Atheist Quotes - Page 19

• Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Believe, Want, Vedanta

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1621, Manonmani Publishers

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• Atheism is a disease of the mind caused by eating underdone philosophy

  Austin O'Malley

  Philosophy, Mind, Atheism

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• In the theater you create a moment, but in that moment, there is a touch, a twinkle of eternity. And not just eternity, but community. . . . That connection is a sense of life for me.

  Edward Teller

  Community, Atheism, Connections

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• I'm a praying atheist. When I hear an ambulance siren, I ask for a blessing for those people in trouble, knowing that no one's listening. I think it's just a habit of mindfulness.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Blessing, Thinking, Knowing

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• I used to believe in God. The Christian one, that is (There are a few thousand to choose from. But I was born in a country where the dominant religion was Christianity so I believed in that one. Isn't it weird how that always happens?). Luckily I was also interested in science and nature. And reason and logic. And honesty and truth. And equality and fairness. By the age of eight I was an atheist.

  Ricky Gervais

  Christian, Country, Honesty

  "Repeat offender: New Humanist interviews Ricky Gervais". New Humanist interview, newhumanist.org.uk. September 5, 2011.

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• The Bible: a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind.

  Thomas Paine

  Faith Religion, Atheism, Wickedness

  Thomas Paine (1861). “The Age of Reason, etc”, p.7

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• To escape the power of the unknown, to prove to yourself that you don't believe in it, you accept its spells. Like an avowed atheist who sees the Devil at night, you reason: He certainly doesn't exist; this is therefore an illusion, perhaps a result of indigestion. But the Devil is sure that he exists, and believes in his upside-down theology. What, then, will frighten him? You make the sign of the cross, and he vanishes in a puff of brimstone.

  Umberto Eco

  Believe, Book, Night

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.171, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• It was apparent to me that religion was an invented thing, a wish-fulfillment thing, a fantasy thing. It was much more real, dangerous, to accept that mortality was the end for you as an individual. As an atheist, I don't believe in an afterlife, so if you're thinking of murder, if your subject is murder, then that's a physical act of absolute destruction because you're ending something, a body, that is unique. That person never existed before, will never exist again, will not be karmically recycled, will not go to heaven, therefore I take it seriously.

  David Cronenberg

  Real, Believe, Unique

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• If all the Atheists & Agnostics left America, they'd lose 93% of The National Academy of Sciences & less than 1% of the prison population.

  Ricky Gervais

  Prison Population, America, Academy

  Twitter post from May 1, 2013

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• People think that atheists have nothing to live for, but that's not true - it's that we have nothing to die for.

  Matthew Healy

  Thinking, People, Dies

  "The 1975's Matt Healy on That Time Usher Mistook Him for Skrillex". Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. June 27, 2016.

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• If we are going to teach creation science as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction.

  Judith Hayes

  Alternatives, Creation Science, Evolution

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• It just seems like atheists are not included in the basket of diversity in America, which is odd because we are the biggest minority. That is a bigger minority than any other minority you can name.

  Bill Maher

  Names, America, Diversity

  Source: www.patheos.com

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• I'm culturally Jewish but, like most scientists, an atheist: I don't believe there's a God or supernatural world. Buddhism offers guidance on what to do in a world without God: It opines that truly being present in the world‚ experiencing and hanging out with your loved ones, provides all the significance you could want.

  Alison Gopnik

  Believe, Buddhism, World

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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• I am an atheist. I have a very different take on who God is. Man invented God because he needed him. God is us.

  Carl Reiner

  Men, Different, Who God Is

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• If only I wasn't an atheist, I could get away with anything. You'd just ask for forgiveness and then you'd be forgiven. It sounds much better than having to live with guilt.

  Keira Knightley

  Guilt, Sound, Asking For Forgiveness

  Interview with David Cronenberg, www.interviewmagazine.com. March 26, 2012.

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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

  Comforting, Atheism, Care

  Erica Jong (2013). “Sappho's Leap: A Novel”, p.266, Open Road Media

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• Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds.

  Neal Stephenson

  Christian, Intelligent, Ninety Nine

  Neal Stephenson (2003). “Snow Crash”, p.69, Spectra

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• Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

  Oscar Wilde

  Faith, Religion, Matter

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “Epigrams”, p.99, BoD – Books on Demand

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• There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.

  Primo Levi

  Auschwitz

  "Primo Levi: The Matter of a Life by Berel Lang - review" by Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. February 2, 2014.

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• Great God, grant that twice two be not four.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Two, Four, Morality And Religion

  Poems in Prose "Prayer" (1881)

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• Although God believers don't need evolution to be false, atheists need evolution to be true.

  Ann Coulter

  Needs, Evolution, Being True

  Ann Coulter (2006). “Godless: The Church of Liberalism”, p.199, Crown Forum

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• I cannot see why we should expect an infinite God to do better in another world than he does in this.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Doe, World, Infinite

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2153, Library of Alexandria

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• But the lack of faith could just as well be a crutch for non-believers, allowing them to live their lives without any concept of accountability and giving them some sort of false confidence. The different is that while Catholicism has an abundance of intellectual underpinnings to support its arguments, anti-Catholicism and atheist have few if any.

  Michael Coren

  Giving, Accountability, Support

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• For me, men are not divided into believers and atheists, but between oppressors and oppressed, between those who want to keep this unjust society and those who want to struggle for justice.

  Frei Betto

  Struggle, Men, Unjust Society

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• We live at a time that is notable for the polemical nature of discussions about identity, consciousness, rationality, agency, memory, and feeling. 'New atheists' and reductive materialists conduct gladiatorial debates against defenders of faith and enemies of reductionism. Lots of heat is produced, but, alas, little light is shed. How marvelous it is, then, to see this fine new book by Lenn E. Goodman and Gregory Caramenico. Here is a learned, illuminating, and decidedly non-polemical treatment of the classic questions of soul, mind, and brain-an exemplary work of scholarship.

  Robert P. George

  Memories, Book, Agency

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