Atheist Quotes

Those Christians who are very strict in their observances, think a good deal more of the Sabbath than of man, a great deal more of the Bible than of the truth, and ten times more of their creed than of the will of God. Of course, if they heard anyone utter such words as I have just written, they would say he was and atheist. ~ George MacDonald

If revealed religions have revealed anything it is that they are usually wrong. ~ Francis Crick

Would the atheist continue such, let him beware how he admits Love into his breast: for God will surely come along with him. ~ Richard B. Garnett

It's possible to be flippant here, when Jihadists fly aircraft into buildings they shout God is Great, what do atheists shout when they do it? ~ Martin Amis

Owning a gun proves "In God we trust" is a lie. If you actually trusted in God, you wouldn't feel like you need a gun. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

If you ask the religious person "What do you believe in?" he will tell you about one thing. But if you ask him "What do you not believe in?" he will tell you about many, many things! And if you ask an atheist "What do you believe in?" he will say "Nothing." The only difference between an atheist and a religious person, is one thing. If one thing isn't there, there would be no difference at all! When I say I am losing my religion, I am not saying that I'm losing my belief; but I am saying that I'm losing my disbeliefs. ~ C. JoyBell C.

How do you know when you're God?" "When I pray to him I find I am talking to myself. ~ Peter Barnes

I'm no atheist - I'm lazy. I really do like hassle-free Sunday mornings. I have a problem with organized religion, so I've simply opted out. Live and let live, I figure. ~ Lynn Coady

Armstrong lives as he rides - surrounded by a cocoon of aides and helpers, his gimlet eyes focused on victory ... The self-described atheist has become a deity ... but the inquiry's findings may cause the Armstrong faithful to ask, Was the miracle a mirage? ~ Selena Roberts

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

Faith allows an evasion of those difficulties which the atheist confronts honestly. And to crown all, the believer derives a sense of great superiority from this very cowardice itself. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

Humanism or atheism is a wonderful philosophy of life as long as you are big, strong, and between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. But watch out if you are in a lifeboat and there are others who are younger, bigger, or smarter. ~ William Murray, 1st Earl Of Mansfield

I remember when "atheist" was a scary word.

I remember little suits, on little boys, with no lapels.

I remember dining room table leaves.

I remember a brief period of "bad breath" concern: the product of a health class at school.

I remember that "most bad breath is caused by germs."

I remember that germs are everywhere!

I remember trying to visualize germs (physically) as they crawl around all over everything.

I remember that my vision of germs pretty much resembled normal insects, only much smaller, of course.

I remember sneezing into my hand, out in public, and then the problem of what to "do" with it. ~ Joe Brainard

All that Lenin learned about business from the tales of his comrades who occasionally sat in business offices was that it required a lot of scribbling, recording, and ciphering. Thus, he declares that accounting and control are the chief things necessary for the organizing and correct functioning of society ... Here we have the philosophy of the filing clerk in its full glory. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Why do more than 40 percent of Americans think that the Universe began after the domestication of the dog? ~ Richard Dawkins

It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image. ~ Ludwig Feuerbach

Think hard about the reasons for believing and not believing, what your religion teaches you and demands so inexorably that you believe. I am convinced that if you follow closely the natural light of your spirit, you will see ... that all the religions in the world are only human inventions and that everything your religion teaches you and forces you to believe as supernatural and divine is at heart only error, lie, illusion and trickery. ~ Jean Meslier

Ayer may be considered a practical atheist: one who sees no reason to worship an invisible deity. ~ James A. Haught

When the course of experience made me see that there is no saviour and no special grace, no remission beyond the human, that pain is to be endured and fades, if it fades, only with time, then God became nothing to me but a dyslexic dog, with neither bark nor bite. ~ Yann Martel

Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic un-interestingness as an intellectual position. Where was the ingenuity, the ambiguity, the humanity of saying that the universe just happened to happen and that when we're dead we're dead? ~ John Updike

Who are beneficiaries of the Court's protection? Members of various minorities including criminals, atheists, homosexuals, flag burners, illegal immigrants (including terrorists), convicts, and pornographers. ~ Pat Buchanan

( ... ) contemporary art has become a kind of alternative religion for atheists. ( ... ) For many art world insiders and art aficionados of other kinds, concept-driven art is a kind of existencial channel through which they bring meaning to their lives. It demands leaps of faith, but it rewards the believer with a sense of consequence. Moreover, just as churches and other ritualistic meeting places serve a social function, so art events generate a sense of community around shared interests ~ Sarah Thornton

