Atheism Religion Quotes

I'm an atheist, but I believe in art. I go to galleries like my mother went to church. It helps me understand the way I live. ~ Sarah Thornton

For Dawkins, atheism is a necessary consequence of evolution. He has argued that the religious impulse is simply an evolutionary mistake, a 'misfiring of something useful', it is a kind if virus, parasitic on cognitive systems naturally selected because they had enabled a species to survive.

Dawkins is an extreme exponent of the scientific naturalism, originally formulated by d'Holbach, that has now become a major worldview among intellectuals. More moderate versions of this "scientism" have been articulated by Carl Sagan, Steven Weinberg, and Daniel Dennett, who have all claimed that one has to choose between science and faith. For Dennett, theology has been rendered superfluous, because biology can provide a better explanation of why people are religious. But for Dawkins, like the other "new atheists" – Sam Harris, the young American philosopher and student of neuroscience, and Christopher Hitchens, critic and journalist – religion is the cause of the problems of our world; it is the source of absolute evil and "poisons everything." They see themselves in the vanguard of a scientific/rational movement that will eventually expunge the idea of God from human consciousness.

But other atheists and scientists are wary of this approach. The American zoologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) followed Monod in his discussion of the implications of evolution. Everything in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection, but Gould insisted that s ~ Karen Armstrong

An effort was made to spread this new materialist atheism with its Communist consequence "by the sword" (as the metaphor goes), that is, by the invasion of neighboring countries with consequent further massacres and the extension of the area of despotic Soviet control ... This armed attempt at expansion was checked by Catholic Poland, the most immediately exposed victim, in what has been called "one of the decisive battles of the world. ~ Hilaire Belloc

Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up the old ones. ~ Ruth Hurmence Green

If we subject religious claims to a lesser degree of scrutiny, we should not be surprised if religious people subject us to a greater degree of servitude. ~ Stifyn Emrys

Mr. Dawkins' assertions are self-refuting- ie. Actual infinity vs. potential infinity easily makes the most reasonable argument for theism and a Deity. Now, the argument for the Creator God of Christianity requires much more time, energy, and logical effort."


~R. Alan Woods [2007] ~ R. Alan Woods

Our weapons are the ironic mind against the literal: the open mind against the credulous; the courageous pursuit of truth against the fearful and abject forces who would set limits to investigation (and who stupidly claim that we already have all the truth we need). Perhaps above all, we affirm life over the cults of death and human sacrifice and are afraid, not of inevitable death, but rather of a human life that is cramped and distorted by the pathetic need to offer mindless adulation, or the dismal belief that the laws of nature respond to wailings and incantations. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Where religion clashes with science is that religion makes smart people do stupid things. ~ P.Z. Myers

Once you've condoned faith in general, you've condoned any crazy shit done because of faith. ~ Penn Jillette

Jesus was not the man he was as a result of making Jesus Christ his personal savior. ~ Alan W. Watts

People say it is impossible to get out of stupidity; well, I was born religious and here I am an atheist. ~ M.F. Moonzajer

You do not have to worhip god to be good and you certainly do not have to be good to worship god. ~ Chris Decker

Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better or worse it finds things out. Science is humble. It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn't know. It bases its conclusions and beliefs on hard evidence -­- evidence that is constantly updated and upgraded. It doesn't get offended when new facts come along. It embraces the body of knowledge. It doesn't hold on to medieval practices because they are tradition. ~ Ricky Gervais

I am scared of the day, when they turn atheism into another religion for controlling masses. ~ M.F. Moonzajer

I am an atheist, but I would never call myself a nonbeliever. I believe in higher powers inside people that can only be activated in a society designed to bring them out. My belief in these powers is so strong that I have organized my life around them, despite the fact that I cannot prove their existence. ~ Danny Katch

If I didn't fear I'd do you harm...I'd try to make you an atheist. I really do think that you are a deluded follower of mistaken and superstitious and cowardly theories. That's as far as I'll go....Everyone who worships a god worships a force back of all nature, no matter what they call him or it and even if they call his aspects by different names & have many "gods." If there really is such a force, then all people who worship any god or gods, worship the same god. I'd just as soon call him Ishtar or Baal or Jehovah. They're merely names for the same idea. (Letter from Simpson to Anne Roe, written ca. 1920-21, when Anne was briefly flirting with fundamentalist Christianity, American Philosophical Society archives.) ~ George Gaylord Simpson

