Agnosticism Quotes - Page 7

• The religious hypothesis, therefore, must be considered only as a particular method of accounting for the visible phenomena of the universe: but no just reasoner will ever presume to infer from it any single fact, and alter or add to the phenomena, in any single particular.

  David Hume

  Religious, Atheism, Add

  David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects”, p.360

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• The Fundamentalist Christians have told me that I am a slave of Satan and should have my demons expelled with an exorcism. The Fundamentalist Materialists inform me that I am a liar, charlatan, fraud and scoundrel. Aside from this minor difference, the letters are astoundingly similar. Both groups share the same crusading zeal and the same lack of humor, charity and common human decency. These intolerable cults have served to confirm me in my agnosticism by presenting further evidence to support my contention that when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Christian, Liars, Should Have

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• We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

  Eric Hoffer

  Thinking, Certain, True Believer

  The True Believer Part 3, Chapter XII, Section 57 (p. 79)

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• Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.

  Oscar Wilde

  Believe, Men, Religion

  Epigrams: Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young Sebastian Melmoth

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• You don’t have to be brave or a saint, a martyr, or even very smart to be an atheist. All you have to be able to say is “I don’t know”.

  Penn Jillette

  Atheist, Smart, Brave

  Penn Jillette (2012). “God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

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• The agnostic does not simply say, "l do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know, -- he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact -- he drives you from the realm of reason -- he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture -- into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Dream, Ignorance, Light

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• People are invariably surprised to hear me say I am both an atheist and an agnostic, as if this somehow weakens my certainty. I usually reply with a question like, “Well, are you a Republican or an American?” The two words serve different concepts and are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism addresses knowledge; atheism addresses belief. The agnostic says, “I don't have a knowledge that God exists.” The atheist says, “I don't have a belief that God exists.” You can say both things at the same time. Some agnostics are atheistic and some are theistic.

  Dan Barker

  Atheist, Two, People

  Dan Barker (2009). “Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists”, p.96, Ulysses Press

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• It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity.

  Francis Chan

  Selfish, Light, Land

  Francis Chan, Preston Sprinkle (2014). “The Francis Chan Collection: Crazy Love, Forgotten God, Erasing Hell, and Multiply”, p.44, David C Cook

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• How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the minds of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason.

  Charles Darwin

  Religious, Men, Essence

  Charles Darwin (1871). “The Descent of man”, p.95

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• When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science.

  Charles Darwin

  Eye, Voice, People

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• ... The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom.

  David Hume

  Wise, Intelligent, Ideas

  David Hume, Eric Steinberg (1993). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding ; [with] A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh ; [and] An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature”, p.11, Hackett Publishing

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• The essence of any religion lies solely in the answer to the question: why do I exist, and what is my relationship to the infinite universe that surrounds me? It is impossible for there to be a person with no religion (i.e. without any kind of relationship to the world) as it is for there to be a person without a heart. He may not know that he has a religion, just as a person may not know that he has a heart, but it is no more possible for a person to exist without a religion than without a heart.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Lying, Heart, Essence

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• The prayer of the agnostic: "O God, if there is a God, save my soul if I have a soul."

  Ernest Renan

  Prayer, If There Is A God, Soul

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• The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief - call it what you will - than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.

  A. A. Milne

  Bible, Book, Golf

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.

  H. L. Mencken

  Order, Religion, Atheism

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.89, Vintage

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• A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Religion, Stressed

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.71, Ballantine Books

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• The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Religious, Atheist

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• To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.

  David Hume

  Order, Atheism, Unexpected

  David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition”, p.368

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• Religion has ever filled the mind of man with darkness, and kept him in ignorance of his real duties and true interests. It is by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of religion, that we shall discover truth, morality and reason. Religion diverts us from the causes of evils, and from these remedies which nature advocates, far from curing; it only aggravates, perpetuates and multiplies them.

  Baron d'Holbach

  Real, Ignorance, Men

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• What if God were not exactly truth, and if this could be proved? And if he were instead the vanity, the desire for power, the ambitions, the fear, and the enraptured and terrified folly of mankind?

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Ambition, Vanity, Words Of Wisdom

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “The Dawn of Day”, p.80, Friedrich Nietzsche

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• Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: Great Minds are Skeptical.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Words Of Wisdom, Mind, Atheism

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• And the cause of everything is that which we call God.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Atheism, Causes

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• We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Memories, Believe, Atheism

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, David E. Wellbery (1988). “The Sorrows of Young Werther ; Elective Affinities ; Novella”, p.35, Princeton University Press

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• The complete irresponsibility of man for his actions and his nature is the bitterest drop which he who understands must swallow.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Men, Words Of Wisdom, Atheism

  Friedrich Nietzsche “Writings of Nietzsche: Volume III”, Lulu.com

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