Dan Barker Quotes

Either in or out of time, the decision of a personal agency to commit an action happens antecedent to the action itself. Even if the deciding and the acting happened simultaneously, it would still not be true that the acting was antecedent to the deciding. Imagine God saying, Oh, look! I just created a universe. Now I'd better decide to do it. ~ Dan Barker

Basic atheism is not a belief. It is the lack of belief. There is a difference between believing there is no god and not believing there is a god - both are atheistic, though popular usage has ignored the latter. ~ Dan Barker

Whatever country you live in, any law based on "glory" instead of real harm is dangerous. The glory of the nation, or the glory of the monarchy, or the glory of the superior race, or the glory of the church have been the cause of horrible wars and legally sanctioned discrimination. Any laws based solely on these glories should be morally denounced. They cause unnecessary harm. ~ Dan Barker

There is joy in rationality, happiness in clarity of mind. Freethought is thrilling and fulfilling - absolutely essential to mental health and happiness. ~ Dan Barker

It is a fact of history and of current events that human beings exaggerate, misinterpret, or wrongly remember events. They have also fabricated pious fraud. Most believers in a religion understand this when examining the claims of other religions. ~ Dan Barker

Even if it is true that all cultures share a common morality, why does this prove a supreme intelligence? After all, don't we humanists sometimes claim that there is a common thread of humanistic values running through history across cultural and religious lines? ~ Dan Barker

Isn't atheism just another religion?' No, it isn't. Atheism has no creeds, rituals, holy book, absolute moral code, origin myth, sacred spaces or shrines. It has no sin, divine judgment, forbidden words, prayer, worship, prophecy, group privileges, or anointed 'holy' leaders. Atheists don't believe in a transcendent world or supernatural afterlife. Most important, there is no orthodoxy in atheism. ~ Dan Barker

To think that the ruler of the universe will run to my assistance and bend the laws of nature for me is the height of arrogance. That implies that everyone else (such as the opposing football team, driver, student, parent) is de-selected, unfavored by God, and that I am special,above it all. ~ Dan Barker

There are many gods which Christians reject. I just believe in one less god then they do. The reasons that you might give for your atheism toward the Roman gods are likely the same reasons I would give for not believing in Jesus. ~ Dan Barker

I took about a year to fully adjust. Like there's a death at the family or a divorce, you don't just snap your fingers and it's over. ~ Dan Barker

As humanists, we urge today, as in the past that humans not look beyond themselves for salvation. We alone are responsible for our own destiny and the best we can do is muster our intelligence, courage, and compassion to realize our highest aspirations. ~ Dan Barker

Please clean up after your dogma. ~ Dan Barker

I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God. That should be all that needs to be said about it: no evidence, no belief. ~ Dan Barker

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

People are always asking, "What's the purpose of life?" That's easy. Relieve suffering. Create beauty. Make gardens. ~ Dan Barker

One of the primary questions in a state-church arrangement is, 'which controls which?' ... In Norway, for example, the liberal labor government has regularly angered Church officials by making controversial ministerial appointments against the wishes of the clergy ... These and other actions have strained the church-state relationship almost to the breaking point. As a result, some of the bishops have advocated disestablishment. ~ Dan Barker

The 9/11 terrorist attack was a faith-based initiative. ~ Dan Barker

I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never say anything positive: You are an intelligent human being. Your life is valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently evil - you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself. ~ Dan Barker

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

Most Christians are afraid that people will think for themselves; most atheists are afraid that they won't. ~ Dan Barker

Without "The Law of Moses" would we all be wandering around like little gods, stealing, raping, and spilling blood whenever our vanity was offended? ~ Dan Barker

I have an Easter challenge for Christians. My challenge is simply this: tell me what happened on Easter. I am not asking for proof. My straightforward request is merely that Christians tell me exactly what happened on the day that their most important doctrine was born. ~ Dan Barker

If the answers to prayer are merely what God wills all along, then why pray? ~ Dan Barker