Religion reminds me of a lace condom. While lovingly crafted, it's not designed for pleasure; unless inflated with fervour, it collapses; one size does not fit all; and no matter how many times you dunk it in holy water, it will not prevent misconceptions or contagion. ~ Lowestoft Thellow

It is easy to show that the ego ideal answers to everything that is expected of the higher nature of man. As a substitute for a longing for the father, it contains the germ from which all religions have evolved. ~ Sigmund Freud

I always got a bit pissed off with those broadsheet sceptics who make their living being passionately angry about homeopathy, God, synchronicity or whatever, because it's as if they can't get past their emotions, and in their rage they become as faith-driven as the beliefs they criticise. I always said they give scientists a bad name. After all, science has to be about asking unthinkable questions, not closing down debate. ~ Scarlett Thomas

Atheism and traditional institutions of the Church are the polar sides of the same marasmus: either of them is badly lacking the truth. ~ Sahara Sanders

Religion cannot and should not be replaced by atheism. Religion needs to go away and not be replaced by anything. Atheism is not a religion. It's the absence of religion, and that's a wonderful thing. ~ Penn Jillette

The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there's any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

No one knows loneliness like an atheist. When an average person feels isolated, he can call through the depths of his soul to One who knows him and sense an answer. An atheist cannot allow himself that luxury, for he has to crush the urge and remind himself
of its absurdity. ~ Jeffrey Lang

A God made by man undoubtedly has need of man to make himself known to man. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The priests of all these cults, the singers, shouters, prayers and exhorters of Bootstrap-lifting have as their distinguishing characteristic that they do very little lifting at their own bootstraps, and less at any other man's. Now and then you may see one bend and give a delicate tug, of a purely symbolical character: as when the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Bootstrap-lifters comes once a year to wash the feet of the poor; or when the Sunday-school Superintendent of the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters shakes the hand of one of his Colorado mine-slaves. But for the most part the priests and preachers of Bootstrap-lifting walk haughtily erect, many of them being so swollen with prosperity that they could not reach their bootstraps if they wanted to. Their role in life is to exhort other men to more vigorous efforts at self-elevation, that the agents of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association may ply their immemorial role with less chance of interference. ~ Upton Sinclair

Asking, "If there is no God, what is the purpose of life?" is like asking, "If there is no master, whose slave will I be?" If your purpose of life is to submit as a slave, then your meaning comes from flattering the ego of a person whom who should detest. ~ Dan Barker

Religion as a philosophy is superior to religion as a practice. ~ Daya Kudari

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing. ~ H.L. Mencken

I'm sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don't think there's any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock. ~ Howard Stern

Absolute atheism starts in an act of faith in reverse gear and is a full-blown religious commitment. Here we have the first internal inconsistency of contemporary atheism: it proclaims that all religion must necessarily vanish away, and it is itself a religious phenomenon. ~ Jacques Maritain

Perhaps we are cursed," Karkasy told the empty fane, "to crave something which does not exist. There are no gods, no spirits, no daemons. So we make them up, to comfort ourselves. ~ Dan Abnett

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? ~ Douglas Adams

The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation. ~ Emma Goldman

The three monotheism share a series of identical forms of aversion: hatred of reason and intelligence; hatred of freedom; hatred of all books in the name of one book alone; hatred of sexuality, women,and pleasure; hatred of feminine; hatred of body, of desires, of drives. Instead Judaism, Christianity, and Islam extol faith and belief, obedience and submission, taste for death and longing for the beyond, the asexual angel and chastity, virginity and monogamous love, wife and mother, soul and spirit. In other words, life crucified and nothingness exalted. ~ Michel Onfray

To an even moderately sophisticated and well-read person it should come as no surprise that any religion at all has its hidden as well as its obvious beauties and is capable of profound and impressive interpretations. What is deeply objectionable about most of these interpretations is that they allow the believer to say Yes while evading any No. ~ Walter Kaufmann

