannheim
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The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.
Mikhail Bakunin
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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
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Eleven times Jesus died on the cross, Eleven times falls down a body thrown upward, Eleven times also I abandon the logical flow of thought.
Daniil Kharms
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During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method was discovered for separating the ideas - which was to try one to see if it worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it. This method became organized, of course, into science.
Richard Feynman
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But if the gods do not exist at all - then we are lost,' I said. On the contrary - we are found!' said Aesop. But when we are afraid, who can we turn to, if not the gods?' Ourselves. We turn to ourselves anyway. We only pretend there are gods and that they care about us. It is a comforting falsehood.
Erica Jong
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According to the bible, Heaven is completely perfect and Hell is completely evil. In Heaven, in order to keep everything completely perfect, everyone in it would have to follow a long, specific set of rules for it to be perfect. Heaven is prison. In Hell, everyone is already evil there, so no rules need to be set to make it completely evil. Hell is freedom.
William Carroll
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The twentieth century prided itself on invalidating the metaphysical. Doubts about the afterlife arose even as so-called nonbelievers attempted to locate surrogates for the loss of meaning atheism occasioned. Enraptured with progress, we deepened our collective worship of science. As incredulity to metanarratives rose, so did a massive publicity campaign to convince us of the omnipotence of science.
Adam Gollner
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Atheism, I began to realize, rested on a less-than-satisfactory evidential basis. The arguments that had once seemed bold, decisive, and conclusive increasingly turned out to be circular, tentative, and uncertain.
Alister E. McGrath
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Atheism was an exceedingly rare phenomenon in antiquity: very few people believed there were literally no gods.
The word “atheism” itself, however, simply means “without the gods,” and one could be “without” them while still acknowledging they existed.
...atheism applied more normally to “anyone who rejected or neglected the traditional modes of honoring the gods.”
That is to say, anyone who abjectly refused to participate in the worship of divine beings could be labeled an atheist.
Such a person could expect a good deal of opprobrium and sometimes civil action.
The Christians were often accused of being atheists.
Obviously that was not because they denied the divine realm but because they refused to acknowledge (and act as if) it was inhabited by more than the one being they worshiped and refused to interact with it in traditional ways.
Bart Ehrman
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Witches admitted their relations with the devil. Our blood boils - how could they be forced to admit this when there is no devil. But reason tells us this is not true. The devil does exist and was in fact the inquisitor.
Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
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There is not a single spot between Christianity and atheism, upon which a man can firmly fix his foot.
Nathanael Emmons
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Science is a limited way of knowing, looking at just the natural world and natural causes. There are a lot of ways human beings understand the universe - through literature, theology, aesthetics, art or music.
Eugenie Scott
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The duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world, and the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.
William Francis Buckley
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There's a principle here and I'm hoping the court will uphold this principle so that we can finally go back and have every American want to stand up, face the flag, place their hand over their heart and pledge to one nation, indivisible, not divided by religion, with liberty and justice for all.
Michael Newdow
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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
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I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
William Ernest Henley
