|
4b94df1
|
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
|
|
science
god
noremorse
evidence
atheist
|
Christopher Hitchens |
|
575bd5d
|
"I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words 'spiritual' or 'spirituality.'
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|
understanding
writing
spirituality
spiritual
difficulty
possibility
atheist
sarcasm
|
Philip Pullman |
|
4e9db66
|
Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely soley upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.
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|
science
god
noremorse
atheist
|
Christopher Hitchens |
|
4895c55
|
The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.
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|
god
noremorse
atheist
|
Christopher Hitchens |
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f51672f
|
Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to begin with.
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|
existence
problem
humor
no-remorse
invention
voltaire
atheist
inventions
|
Christopher Hitchens |
|
556d500
|
We all know that any emotional bias -- irrespective of truth or falsity -- can be implanted by suggestion in the emotions of the young, hence the inherited traditions of an orthodox community are absolutely without evidential value.... If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. With such an honest and inflexible openness to evidence, they could not fail to receive any real truth which might be manifesting itself around them. The fact that religionists do not follow this honourable course, but cheat at their game by invoking juvenile quasi-hypnosis, is enough to destroy their pretensions in my eyes even if their absurdity were not manifest in every other direction.
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|
emotion
truth
brainwashing
cheat
falsity
orthodox
religionists
bias
indoctrination
conformity
value
evidence
atheism
atheist
honor
|
H.P. Lovecraft |
|
8f42ff9
|
...it is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist, he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin. I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it... Among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. [ ]
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|
materialist
good-works
untruth
contradictions
materialism
atheism
forgiveness
ignorance
atheist
|
Thomas Jefferson |
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6c0f247
|
"No it's not!" said Constable Visit. "Atheism is a denial of a god." "Therefore It Is A Religious Position," said Dorfl. "Indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny."
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religion
gods
atheist
|
Terry Pratchett |
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52ec8be
|
Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, 'atheism' is a term that should not even exist. No one needs to identify himself as a 'non-astrologer' or a 'non-alchemist.' We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.
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|
humor
philosophy
elvis-presley
religious-beliefs
galaxy
justification
atheism
atheist
elvis
obvious
|
Sam Harris |
|
fce8996
|
Why would an all-powerful creator decide to plant his carefully crafted species on islands and continents in exactly the appropriate pattern to suggest, irresistibly, that they had evolved and dispersed from the site of their evolution?
|
|
evolution
god
noremorse
pg270
creator
atheist
|
Richard Dawkins |
|
1af5700
|
Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation.
|
|
science
god
noremorse
atheist
|
Christopher Hitchens |
|
801b153
|
I wouldn't burden any decent system of faith by participating in it... I'm not agnostic. Just nonpartisan. Theological Switzerland, that's me.
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|
faith
religion
god
atheist
|
Jim Butcher |
|
edff6c9
|
suffered then, as now he suffers not so much because of what he wrote as from the misinterpretations of others... He disbelieved the ancient myths and miracles taught by established creeds. But the attacks on those creeds - or on persons devoted to them - have served to darken his memory, casting a shadow across the closing years of his life. When termed a 'dirty little atheist' he surely spoke from lack of understanding. It was a stricture, an inaccurate charge of the sort that has dimmed the greatness of this eminent American. But the true measure of his stature will yet be appreciated. The torch which he handed on will not be extinguished. If had ceased his writings with 'The Rights of Man' he would have been hailed today as one of the two or three outstanding figures of the Revolution. But 'The Age of Reason' cost him glory at the hands of his countrymen - a greater loss to them than to . I was always interested in the inventor. He conceived and designed the iron bridge and the hollow candle; the principle of the modern central draught burner. The man had a sort of universal genius. He was interested in a diversity of things; but his special creed, his first thought, was liberty. Traducers have said that he spent his last days drinking in pothouses. They have pictured him as a wicked old man coming to a sorry end. But I am persuaded that must have looked with magnanimity and sorrow on the attacks of his countrymen. That those attacks have continued down to our day, with scarcely any abatement, is an indication of how strong prejudice, when once aroused, may become. It has been a custom in some quarters to hold up as an example of everything bad. The memory of will outlive all this. No man who helped to lay the foundations of our liberty - who stepped forth as the champion of so difficult a cause - can be permanently obscured by such attacks. should be read by his countrymen. I commend his fame to their hands. { }
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|
prejudice
draught-burner
hollow-candle
iron-bridge
teddy-roosevelt
inventor
misrepresentation
roosevelt
theodore-roosevelt
greatness
paine
thomas-paine
atheist
memory
|
Thomas A. Edison |
|
a041cd9
|
"Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years. Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks 'That's enough of that. It's time to intervene,' and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person. Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either.
|
|
myth
responsibility
morality
reason
fear
love
truth
atheist-argument
christianity-is-immoral
christopher-hitchens
compulsory
divine-dictatorship
eternal-punishment
great-atheist-argument
hitchens
hitchslap
homo-sapiens
immoral-christianity
love-your-neighbor
supreme-being
dawkins
indifference
human-sacrifice
eternal-father
totalitarianism
debate
dictatorship
richard-dawkins
wishful-thinking
belief
evidence
ethics
atheism
health
intellect
atheist
redemption
crime
guilt
|
Christopher Hitchens |
|
4492263
|
To a born-again atheist like myself, it is clear that each of us has multiple selves, talents, perceptions. But to the Roman Catholic, unity is all.