36. Argument from Incomplete Devastation: A plane crashed killing 143 passengers and crew. But one child survived with only third-degree burns. Therefore God exists. 37. Argument from Possible Worlds: If things had been different, then things would be different. That would be bad. Therefore God exists. 38. Argument from Sheer Will: I do believe in God! I do believe in God! I do I do I do. I do believe in God! Therefore God exists. 39. Argument from Non-belief: The majority of the world's population are non-believers in Christianity. This is just what Satan intended. Therefore God exists. 40. Argument from Post-Death Experience: Person X died an atheist. He now realizes his mistake. Therefore God exists. 41. Argument from Emotional Blackmail: God loves you. How could you be so heartless as not to believe in him? Therefore God exists. THE ~ Richard Dawkins

George used to say that Granny wasn't a time-optimist, she was a time-atheist, and the only religion she believed in was Do-It-Later-Buddhism. ~ Fredrik Backman

At the very time that philosophers of the most enterprising benevolence were founding in Greece those institutions which have rendered it the wonder and luminary of the world, am I required to believe that the weak and wicked king of an obscure and barbarous nation, a murderer, a traitor and a tyrant, was the man after God's own heart? ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it. ~ Thomas Carlyle

Following the herd is fine, until they all run off the side of a cliff together. ~ Glenn Beck

Therefore, when a person refuses to come to Christ it is never just because of a lack of evidence or because of intellectual difficulties: at root, he refuses to come because he willingly ignores and rejects the drawing of God's Spirit on his heart. No one in the final analysis fails to become a Christian because of a lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with god. ~ William Lane Craig

Only recently, the word scientist had been coined, by the polymath William Whewell. Many scholars had objected to this blunt new term, as it sounded so sinisterly similar to that awful word atheist; why not simply continue to call themselves natural philosophers? Was that designation not more godly, more pure? But divisions were being drawn now between the realm of nature and the realm of philosophy. Ministers who doubled as botanists or geologists were becoming increasingly rare, as far too many challenges to biblical truths were stirred up through investigation of the natural world. It used to be that God was revealed in the wonders of nature; now God was being challenged by those same wonders. Scholars were now required to choose one side or the other. As ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

I'm not saying that I think atheists are better than other people. God, no. What I am saying is I do feel that this an integral part of who I am. And it's not something that I could comfortably think of not sharing with the person I loved most in the world. ~ Susan Jacoby

...so profound an insight into God that for a century and a half he was branded a dangerous atheist... ~ Stephen Mitchell

When a man ceases to believe in god, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in everything. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate ... Choose science. ~ Carl Sagan

To no form of religion is woman indebted for one impulse of freedom, as all alike have taught her inferiority and subjection. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

I do not believe in God. I'm an atheist. I consider myself a critical thinker, and it fascinates me that in the 21st century most people still believe in, as George Carlin puts it, 'the invisible man living in the sky' ~ Seth MacFarlane

If all the Atheists & Agnostics left America, they'd lose 93% of The National Academy of Sciences & less than 1% of the prison population. ~ Ricky Gervais

Every atheist who believes in morality, gravity, and does math is a closeted believer. ~ Todd Friel

The people on my mum's side of the family are atheist intellectuals who are ueber-proper. My dad's side of the family are missionaries who are more comfortable sitting around in sweatpants than they are in a five-star restaurant. But those two influences converged in my life. ~ Evangeline Lilly

Yes, believers and non-believers and skeptics can all live together and get along. But there cannot be an imperialistic imposition of religion by the state or by the church. All people must be equal
believers, skeptics, disbelievers, atheists, and those who chose religion. Unless we are all deemed equal, and unless the morality of disbelief is deemed the equivalent of the morality of belief, we will simply be tolerated, and that is not the American way. ~ Alan Dershowitz

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

The consequence was a positively fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression ~ Albert Einstein

The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. ~ Susan B. Anthony

Christianity founds hospitals and atheists are cured in them, never knowing they owe their cure to Christ. ~ William Temple

Anyone I love takes away part of my freedom, but in that case it is I who wished it; and there is so much pleasure in loving that one gladly sacrifices something for its sake. Any one who loves me takes away all my freedom. Anyone who admires me (as a writer) threatens to take it away from me. I even fear those who understand me, which is why I spend so much time covering my tracks - both in my private life and in the persona I express through my books. What would have delighted me, had I loved god, is the thought that god gives nothing in return. ~ Henry De Montherlant

Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning. ~ Albert Einstein

...atheism leaves no room for excuses... ~ Travis Culliton

I was told that The Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist. ~ Bertrand Russell

