Positive Atheism Quotes - Page 2

• Even of death Christianity has made a terror which was unknown to the gay calmness of the Pagan and the stoical repose of the Indian.

  Ouida

  Christian, Gay, Religion

  "Views and Opinions".

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• Instead of establishing facts, we have to overthrow errors; instead of ascertaining what is, we have to chase from our imaginations what is not.

  Frances Wright

  Errors, Imagination, Atheism

  Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures”, p.65

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• How to raise this dead level of theistic belief is really a matter of life and death for all denominations. Therefore their tolerance; but it is a tolerance not of understanding; but of weakness.

  Emma Goldman

  Life And Death, Understanding, Tolerance

  Emma Goldman (1915). “Mother Earth, a Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Social Science and Literature”

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• Have not all theists painted their Deity as the god of love and goodness? Yet after thousands of years of such preachments the gods remain deaf to the agony of the human race. Confucius cares not for the poverty, squalor and misery of the people of China. Buddha remains undisturbed in his philosophical indifference to the famine and starvation of outraged Hindoos; Jahve continues deaf to the bitter cry of Israel; while Jesus refuses to rise from the dead against his Christians who are butchering each other.

  Emma Goldman

  Christian, Jesus, Philosophical

  Emma Goldman (1915). “Mother Earth, a Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Social Science and Literature”

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• The God idea is growing more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is learning to understand natural phenomena and in the degree that science progressively correlates human and social events.

  Emma Goldman

  Ideas, Mind, Atheism

  Emma Goldman (1998). “Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader”

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• It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.

  Eric Hoffer

  People, Being Positive, Atheism

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• Religion grows with the intelligence of man, but all religions of the past and probably all of the future will sooner or later become petrified forms instead of living helps to mankind. Until that time comes, however, if religion of any name or nature makes man more happy, comfortable, and able to live peaceably with his brothers, it is good.

  Luther Burbank

  Brother, Men, Past

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• Every true Freethinker accords to each individual the right to mental freedom. Where this freedom leads is no concern of others so long as it encroaches not upon their rights.

  Etta Semple

  Rights, Long, Atheism

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• Jesus cursed a living tree and it died; Mohammed blessed a dead tree and it lived.

  John Remsburg

  Jesus, Blessed, Tree

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• There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.

  Lord Acton

  Ignorance, Simple, Two

  "Lord Acton and his Circle". Book by Abbot Francis Aidan Gasquet, 1906.

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• There cannot be a personal God without a pessimistic religion. As soon as there is a personal God he is a disappointing God.

  Cyril Connolly

  God, Atheism, Pessimistic

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• Science boosts its claim to truth by its spectacular ability to make matter and energy jump through hoops on command, and to predict what will happen and when.

  Richard Dawkins

  Atheism, Energy, Matter

  Richard Dawkins (2004). “A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love”, p.15, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The Truth never flaunted a sign.

  Emily Dickinson

  Atheism

  Emily Dickinson, Ralph William Franklin (1999). “The Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.494, Harvard University Press

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• You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time, but I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime.

  Dan Barker

  Accusing Me, Doubt, Atheism

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

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• Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Death, Religious, Dying

  Ambrose Bierce (1909). “The Shadow on the Dial: And Other Essays”

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• Those who dare to interpret God's will must never claim Him as an asset for one nation or group rather than another. War springs from the love and loyalty which should be offered to God being applied to some God substitute, one of the most dangerous being nationalism.

  Robert Runcie

  Loyalty, Spring, War

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• Give us a religion that will help us to live - we can die without assistance.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Giving, Religion, Atheism

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• The true ideal is not opposed to the real but lies in it; and blessed are the eyes that find it.

  James Russell Lowell

  Real, Lying, Blessed

  James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.1199, Delphi Classics

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• The dearest ambition of a slave is not liberty, but to have a slave of his own.

  Richard Francis Burton

  Ambition, Atheism, Liberty

  Richard Francis Burton, John Payne, Andrew Lang, Jonathan Scott (2015). “One Thousand and One Nights - Complete Arabian Nights Collection (Delphi Classics)”, p.5890, Delphi Classics

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• Mother goddesses are just as silly a notion as father gods. If a revival of the myths of these cults gives woman emotional satisfaction, it does so at the price of obscuring the real conditions of life. This is why they were invented in the first place.

  Angela Carter

  Life, God, Mother

  Angela Carter (2015). “The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History”, p.7, Hachette UK

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• Wherever God erects a house of prayer
  the Devil always builds a chapel there;
  And 't will be found, upon examination,
  the latter has the largest congregation.

  Daniel Defoe

  Prayer, House, Atheism

  'The True-Born Englishman' (1701) pt. 1, l. 1.

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• A heretic, my dear sir, is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about.

  William Cowper

  Atheism, Dear, Heretic

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• It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not violation of integrity.

  Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

  Integrity, Names, Atheism

  Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, India. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (1960). “Occasional speeches and writings, October 1952-January 1956”

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  Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives.

  Barry Goldwater

  Religious, Freedom, Views

  "Excerpts From Goldwater Remarks". Remarks in the Congressional Record, www.nytimes.com. September 15, 1981.

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• Christianity has operated with an unmitigated arrogance and cruelty - necessarily, since a religion ordinarily imposes on those who have discovered the true faith the spiritual duty of liberating the infidels.

  James A. Baldwin

  Spiritual, Arrogance, Atheism

  "Letter from a Region of My Mind" by James A. Baldwin in "The New Yorker" (November 17, 1962), republished as "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind" in James A. Baldwin "The Fire Next Time", 1963.

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