I threw out all the bath water, and there was no baby there. ~ Dan Barker

If faith is a valid tool of knowledge, then anything can be true 'by faith,' and therefore nothing is true. If the only reason you can accept a claim is by faith, then you are admitting that the claim does not stand on its own merits. ~ Dan Barker

You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time, But I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime. ~ Dan Barker

Truth does not demand belief ... ~ Dan Barker

I'm proud to be an atheist - it helps me stand for so much more and fall for so much less. ~ Dan Barker

Solving a real problem was much more meaningful than saving fictional souls from a fictional hell. ~ Dan Barker

I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being. ~ Dan Barker

Scientists do not join hands every Sunday and sing "Yes gravity is real! I know gravity is real! I will have faith! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about the concept. ~ Dan Barker

Atheists are suffering from bad PR. What if Sesame Street had an atheist character? ~ Dan Barker

Religion + Good Works = Good Works
Solve for Religion. ~ Dan Barker

Not thinking critically, I assumed that the successful prayers were proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof that there was something wrong with me. ~ Dan Barker

Faith is not the result of fuzy thinking. It is the cause of it. ~ Dan Barker

Even if the world was falling apart, that was no reason to let his appearance and good habits fall apart with it. ~ S.R. Ford

Only sinners need saviors. ~ Dan Barker

It is wrong for a secular government to promote prayer. We think the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. What if the president declared a National Day of Cursing God because He failed us on September 11? Americans would say, "You've overstepped your authority." That's how we feel when he promotes prayer. ~ Dan Barker

Freethinkers reject faith as a valid tool of knowledge. Faith is the opposite of reason because reason imposes very strict limits on what can be true, and faith has no limits at all. A Great Escape into faith is no retreat to safety. It is nothing less than surrender. ~ Dan Barker

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help? ~ Dan Barker

How happy can you be when you think every action and thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost? ~ Dan Barker

Mere Morality can be summarized as: using instinct, law, and reason as guides, try to act with the intention of minimizing harm. ~ Dan Barker

If the Prodigal Son's a parable, and if Adam and Eve are metaphors, then maybe God is just figure of speech. ~ Dan Barker

Look at the posture of prayer. It is the posture of slavery, of bowing before your master. We are a proudly rebellious country. We kicked out the master. Now here comes the government telling us to humbly bow again. ~ Dan Barker

We were blood brothers, pals forever. He was my very best friend. Nobody else could see him. I now know he was just pretend. ~ Dan Barker

Freethought is respectable. Freethought is crucial. Freethought needs to be publicized. ~ Dan Barker

You can cite a hundred references to show that the biblical God is a bloodthirsty tyrant, but if they can dig up two or three verses that say 'God is love,' they will claim that you are taking things out of context! ~ Dan Barker

It's not easy to change world views. Faith has its own momentum and belief is comfortable. To restructure reality is traumatic and scary. That is why many intelligent people continue to believe: unbelief is an unknown. ~ Dan Barker

It is true that "atheism" is a negative word, but so is "nonfiction." They are double negatives. Both words tell you that what you are getting is real, not pretend. Those of ~ Dan Barker

If it's important do it everyday. ~ Dan John

Langdon suddenly wondered if ~ Dan Brown

I wish that television would stop selling our hatred of ourselves, and start seducing us with our love of ourselves. ~ Dan Harmon

Don't ever use a shovel to swat a fly. ~ Dan Groat

I was a weird little kid. I was very irritable, bored, frustrated. I felt my imagination bubbling inside my head without having any way to express itself. Given a crayon and paper, I would not draw a train or a house. I would draw these monsters, beasts and demons. ~ Clive Barker

I have been authorized to tell you both, Amy and Dan, that you have been granted active Madrigal status." He paused. "I might add, you are by far the youngest candidates ever to have achieved this…
And... Miss Gomez? Welcome to the Madrigals. ~ Linda Sue Park