|
|
religion
born-again
atheist
|
Gore Vidal |
|
fd8db8a
|
If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.
|
|
christianity
death
religion
god
humor
hitchens
gods
atheism
atheist
|
Christopher Hitchens |
|
9af8923
|
"Why should I have to hide the fact that I don't believe there's a supreme being? There's no proof of it. There's no harm in saying you're an atheist. It doesn't mean you treat people any differently. I live by the Golden Rule to do unto others, as you'd want to be treated. I just simply don't believe in religion, and I don't believe necessarily that there's a supreme being that watches over all of us. I follow the teachings of . said he worshipped the sun. He was a fellow atheist. I'm in good company ... ,
|
|
carlin
george-carlin
twain
mark-twain
einstein
supreme-being
charles-darwin
golden-rule
belief
company
darwin
atheism
atheist
|
Jesse Ventura |
|
1a429c9
|
If a person is intelligent, then of course he is either an agnostic or an atheist. Just as he is a physical coward. They are automatic definitions of high intelligence.
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|
intelligence
coward
atheist
|
John Fowles |
|
3239f57
|
Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man....
|
|
man
existence
humanism
consistency
essence
atheistic
views
definition
beliefs
sartre
jean-paul-sartre
existentialism
atheist
humans
|
Jean-Paul Sartre |
|
10c2a5f
|
"Sometimes I think Earth has got to be the insane asylum of the universe. . . and I'm here by computer error. At sixty-eight, I hope I've gained some wisdom in the past fourteen lustrums and it's obligatory to speak plain and true about the conclusions I've come to; now that I have been educated to believe by such mentors as Wells, Stapledon, Heinlein, van Vogt, Clarke, Pohl, (S. Fowler) Wright, Orwell, Taine, Temple, Gernsback, Campbell and other seminal influences in scientifiction, I regret the lack of any female writers but only Radclyffe Hall opened my eyes outside sci-fi.
|
|
fairy-tales
morality
science
hope
humanist
belief
science-fiction
secular
danger
utopia
atheist
respect
sci-fi
|
Forrest J. Ackerman |
|
ab308a9
|
"I don't know what I believe. I guess that makes me a Christmas tree agnostic." He smiles. "I like it and you're a Yom Kippur atheist."
|
|
belives
yom-kippur
christmas-tree
atheist
|
Stephanie Perkins |
|
e46c532
|
"But what if I don't believe in God? It's like they've sat me in front of a mannequin and said, Fall in love with him. You can't will feeling. What Jack says issues from some still, true place that could not be extinguished by all the schizophrenia his genetic code could muster. It sounds something like this. Get on your knees and find some quiet space inside yourself, a little sunshine right about here. Jack holds his hands in a ball shape about midchest, saying, Let go. Surrender, Dorothy, the witch wrote in the sky. Surrender, Mary. I want to surrender but have no idea what that means. He goes on with a level gaze and a steady tone: Yield up what scares you. Yield up what makes you want to scream and cry. Enter into that quiet. It's a cathedral. It's an empty football stadium with all the lights on. And pray to be an instrument of peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is conflict, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair hope...
|
|
prayer
prayers
alcoholics-anonymous
atheist
desperation
|
Mary Karr |
|
98ce987
|
"Since one could virtually open the Bible to any page and likely find something that speaks to his particular situation, is it fair to attribute this to the voice of God? After all, the Bible is not the only relevant book in existence. There are other religions with other scriptural texts which could do the same job. In fact, the text need not even be "scriptural." I could select Sartre's "Existentialism and Humanism" off the shelf, randomly flip to any page, and likely find something applicable to my life. Does this mean God is speaking through the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, a man who was by no means considered a friend to Christian thought? If the answer is yes, then who really needs to read the Bible? If this God is capable of turning anything into his "word" at any time, then you could theoretically receive a message from him in your Alpha-Bits."
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|
christianity
religion
atheist
|
Michael Vito Tosto |
|
109c187
|
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.
|
|
myth
existence
god
possible
atheist
|
David G. McAfee |
|
dc3f7bd
|
We are all born free from all religious affiliations and only come to believe in such things after being introduced to it -- so, atheism is the default position. Although some children are not indoctrinated with a specific religion before the age of reason, there are many more who are.
|
|
born-atheist
default-position
religion-christianity
indoctrination
dad
mom
atheist
|
David G. McAfee |
|
04ef7d7
|
was a self-declared atheist attempting to lift the stultifying fog of the gods from the mind of humankind.
|
|
berkman
stultifying
brainwashing
biography
atheism
atheist
deceit
|
David Burns |
|
c8ab93f
|
Sherrie described atheism as a positive system of belief--one based on data, exploration and observation rather than scripture, creed and prayer. Atheists believe that human life is a chemical phenomenon, that our first parents were super-novas that happened billions of years ago--that humans are inexplicable miracles in a universe of structured chaos. Atheists believe that when we die, we will turn into organic debris which will continue cycling for billions of years in various incarnations. Sherrie explained that atheists appreciate life unfathomably because it is going to end. No one who takes atheism seriously dies without hope.
|
|
hope
philosophy
caitlin-moran
carl-sagan
richard-dawkins
science-vs-religion
science-and-religion
atheist
dying
|
Israel Morrow |