If there is a God, he is a malign thug. ~ Mark Twain

Atheism Is Rare ?! so is intelligence ~ Sherif Gaber

The incentive for a religious person turning into an atheist is to have a better and happier life ~ M.F. Moonzajer

In the religion of Love the courtesan is a heretic; but the nun is an atheist. ~ Richard B. Garnett

Unless thought is valid we have no reason to believe in the real universe. ~ C.S. Lewis

I'm an atheist. I don't 'believe' at all. ~ Gary Kemp

I'm an atheist, but i still pray when i get on a plane. I believe in love at first sight, but I'm myopic. I practice safe sex, but i'm sexually insecure. I'm bisexual, but sexless. ~ Jaime Bayly

So you're an atheist and you say, "Well how do you know there's a God?" So what is there, nothing? So nothing created you? So you believe in nothing? Therefore, you believe in something – but that's nothing. You believe in nothingness. I believe in God. That's all. How can you believe in nothingness? How is it possible to believe in nothingness? How can something come from nothing? It's a violation of all the laws of physics! Something cannot come from nothing. It violates physical science, biological science, and theological science. It violates all the laws of reason! It violates all the laws of nonreason. ~ Michael Savage

Every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I'm an atheist. I suppose you can call me a sort of libertarian anarchist. I regard religion with fear and suspicion. It's not enough to say that I don't believe in God. I actually regard the system as distressing: I am offended by some of the things said in the Bible and the Qur'an and I refute them. ~ Emma Thompson

For all their raving, ranting, and name-calling, these atheists will stand before God one day-and they will exist for eternity, though sadly they will be separated from God unless they repent and receive the free gift of salvation. ~ Ken Ham

Ted was a Baptist when he was a child but he became an atheist. It was therefore somewhat surprising that he became involved with the Mormon Church during the summer of 1975. This was a dramatic departure from his religious beliefs, or lack of them. He took the missionary lessons and was baptized into the Mormon Church. ~ Al Carlisle

An agnostic is a cowardly atheist. ~ Studs Terkel

This conversation revealed to Odo a third conception of the religious idea. In Piedmont religion imposed itself as a military discipline, the enforced duty of the Christian citizen to the heavenly state; to the Duke it was a means of purchasing spiritual immunity from the consequences of bodily weakness; to the Bishop, it replaced the panem et circenses of ancient Rome. Where, in all this, was the share of those whom Christ had come to save? Where was Saint Francis's devotion to his heavenly bride, the Lady Poverty? Though here and there a good parish priest like Crescenti ministered to the temporal wants of the peasantry, it was only the free-thinker and the atheist who, at the risk of life and fortune, laboured for their moral liberation. Odo listened with a saddened heart, thinking, as he followed his host through the perfumed shade of the gardens, and down ~ Edith Wharton

All those who possess in its pure state the love of their neighbour and the acceptance of the order of the world, inclucing affliction-all those, even should they live and die to all appearances atheists, are surely saved. ~ Simone Weil

Jefferson the deist was accused of being an atheist and even a Muslim. ~ Karen Armstrong

Fear and confession for the fear of
unknown,business mind to fulfill greeds and unsatisfaction, limited
knowledge makes the religion ~ Er.teji

Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong. ~ Richard Dawkins

This means that the two hemispheres may even have different beliefs. For example, the neurologist V. S. Ramanchandran describes one split-brain patient who, when asked if he was a believer or not, said he was an atheist, but his right brain declared he was a believer. Apparently, it is possible to have two opposing religious beliefs residing in the same brain. Ramachandran continues: "If that person dies, what happens? Does one hemisphere go to heaven and the other go to hell? I don't know the answer to that." (It ~ Michio Kaku

The great events of history are often due to secular changes in the growth of population and other fundamental economic causes, which, escaping by their gradual character the notice of contemporary observers, are attributed to the follies of statesmen or the fanaticism of atheists . ~ John Maynard Keynes

I'm a linear thinking agnostic, but not an atheist folks. ~ Neil Peart

An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism. ~ Bertrand Russell

Taxonomically, my family is Freethinker (including atheists, skeptics, agnostics); my genus is Humanist (including the religion-based), and my species is Secular. ~ John Rafferty

I get diarrhea more often than the average Muslim. ~ Magnus Wilton

Perfect definition of atheist dogma. Your mind has been subjected to subtle mental conditioning year after year. Now the atheist lie has become the truth to you. A lie that can be blown away with the real truth. It just takes time to unwind the atheist mental conditioning. The truth is out there. Outside of atheist dogma lies the truth! ~ Vladimir Lenin