There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have relinquished belief only with regret. To this I reply: who wishes that there was a permanent, unalterable celestial despotism that subjected us to continual surveillance and could convict us of thought-crime, and who regarded us as its private property even after we died? How happy we ought to be, at the reflection that there exists not a shred of respectable evidence to support such a horrible hypothesis. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Yet in our hands and within our view is a whole universe of discovery and clarification, which is a pleasure to study in itself, gives the average person access to insights that not even Darwin or Einstein possessed, and offers the promise of near-miraculous advances in healing, in energy, and in peaceful exchange between different cultures. Yet millions of people in all societies still prefer the myths of the cave and the tribe and the blood sacrifice. ~ Christopher Hitchens

If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and He decides to deliver a message to humanity, He will not use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle. ~ Dave Barry

This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief. ~ Adolf Hitler

Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance. ~ Sam Harris

It's not arrogant to say that you can't figure out the answers to the universe with your internal faith. It's not arrogant to know that there's no omniscient, omnipotent prime mover in the universe who loves you personally. It's not sad to feel that life and the love of your real friends and family is more than enough to make life worth living. Isn't it much sadder to feel that there is a more important love required than the love of the people who have chosen to spend their limited time with you? ~ Penn Jillette

A man without reason is no better than a mad dog, and mad dogs must be put down for the good of everyone. ~ James L. Sutter

I feel that every child is born thinking like a metaphysician, toddles around playing the role of a theoretical physicist, looks for things to become an experimental scientist, but then is brainwashed by society to think like a priest. ~ Rajesh`

On the first day, man created God ~ Daniel Delgado F.

Sometimes people have been stepping so long, they have forgotten what it's like to be stepped on. ~ Lauren Lilly Conrad

When people say they are atheists they don't mean they can't prove that there are no gods. Strictly speaking, it's impossible to prove that something does not exist. We don't positively know there are no gods, just as we can't prove that there are no fairies or pixies or elves or hobgoblins or leprechauns or pink unicorns; just as we can't prove that Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy don't exist. There's a billion things you can imagine and nobody can disprove. ~ Richard Dawkins

There are so many different faiths. How do you know the holy book you have been brought up with is the true one? And if all the others are wrong, what makes you think your holy book isn't wrong too? ~ Richard Dawkins

A praying mouse can never escape from a preying eagle. ~ Rajesh`

The very ritual practices that the New Atheists dismiss as costly, inefficient and irrational turn out to be a solution to one of the hardest problems humans face: cooperation without kinship ~ Jonathan Haidt

One day somebody asked Herr K. if there was a God. Herr K. replied: "I suggest that you ask yourself whether the answer would effect your behavior. If your behavior would remain unchanged, then we can drop the question. If it would change, then I can at least be of assistance to you by telling you that you have already decided: you need a God. ~ Bertolt Brecht

Christianity rejects tolerance and demands choice, wherein lies its greatest flaw - one of a multitude of contradictions found throughout the Bible and the historical doctrine of the Church. ~ Aaron B. Powell

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. ~ Charles Bukowski

Countries with a high percentage of nonbelievers are among the freest, most stable, best-educated, and healthiest nations on earth. When nations are ranked according to a human-development index, which measures such factors as life expectancy, literacy rates, and educational attainment, the five highest-ranked countries
Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands
all have high degrees of nonbelief. Of the fifty countires at the bottom of the index, all are intensly religious. The nations with the highest homicide rates tend to be more religious; those with the greatest levels of gender equality are the least religious. These associations say nothing about whether atheism leads to positive social indicators or the other way around. But the idea that atheists are somehow less moral, honest, or trustworthy have been disproven by study after study. ~ Greg Graffin

It is my firm conviction that man has nothing to gain, emotionally or otherwise, by adhering to a falsehood, regardless of how comfortable or sacred that falsehood may appear. Anyone who claims, on the one hand, that he is concerned with human welfare, and who demands, on the other hand, that man must suspend or renounce the use of his reason, is contradicting himself.
There can be no knowledge of what is good for man apart from knowledge of reality and human nature, and there is no manner in which this knowledge can be acquired except through reason. To advocate irrationality is to advocate that which is destructive to human life. ~ George H. Smith

