Positive Atheism Quotes - Page 28

• Religious freedom in an open society has the best prospects of flourishing to the extent that it expresses itself as freedom of religious inquiry.

  Sidney Hook

  Religious, Atheism, Inquiry

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• Religion is but a desperate attempt to find an escape from the truly dreadful situation in which we find ourselves. Here we are in this wholly fantastic universe with scarcely a clue as to whether our existence has any real significance. No wonder then that many people feel the need for some belief that gives them a sense of security, and no wonder that they become very angry with people like me who say that this is illusory.

  Fred Hoyle

  Real, People, Giving

  Fred Hoyle (1960). “The nature of the universe”

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• Organized religion, being founded on superstition, is, perforce, not scientific. And all that which is not scientific - that is, truthful - must be bolstered up by force, fear and falsehood. Thus we always find slavery and organized religion going hand in hand.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Hands, Atheism, Slavery

  Elbert Hubbard (1922). “Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard ...”

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• Martyrs and persecutors are the same type of man. As to which is the persecutor and which the martyr, this is only a question of transient power.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Men, Atheism, Type

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• Theology is Classified Superstition.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Atheism, Superstitions, Theology

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• A creed is an ossified metaphor.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Atheism, Metaphor, Creeds

  Elbert Hubbard (1911). “A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard”

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• Orthodoxy is a corpse that doesn't know it's dead.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Atheism, Orthodoxy, Corpses

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• Dogma is a lie reiterated and authoritatively injected into the mind of one or more persons who believe that they believe what someone else believes.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Lying, Believe, Mind

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• Formal religion was organized for slaves: it offered them consolation which earth did not provide.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Atheism, Earth, Slave

  Elbert Hubbard (1908). “Health & Wealth”

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• What we call God's justice is only man's idea of what he would do if he were God.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Men, Ideas, Justice

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• When certain unmarried men, who had lost their capacity to sin, sat indoors, breathing bad air, and passed resolutions about what was right and what wrong, making rules for the guidance of the people, instead of trusting to the natural, happy instincts of the individual, they ushered in the Dark Ages. These are the gentlemen who blocked human evolution absolutely for a thousand years.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Dark, Men, Air

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• Both of them were very good and kind - the one who went to church and the one who didn't. And no doubt from them I learned to like both Christians and sinners equally well.

  Langston Hughes

  Christian, Doubt, Atheism

  Langston Hughes (2002). “The Collected Works of Langston Hughes”, p.41, University of Missouri Press

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• Every step which the intelligence of Europe has taken has been in spite of the clerical party.

  Victor Hugo

  Party, Taken, Europe

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• Nothing is so convenient as a decisive argument ... which must at least silence the most arrogant bigotry and superstition, and free us from their impertinent solicitations. I flatter myself, that I have discovered an argument ... which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and consequently, will be useful as long as the world endures. For so long, I presume, will the accounts of miracles and prodigies be found in all history, sacred and profane.

  David Hume

  Wise, Long, Silence

  David Hume, Eric Steinberg (1992). “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.73, Hackett Publishing

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• I say then, that belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination.

  David Hume

  Taken, Passion, Reality

  David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition”, p.311

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• Christianity accepted as given a metaphysical system derived from several already existing and mutually incompatible systems.

  Aldous Huxley

  Atheism, Christianity, Accepted

  Aldous Huxley (1956). “The collected works of Aldous Huxley”

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• I doubt the fact, to begin with, but if it be so even, what is this but in grand words asking me to believe a thing because I like it.

  Thomas Huxley

  Believe, Doubt, Atheism

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.358, University of Georgia Press

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• Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a "medium" hired at a guinea a seance.

  Thomas Huxley

  Atheism, Guinea, Made

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1903). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”

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• It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics deny and repudiate, as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions which men ought to believe without logically satisfactory evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported propositions.

  Thomas Huxley

  Believe, Men, Atheism

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2012). “Lectures and Essays”, p.247, tredition

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• Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men, nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Men, Soul, Atheism

  "Ingersoll the Magnificent". Book by Joseph L. Lewis, www.huffingtonpost.com. 1957.

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• Some president wishes to be re-elected, and thereupon speaks about the Bible as "the corner-stone of American Liberty." This sentence is a mouth large enough to swallow any church, and from that time forward the religious people will be citing that remark of the politician to substantiate the inspiration of the Scriptures.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Religious, Inspiration, People

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2547, Library of Alexandria

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• I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, - blown and flared by passion's storm, - and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Stars, Passion, Night

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.1721, Library of Alexandria

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• As long as every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is simply impossible.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Long, Atheism, Inquiry

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1873). “An Oration on the Gods”, p.35

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• Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Justice, Atheism, Culprit

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.103, Library of Alexandria

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• Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Creator God, Atheism, Add

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.903, Library of Alexandria

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