We do not admire, we hardly excuse, the fanatic who wrecks this world for love of the other. But what are we to say of the fanatic who wrecks this world out of hatred of the other? He sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Atheists' anger doesn't prove that we're selfish, or joyless, or miserable. It shows that we have compassion, and a sense of justice. We're angry because we see terrible harm all around us, and we feel desperately motivated to stop it. ~ Greta Christina

Turn pimp, flatterer, quack, lawyer, parson, be chaplain to an atheist, or stallion to an old woman, anything but a poet; for a poet is worse, more servile, timorous and fawning than any I have named. ~ William Congreve

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good. ~ Matthew Parris

If you say that there was no first cause (a Creator), then you are stuck with the unscientific and thoughtless belief that nothing created everything. So, what is it that you believe? Is it that something created everything? Then you are not an atheist, because you believe in a Creator. ~ Ray Comfort

When a mere girl, my mother offered me a dollar if I would read the Bible through; ... despairing of reconciling many of its absurd statements with even my childish philosophy, ... I became a sceptic, doubter, and unbeliever, long ere the 'Good Book' was ended. ~ Elmina Drake Slenker

The surname of an atheist is compound unfortunate plus being, therefore unfortunate-beings, making all atheists unfortunate beings because human beings are created by God and not products of big bang atoms undergoing evolution. ~ S. E. Entsua-Mensah

The courts demand that every religious person must accommodate a single atheist who might be 'offended' at the favorable mention of God's name. But no atheist can be forced to accommodate a single religious person who might be offended by the atheist's unbelief, or who wants to be part of the pluralism and diversity about which liberals regularly speak, but which is not broad enough to embrace people who believe in God. ~ Cal Thomas

Science proposes something and then does everything it can to disprove it. Religion is not like that. It proposes something and does everything it can to keep it from being disproved. ~ Roger Scruton

But for you to make this move would reveal the two fundamental tenets of true atheism. One: There is no God. Two: I hate Him. ~ Douglas Wilson

Atheists are not Americans. ~ George H. W. Bush

What right has a man to say he has a soul if he does not feel it, or that there is a God if he does not see Him? If there is a God we must see Him, if there is a soul we must perceive it; otherwise it is better not to believe. It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite. ~ Swami Vivekananda

American Protestants do not have to believe in God because they believe in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce an interesting atheist in America. ~ Stanley Hauerwas

Love is just like God. Some believe in it, some don't. You can only feel love and that too if you are open to its existence. Likewise, an atheist cannot feel the presence of the divine because his mind is shut to the possibility of there being one. ~ Anurag Shourie

I have no problem with god - it's his fan club that scares me. ~ A.B. Potts

The man of the future who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, the great nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell stroke of noon and of the great decision that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this Antichrist and anti-nihilist; this victor over God and nothingness - he must come one day. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

One of the misconceptions about atheism is that it somehow means someone denies the possibility of a deity. In all actuality, it simply means you don't believe it to be the case - a point that should not be hard to understand with the complete lack of physical evidence that points to the existence of such a being or beings. Even if you're 51 percent sure that there is no magical man in the sky, you are an atheist; and admitting that is the first half of the battle. ~ David G. McAfee

Well, I don't call you an atheist then. I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery, then that is what God is. That is what God is, not the bearded guy in the sky. ~ Oprah Winfrey

I've always thought an agnostic is an atheist without the courage of his convictions. ~ Carl Sagan

He [Omar Khayyam] is an atheist, but knows how to interpret in orthodox style the most difficult passages of the Koran; for every educated man is a theologian and faith is not a requisite. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Women priests. Great, great. Now there's priests of both sexes I don't listen to. ~ Bill Hicks

Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

God might not be dead, but he's sure as hell missing in action. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

Everybody that is just is called to form part of the Kingdom of Heaven-whether they be Buddhas, Jews, or Atheists-as long as they are good. ~ Pope John Paul II

I am against the word 'anti' because it's a little bit like 'atheist,' as compared to 'believer.' And an atheist is just as much of a religious man as the believer is. ~ Marcel Duchamp

People say there are no atheists in foxholes. A lot of people think this is a good argument against atheism. Personally, I think it's a much better argument against foxholes. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

There is no God for sure, else how could one justify terminal diseases in small kids? ~ Pawan Mishra

The problem of good as it faces the atheist is this: Nature, which is the nuts-and-bolts reality for the atheist, has no values and thus can offer no grounding for good and evil. Values on the atheist view are subjective and contingent. ~ William A. Dembski