I am not even an atheist so much as an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually true ... There may be people who wish to live their lives under cradle-to-grave divine supervision, a permanent surveillance and monitoring. But I cannot imagine anything more horrible or grotesque. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Every week I get letters from people worldwide who feel that the possibilian point of view represents their understanding better than either religion or neo-atheism. ~ David Eagleman

Nothing draws people more quickly away from religion than an open mind. ~ Hemant Mehta

If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease! ~ Clark Adams

For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain. If people need religion, ignore them and maybe they will ignore you, and you can go on with your life. It wasn't until I was beginning to do Star Trek that the subject of religion arose. What brought it up was that people were saying that I would have a chaplain on board the Enterprise. I replied, No, we don't. ~ Gene Roddenberry

If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again. ~ Penn Jillette

The only interesting thing about religion is how many people it's slaughtered. Communism and Nazism are religions as well, make no mistake about it. ~ Lemmy Kilmister

I would be quite content to go to their children's bar mitzvahs, to marvel at their Gothic cathedrals, to 'respect' their belief that the Koran was dictated, though exclusively in Arabic, to an illiterate merchant, or to interest myself in Wicca and Hindu and Jain consolations. And as it happens, I will continue to do this without insisting on the polite reciprocal condition - which is that they in turn leave me alone. But this, religion is ultimately incapable of doing. ~ Christopher Hitchens

If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

In every serious doctrine of the destiny of men, there is some trace of the doctrine of the equality of men. But the capitalist really depends on some religion of inequality. The capitalist must somehow distinguish himself from human kind; he must be obviously above it or he would be obviously below it. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

I'm not out to disturb anybody's faith. I happen to be happy and comfortable with a belief system that has a dual deity and operates on a lunar schedule. It suits my needs. If you happen to be happy and comfortable with a belief system that features a single masculine deity and operates on a solar schedule, fine. I don't give a fat damn. What matters is what you do, not who's name you do it in. ~ Mercedes Lackey

She had never given much thought to the devil for she felt that religion was essentially for those people who didn't have the brains to avoid evil without it. ~ Flannery O'Connor

People of the West have various forms of democracy based on a belief in God as well as on a general acceptance of moral law. However, in practice we are beginning to resemble the Marxists, who have little respect for moral law or religion. ~ Billy Graham

It is manifest therefore that they who have sovereign power, are immediate rulers of the church under Christ, and all others but subordinate to them. If that were not, but kings should command one thing upon pain of death, and priests another upon pain of damnation, it would be impossible that peace and religion should stand together. ~ Thomas Hobbes

In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not keep the world from what it wants. ~ Booker T. Washington

To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Creativity is a religion. When you get into it, you will find your life becomes more spiritual. ~ Jason Mraz

The humanists' replacement for religion: work really hard and somehow you'll either save yourself or you'll be immortal. Of course, that's a total joke, and our progress is nothing. There may be progress in technology but there's no ethical progress whatsoever. ~ David Bowie

A halo is a cock ring for the soul. ~ Corey DuFour

But when high-profile politicians speak God in the most perfunctory manner possible, it's no wonder supporters and opponents alike avoid speaking God altogether. ~ Jonathan Merritt

Compulsion in the literal Sense is maliciously misrepresented, by supposing it authorizes Violences committed against the Truth. The Answer to this; by which it is prov'd, that the literal Sense does in reality authorize the stirring up Persecutions against the Cause of Truth, and that an erroneous Conscience has the same Rights as an enlighten'd Conscience. ~ Pierre Bayle

That man who is without religion and mercy should be rejected. A guru without spiritual knowledge should be rejected. The wife with an offensive face should be given up and so should relatives who are without affection. ~ Chanakya

The human species – mammalian primates though undoubtedly (s)he is, and made out of the dust of exploded suns - does have the need for the transcendent, the numinous, even the ecstatic. I wouldn't trust anyone who hadn't had this. This has to do with landscape, light, music, love and an awareness of the transience of all things, and the melancholy that invests all this. So it isn't just gaping happily at the sunset while listening to music, and doing that while knowing that it can't last very long. But there is no need for the supernatural in this at all. There is no dimension of the supernatural of which this gives one a share. ~ Christopher Hitchens

