Positive Atheism Quotes - Page 6

• I think it's a bit excessive.

  Stephen Reinhardt

  Thinking, Atheism, Bits

  "Pledge of Allegiance Judges Facing Demonstrators at Courthouse". www.foxnews.com. July 17, 2002.

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• We know that there is no absolute knowledge, that there are only theories; but we forget this. The better educated we are, the harder we believe in axioms.

  Lincoln Steffens

  Believe, Atheism, Forget

  Lincoln Steffens (1931). “The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens”, p.816, Heyday

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• Before what is sacred, people lose all sense of power and all confidence; they occupy a powerless and humble attitude toward it. And yet no thing is sacred of itself, but by my declaring it sacred, by my declaration, my judgment, my bending the knee; in short, by my conscience.

  Max Stirner

  Attitude, Humble, People

  Max Stirner (2012). “The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority”, p.72, Courier Corporation

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• A ground frequently taken by Christian theologians is that the progress and civilization of the world are due to Christianity; and the discussion is complicated by the fact that many eminent servants of humanity have been nominal Christians, of one or other of the sects. My allegation will be that the special services rendered to human progress by these exceptional men have not been in consequence of their adhesion to Christianity, but in spite of it, and that the specific points of advantage to human kind have been in ratio of their direct opposition to precise Biblical enactments.

  Charles Bradlaugh

  Christian, Taken, Biblical

  Marsden Gibson, Charles Bradlaugh (1889*). “Has Humanity Gained from Unbelief?: Two Nights Debate Between Marsden Gibson and Charles Bradlaugh at Newcastle-on-Tyne”

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• My colleague Sen. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, erroneously suggested that I support the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. That simply is not true. ... Unlike biological evolution, intelligent design is not a genuine scientific theory and, therefore, has no place in the curriculum of our nation's public school science classes.

  Edward Kennedy

  Teaching, School, Intelligent

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• Poor humanity, to saddle the gods with such a responsibility and throw in a vindictive temper. What griefs they hatch for themselves, what festering sores for us, what tears for our prosperity! This is not piety, this oft-repeated show of bowing a veiled head before a graven image; this bustling to every altar; this kow-towing and prostration on the ground with palms outspread before the shrines of the gods; this deluging of vow on vow. True piety lies rather in the power to contemplate the universe with a quiet mind.

  Lucretius

  Lying, Grief, Responsibility

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• The argument from design is ultimately an appeal to miraculous causes, i.e., causes that do not, and cannot, occur in the natural course of events. This is why an explanation via design is not a legitimate alternative to scientific and other naturalistic modes of explanation. To refer to a miraculous cause is to refer to something that is inherently unknowable, and this sanctuary of ignorance explains nothing at all. However much it may soothe the imagination of the ignorant, it does nothing to satisfy the understanding of a rational person.

  George H. Smith

  Ignorance, Imagination, Design

  George H. Smith (2000). “Why Atheism?”, Pyr Books

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• But if you will recall the history of our civil troubles, you will see half the nation bathe itself, out of piety, in the blood of the other half, and violate the fundamental feelings of humanity in order to sustain the cause of God: as though it were necessary to cease to be a man in order to prove oneself religious!

  Denis Diderot

  Religious, Men, Blood

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• Believing in Hell must distort every judgement on this life.

  Cyril Connolly

  Believe, Judgement, Atheism

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• Children are the greatest sufferers from outgrown theologies.

  Luther Burbank

  Children, Theology, Sufferers

  Luther Burbank (1927). “My Beliefs”

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• Perhaps God chose me to be an atheist?

  Bill Vaughan

  Atheist, Atheism

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• The finger of God never leaves identical fingerprints.

  Bill Vaughan

  God, Atheism, Fingerprints

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• It is only common prejudice that induces us to believe that atheism is a fearful state.

  Pierre Bayle

  Believe, Atheism, Prejudice

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• There was no other God, religion, or lawful magistracy, than conscience, which teaches all men the precepts of Justice, to do no injury, to live honestly, and give everyone his due.

  Pierre Bayle

  Men, Giving, Justice

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• Christianity gave eroticism its savor of sin and legend when it endowed the human female with a soul.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Soul, Atheism, Female

  Simone de Beauvoir (1953). “The second sex”, Vintage

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• The spirit of dogmatic theology poisons anything it touches.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Atheism, Poison, Spirit

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• The two greatest works of war mythology in the west ... are the Iliad and the Old Testament... When we turn from the Iliad and Athens to Jerusalem and the Old Testament we find a single-minded single deity with his sympathies forever on one side. And the enemy, accordingly, no matter who it may be, is handled... pretty much as though he were subhuman: not a "Thou" but an "It."

  Joseph Campbell

  War, Two, Forever

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• I shall not, as far as I am concerned, try to pass myself off as a Christian in your presence. I share with you the same revulsion from evil. But I do not share your hope, and I continue to struggle against this universe in which children suffer and die.

  Albert Camus

  Christian, Children, Struggle

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• If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed.

  George Carlin

  Atheism, Best God, Diseased

  George Carlin (2002). “Napalm & Silly Putty”, Hyperion

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• Indeed, one modern President abjured God altogether, ending speeches with a chaste 'Thank you very much.' This was Jimmy Carter, the most genuinely devout President of the postwar period.

  Jonathan Rauch

  Atheism, President, Speech

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• Of the six men who have done most to make America the wonder and the joy she is to all of us, not one could be the citizen of a government so constituted; for Washington and Franklin and Jefferson, certainly the three mightiest leaders in our early history, were heretics in their day, Deists, as men called them; and Garrison and Lincoln and Sumner, certainly the three mightiest in these later times, would all be disfranchised by the proposed amendment. Lincoln could not have taken the oath of office had such a clause been in the Constitution.

  John Chadwick

  Taken, Men, Oath Of Office

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• The absolute nothingness of death is a blessing. Something to look forward to.

  Quentin Crisp

  Blessing, Atheism, Looks

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• I've long stopped worrying about who invented whom - God man or man God.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Men, Long, Worry

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2011). “The Brothers Karamazov”, p.405, Bantam Classics

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• Beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Heaven, Secret, Atheism

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (1981). “Grand Inquisitor”, p.17, A&C Black

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• They are looking in utter darkness for that which has no existence whatsoever.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Darkness, Atheism, Existence

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