I'm a comedic actor, not to mix words, but it's something I think about. A comedic actor. I like to think that Christopher Guest, Phil Hartman, Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness are comedic actors. And Dan Aykroyd, too. Those are my heroes. ~ Mike Myers

With my son, I tried not to be so judgmental and tried not to push him so hard. I didn't want him to feel that everything or that our love for him will be based on how much he has achieved. ~ Dan Hill

I grew up in the '80s. I was a kid, but all my favorite movies came out of that period. ~ Dan Fogler

You're being paid a lot of money to maintain a distorted view of reality, but you don't notice the tricks that your big bonus plays on your perception of reality. ~ Dan Ariely

It's only when you've lost someone that you realize the nonsense of that
phrase "It's a small world". It isn't. It's a vast, devouring world, especially if you're alone. ~ Clive Barker

I never thought I had a heart until it was broken. It's hard to see the point of something that only ever causes pain. ~ Dan Wells

As humans, reality for us is largely based on other people's perceptions. If there's 20 bodies in your crawl space but you haven't been caught yet, you tell yourself you're still a birthday clown, and that's how you keep doing it. ~ Dan Harmon

You can think of all the things a Congress or a legislature does, and then you kind of overshadow that with the fact that a few people are going to make those decisions. ~ Dan Webster

In junior high I read a lot of Stephen King, whose Americana approach to writing was often about "the terror next door" and at the same time I was reading a lot of Clive Barker, who was on the other end of the horror pendulum: insidious and disturbingly psychological. I found it fascinating how these two authors came at horror from two totally different perspectives. ~ Bryan Fuller

The true value of having Florida Virtual School in this mix is that it creates a gold standard for all providers to meet if they hope to compete for Florida students. This program raises the bar for everybody, even the traditional public schools. And that benefits all our children. ~ Dan Webster

Some people think I'm a total moron and I would hope most people think I'm very good at what I do. ~ Dan Abrams

If you are ever attacked in the street do not shout 'help!', shout 'Fire!'. People adore fires and always come rushing. Nobody will come if you shout 'help. ~ Jean Barker, Baroness Trumpington

Dear Dan,
Do you have general advice for how to approach diffıcult decisions?
D.A.: Luckily the technology you need to solve this problem is already at your disposal. All you need is a coin. Assign each car to a side of the coin, flip it high in the air. At this point, you can wait until the coin lands, and use this random device to make your choice - but my guess is that when the coin is in the air, you will realize which car is the one you really want. ~ Dan Ariely

There's a fine line between the course of fate and the curse of fate. But if fate is slightly nudged, then it's called destiny. ~ Dan Nimak

Not knowing stuff - like how your story ends before you start writing - is the seed of a lot of writer's block. ~ Dan Alatorre

Vadim inhaled, but couldn't form words, struggled with translating soldier concepts into something civilians could understand.

Dan moved into the breach. "Violence, Duncan. I'm afraid we didn't meet under a full moon with roses and a bottle of wine. We were set on killing each other. Just … that it didn't work out like that. ~ Marquesate

I've seen the future and it's much like the present only longer. ~ Dan Quisenberry

That's the problem with translations," she added sadly. "You can never quite reproduce the flavor of the original. ~ Emily Croy Barker

What would it hurt for me to give that homeless guy a couple bucks? Who the hell cares if he spends it on beer? Maybe beer is a step up for him from the harder stuff that knocked him onto the streets in the first place. Maybe, just maybe, he's actually going to spend it on food (homeless people do eat, right?). Maybe, he really is a desperate human being who is trying to change his situation. ~ Dan Pearce

The companies that provide debt, what do you think their goal is? Is their goal for you to fully understand the cost of your debt? No. So they're basically creating these approaches to make you feel like it is incredibly cheap or just to think about the cost per day rather the cost per year or cost for a lifetime. So debt is very simple mistake. ~ Dan Ariely

I love Coldplay. I love Steely Dan - Steely Dan's probably one of my top three bands of all time. ~ Judd Apatow

Textbook rental is a great concept. It is just a great business model. ~ Dan Rosensweig

It's like whenever a friend wants to show me their favorite movie...

