Steven Weinberg Quotes About Atheism

Quotes about: Atheism

• With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

  Steven Weinberg

  God, Religious, Atheist

  "Behaving Badly? Stop Using Religion as an Excuse!" by Roy Speckhardt, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 2, 2014.

• One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, Intelligent, People

  Steven Weinberg (2012). “Facing Up”, p.242, Harvard University Press

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

  Steven Weinberg

  People, Atheism, Superstitions

  Freethought Today, April 2000.

• I think enormous harm is done by religion - not just in the name of religion, but actually by religion. ... Many people do simply awful things out of sincere religious belief, not using religion as a cover the way that Saddam Hussein may have done, but really because they believe that this is what God wants them to do, going all the way back to Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac because God told him to do that. Putting God ahead of humanity is a terrible thing.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, Believe, Sacrifice

• They felt that science would be corrosive to religious belief and they were worried about it. Damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive to religious belief and it's a good thing.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, Atheist, Thinking

  "Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief" (BBC Four), 2005.

• The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religion, Atheism, Seems

  The First Three Minutes epilogue (1977)

• On balance the moral influence of religion has been awful.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religion, Balance, Atheism

  Steven Weinberg (2012). “Facing Up”, p.241, Harvard University Press

• The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.

  Steven Weinberg

  Death, Spiritual, Religious

• For good people to do evil things, it takes religion.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, Atheist, If There Is A God

• If there is a God that has special plans for humans, then He has taken very great pains to hide His concern for us. To me it would seem impolite if not impious to bother such a God with our prayers.

  Steven Weinberg

  Prayer, Pain, Taken

  Steven Weinberg (1992). “Dreams of a Final Theory”, Pantheon

• The whole history of the last thousands of years has been a history of religious persecutions and wars, pogroms, jihads, crusades. I find it all very regrettable, to say the least.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, War, Years

  "SCIENTIST AT WORK: Steven Weinberg; Physicist Ponders God, Truth and 'Final Theory'" by James Glanz, www.nytimes.com. January 25, 2000.

• The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.

  Steven Weinberg

  Life, Education, Money

  Steven Weinberg (2012). “Facing Up”, p.42, Harvard University Press

• Science should be taught not in order to support religion and not in order to destroy religion. Science should be taught simply ignoring religion.

  Steven Weinberg

  Order, Support, Atheism

  Freethought Today (unidentified article/page), April 2000.

• Though aware that there is nothing in the universe that suggests any purpose for humanity, one way that we can find a purpose is to study the universe by the methods of science, without consoling ourselves with fairy tales about its future, or about our own.

  Steven Weinberg

  Humanity, Atheism, Way

  Steven Weinberg (2012). “Lake Views”, p.45, Harvard University Press

• [Science] is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, Atheist, Religion

  "The Atheism Tapes", 2004.

• Even though their arguments did not invoke religion, I think we all know what's behind these arguments. They're trying to protect religious beliefs from contradiction by science. They used to do it by prohibiting teachers from teaching evolution at all; then they wanted to teach intelligent design as an alternative theory; now they want the supposed "weaknesses" in evolution pointed out. But it's all the same program - it's all an attempt to let religious ideas determine what is taught in science courses.

  Steven Weinberg

  Teacher, Religious, Teaching

• Most scientists I know don't care enough about religion even to call themselves atheists.

  Steven Weinberg

  Atheist, Atheism, Care

• It seems a bit unfair to my relatives to be murdered in order to provide an opportunity for free will for Germans, but even putting that aside, how does free will account for cancer? Is it an opportunity of free will for tumors?

  Steven Weinberg

  Cancer, Opportunity, Order

  Steven Weinberg (2001). “Facing Up”, p.240, Harvard University Press

• If language is to be of any use to us, then we ought to try and preserve the meaning of words, and 'god' historically has not meant the laws of nature.

  Steven Weinberg

  Law, Religion, Atheism

• I can hope that this long sad story, this progression of priests and ministers and rabbis and ulamas and imams and bonzes and bodhisattvas, will come to an end. I hope this is something to which science can contribute ... it may be the most important contribution that we can make.

  Steven Weinberg

  Long, Important, Atheism

• [C]reationists [and] other religious enthusiasts [are], in many parts of the world ..., the most dangerous adversaries of science.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, Atheism, World

• I enjoy being at a meeting that doesn't start with an invocation!

  Steven Weinberg

  Atheism, Invocation, Enjoy

• Premature as the question may be, it is hardly possible not to wonder whether we will find any answer to our deepest questions, any signs of the workings of an interested God, in a final theory. I think that we will not.

  Steven Weinberg

  Thinking, Atheism, Finals

  Steven Weinberg (2010). “Dreams Of A Final Theory: The Search for The Fundamental Laws of Nature”, p.76, Random House

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