Theism Quotes - Page 4

• It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follows from the advance of science.

  Charles Darwin

  Atheist, Men, Illumination

  "Science and religion need a truce" by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, www.theguardian.com. August 24, 2009.

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• The theist can only find meaning by leaving this life for a transcendental world beyond the grave. The human world as he finds it is empty of 'ultimate purpose' and hence meaningless. Theism thus is an attempt to escape from the human condition; it is a pathetic deceit.

  Paul Kurtz

  Leaving, Atheism, Deceit

  Paul Kurtz “Toward a New Enlightenment: The Philosophy of Paul Kurtz”, Transaction Publishers

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• I am not here to merely argue about the perplexities regarding theism or philosophy, but to be a light to the world and to reach out to those who long to be a part of that light.

  Criss Jami

  Philosophy, Light, Long

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.71, Criss Jami

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• The struggle against atheism is foremost and of necessity a struggle against the inadequacy of our own theism.

  Karl Rahner

  Struggle, Atheism, Inadequacy

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• To do Mohammed justice, his main attack was against the idolatries of Asia. Only he thought, just as the Arians did and just as the Unitarians do, that he could attack them better with a greater approximation to plain theism. What distinguishes his heresy from anything like an Arian or Albigensian heresy is that, as it sprang up on the borders of Christendom, it could spread outwards to a barbaric world.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Justice, Islam, Borders

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• If it is to be established that there is a God, then we have to have good grounds for believing that this is indeed so. Until and unless some such grounds are produced we have literally no reason at all for believing; and in that situation the only reasonable posture must be that of either the negative atheist or the agnostic. So the onus of proof has to rest on the proposition of theism.

  Antony Flew

  Atheist, Believe, Atheism

  Antony Flew, John Shosky (1998). “Philosophical Essays”, p.6, Rowman & Littlefield

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• It turns out that the word atheism means much less than I had thought. It is merely the lack of theism.

  Dan Barker

  Mean, Atheism, Turns

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

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• Theism is so confused and the sentences in which "God" appears so incoherent and so incapable of verifiability or falsifiability that to speak of belief or unbelief, faith or unfaith, is logically impossible.

  A.J. Ayer

  Confused, Atheism, Impossible

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• [Mindfulness] is not concerned with anything transcendent or divine. It serves as an antidote to theism, a cure for sentimental piety, a scalpel for excising the tumor of metaphysical belief. (130)

  Stephen Batchelor

  Mindfulness, Sentimental, Belief

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• Don't set out to teach theism from your natural history... You spoil both.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Natural, Science And Religion, Teach

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1959). “Emerson: A Modern Anthology”

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• Nothing in our politics is any longer driven or designed by individual humans who have a name and a face; we have sunk from theism into impersonal and depersonalizing deism, a scheme of rule by alien and implacable abstract metaphysical forces.

  Kenny Smith

  Philosophy, Names, Faces

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• If one believes in a god, one is a Theist. If one does not believe in a god, then one is an A-theist — he is without that belief. The distinction between atheism and theism is entirely, exclusively, that of whether one has or has not a belief in God.

  Chapman Cohen

  Believe, Atheism, Doe

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• When we unravel the theological tomes of the ages, the makeup of God becomes quite clear.  God is a human being without human limitations who is read into the heavens.  We disguised this process by suggesting that the reason God was so much like a human being was that the human beings were in fact created in God's image.  However, we now recognize that if was the other way around.  The God of theism came into being as a human creation.  As such, this God, too, was mortal and is now dying.

  John Shelby Spong

  Makeup, Heaven, Dying

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• It is widely assumed, contrary to fact, that theism necessarily involves the two assumptions which cannot be squared with the existence of so much suffering, and that therefore, per impossibile, they simply have to be squared with the existence of all this suffering, somehow.

  Walter Kaufmann

  Two, Suffering, Facts

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• Contemporary movies just drive me crazy. The violence and the sentimentality and the spiritual materialism and Theism and the incredible indulgence in ignorance is so claustrophobic.

  Anne Waldman

  Spiritual, Crazy, Ignorance

  Source: www.poetspath.com

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• Open theists affirm the same openness of the future that religious believers assume when they pray and almost all humans assume when they act. The open future is intuitive; but can it be rigorously defended? God in an Open Universe shows that it can. Open theism has always been an attractive view of God; now it becomes a philosophically rigorous one as well.

  Philip Clayton

  Religious, Views, Assuming

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• On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.

  William James

  God, Principles, Hypothesis

  William James (2012). “Pragmatism”, p.115, Courier Corporation

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• Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true.

  William James

  Believe, Belief, Action

  William James (2015). “Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays”, p.22, 谷月社

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• Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes; spiritualism means theaffirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope.

  William James

  Mean, Cutting, Order

  William James (2012). “Pragmatism”, p.41, Courier Corporation

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• Secular Humanism is opposed to other religions; it actively rejects, excludes, and attempts to eliminate traditional theism from meaningful participation in the American culture.

  Harvey Cox

  Meaningful, Christian, Religious

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• When life is so harsh that a man loses all hope in himself, then he raises his eyes to a shining rock, worshipping it, just to find hope again, rather than looking to his own acts for hope and salvation. Yes, atheism IS a redemptive belief. It is theism that denies man's own redemptive nature.

  Isaac Asimov

  Eye, Men, Rocks

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• In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of rational evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist. The chance's of theism's truth being to my mind so microscopically small, I would be a pedant and a hypocrite to call myself anything else.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Atheist, Hypocrite, Mind

  H. P. Lovecraft (1999). “The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories”, p.11, Penguin

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• The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. . . Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. . . Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves.

  Pema Chodron

  Atheist, Buddhist, Believe

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.51, Shambhala Publications

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• The opposite of theism is not atheism, it’s idolatry

  Peter Kreeft

  Opposites, Atheism, Idolatry

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