... and it's great and all, but...

... I'd rather see something that they hadn't seen before. So we could watch it for the first time together. ~ Dan Slott

Of course, Dwight D. Eisenhower gets credit for doing more for golf than any other White House resident, a mid- to high-handicapper though he was. ~ Dan Jenkins

Better never begin; once begun, better finish. ~ Dan Millman

Overall, compassionate people tended to be healthier, happier, more popular, and more successful at work. Most ~ Dan Harris

People who work in horror know they are contributing to a genre that has always been loved and will always be loved - privately. It's the forbidden evil working behind the curtain. My job scoring a horror movie is like being the barker at a carnival. A good barker can get anyone to walk into the roped-off tent. ~ Christopher Young

During job interviews, when they ask: 'What is your worst quality?', I always say: 'Flatulence'. That way I get my own office. ~ Dan Thompson

People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true crime tale, we find ourselves fascinated because we're trying to understand why people behave the way they do, why they make the choices they do, how we become who we become. ~ Dan Chaon

I gather most people don't remember that when the U.S. Open first went to Pebble Beach in 1972, a big deal was made of the Open going to a public course for the first time. ~ Dan Jenkins

I believe that requiring those already in Texas to obtain driver's licenses would ensure they pass a driver's test and meet the requirements to obtain auto insurance. ~ Dan Patrick

Thus evolved some members of the Core - not altruists, but desperate survivalists who realized that the only way ultimately to win their never-ending zero-sum game was to stop the game. And to stop the game they needed to evolve into a species capable of empathy. ~ Dan Simmons

People complain that cities don't have fresh, sustainable food, but it's just not true. ~ Dan Barber

For lunch my colleagues and I each ate the equivalent of a double banana split. I told my wife I had two bananas for lunch...I failed to mention I had to eat my way through five pounds of ice cream to get to those bananas. ~ Dan Adams

"If it were a dog, it would have bitten you already." Actual Twents: "At e ne hond was, dan e oew allange ebettene." Meaning: Said to someone who is looking for something which is right under his nose. Source: Twents Woordenbook. Twents in Woord en Gebruik. ~ Robert Frost

Elinor retreated to the terrace where the night air on her skin felt like a hot bath. She was hurt, it had been such an onslaught. All the things she'd achieved in the past four years, the independent life she'd built for herself, seemed to count for nothing here. The only thing that mattered to her mother was finding a husband. As for painting, well, nice little hobby, very suitable, but you won't have much time for that when the children arrive. ~ Pat Barker

At Pixar, we do a million versions of the movie, and every one of them goes through their awkward teenage phase where it's terrible and doesn't make sense, and we just keep working on it. ~ Dan Scanlon

In this country our principles should not be silent. ~ Dan Groat

Everyone in my story has it's own character, GreenHollyWood cheeky, hypocritical and near to mad guy. A guy who really can't understand you and have very wrong conclusion so far I can say they are full of doubt.
John Barker, wow that's one of my favourite characters, he is the guy who always lies and always somebody is behind him, he works at the bakery, he tries to devastate a lot of stuff.
James Downder, the drunkard who knows probably he takes drugs or not, so far he is full of depression and so far the depression kills people.... ~ Deyth Banger

How can you come to understand your life when even the beginning is so complicated: a single cell imprinted with the color of your eyes and the shape of your face the pattern on your palm and the moods that will shadow you through your life. How can you be alive when every choice you make breaks the world into a thousand filaments each careless step branching into long tributaries of alternate lives shuddering outward and outward like sheet lightning. ~ Dan Chaon

One of the clues that I chased was that Dan Cooper, whoever he was, found an old magazine story called "How to Leave Your Life." And followed the directions on how to leave your life, and just went to the beach one day with his wife and kids, and said he needed to go to the bathroom, and went to the restroom at the beach and never came home ~ Geoffrey Gray

I am a fan of the truth even if it is painfully hard to accept ~ Dan Brown