It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts. ~ Max Planck

The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own. ~ Edmund Burke

But what is your religion?" "I don't have one." "But you believe in God?" "No." He thinks this over. "Then I'm pretty sure they can't let you in. ~ Michael Lewis

I started to see the bigger picture of things: Islam was not relegated to the tiny, sometimes frustrating and seemingly arbitrary details of practice, but rather entered the larger picture of spirituality and worship that contextualized my womanhood. In order to be able to derive these logical conclusions about my religion, I had to go back to the basics and understand the very fundamental principles upon which it was founded: justice, social equality, racial equality, financial equality, and, possibly most important of all, gender equality. Thus began my lifelong love affair with Islamic feminism. ~ Amani Al-Khatahtbeh

Truth is my favorite science, virtue is my favorite art, faith is my favorite technology, and love is my favorite religion. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Where there is the slightest insistence, there is no religion there! ~ Dada Bhagwan

When we all can worship from our own kind of pew, then we shall be free. ~ Garth Brooks

Forgiveness has been distorted by religious conditioning. Religion is designed to control your personal authenticity, sovereignty, self empowerment, and check book. So drop all ideas of bending your knee to an entity that needs your worship as worship is parasitical. ~ Deborah Bravandt

In many ways, those dedicated to removing all potential biblical contradictions, to making the Bible entirely consistent with itself, are no different from irreligious debunkers of the Bible, Christianity, and religion in general. Many from both camps seem to believe that simply demonstrating that the Bible is full of inconsistencies and contradictions, as I have just done, is enough to discredit any religious tradition that embraces it as Scripture. Bible debunkers and Bible defenders are kindred spirits. ~ Timothy Beal

The clear and perfect truth no man has seen, nor will there be anyone who knows about the gods and what I say about all things ... ; for, however perfect what he says may be, yet he does not know it; all things are matters of opinion. ~ Xenophanes

Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this. ~ Lord Acton

Religion sees in civil liberty a noble exercise of the faculties of man; in the political world, a field offered by the Creator to the efforts of intelligence. Free and powerful in its sphere, satisfied with the place reserved for it, religion knows that its dominion is that much better established because it rules only by its own strength and dominates hearts without other support.
Liberty sees in religion the companion of its struggles and triumphs, the cradle of its early years, the divine source of its rights. Liberty considers religion as the safeguard of mores, mores as the guarantee of laws and the pledge of its own duration. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

Why half the schools in your country are not allowed to teach evolution. Ask yourself why the U.S. Christian Coalition is the most influential lobby against scientific progress in the world. The battle between science and religion is still raging, Mr. Langdon. It has moved from the battlefields to the boardrooms, but it is still raging. ~ Dan Brown

The right to private judgment is the crown jewel of humanity, and for any person or institution to dare to come between the soul and God is a blasphemous impertinence and a defamation of the crown rights of the Son of God. ~ George W Truett

It was through the Hindu religion that I learnt to respect Christianity and Islam. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

You may spoil the Gospel by substitution. You have only to withdraw from the eyes of the sinner the grand object which the Bible proposes to faith, - Jesus Christ; and to substitute another object in His place, - the Church, the Ministry, the Confessional, Baptism or the Lord's Supper, - and the mischief is done. Substitute anything for Christ, and the Gospel is totally spoiled! Do this, either directly or indirectly, and your religion ceases to be Evangelical. ~ J.C. Ryle

If religion is the establishing of a relationship between man and the universe, then morality is the explanation of those activities that automatically result when a person maintains a relationship to the universe. ~ Leo Tolstoy

You may have noticed there are three things an Irishman always puts his soul in: his religion, his sports, and his politics. If you ever find an Irishman who is wishy-washy on any one of those, you can make up your mind to it he is not the true article at all. ~ Mary Deasy

The Christian test was a willingness to believe in the one Jesus Christ and His Message of salvation. What was demanded was not criticism but credulity. The Church Fathers observed that in the realm of thought only heresy had a history. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin

Memento mori and obey the Lord.
Art and religion love the somber chord. ~ Robert Frost

History does not record anywhere a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The worst tragedy of sin isn't that it produced bad behavior, but that it produced the idea that bad behavior is strong enough to deflect love. ~ D.R. Silva

The most common sort of lie is that by which a man deceives himself: the deception of others is a relatively rare offense. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche