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Quote by Emma Goldman

“I was called before the head matron, a tall woman with a stolid face. She began taking my pedigree. What religion? was the first question. None, I am an atheist. Atheism is prohibited here. You will have to go to church. I replied that I would do nothing of the kind. I did not believe in anything the Church stood for and, not being a hypocrite, I would not attend.”

Quote by Emma Goldman

Book:Living My Life (Two Volumes in One)

Work

Living My Life (Two Volumes in One)

This two-volume set offers an in-depth look at the life of the individual, detailing their personal journey, achievements, and the historical context of their times. more

Author

Emma Goldman was a prominent American writer, lecturer, and activist, known for her work in anarchism and feminism. Born on June 27, 1869, in Lithuania, she immigrated to the United States in her teens. Goldman's life was marked by her advocacy for workers' rights, free speech, and sexual liberation. She was a key figure in the American labor movement and the early 20th-century radical movement. Her influential writings and speaking engagements made her a leading voice in the fight for social and political change. She passed away on May 14, 1940. more

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“How to raise this dead level of theistic belief is really a matter of life and death for all denominations. Therefore their tolerance; but it is a tolerance not of understanding; but of weakness.”

Matter Belief Understanding Levels Atheism Weakness Raises Positive Atheism Tolerance Life And Death Denominations

Book:Mother Earth, a Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Social Science and Literature

Source: Mother Earth, a Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Social Science and Literature

“Have not all theists painted their Deity as the god of love and goodness? Yet after thousands of years of such preachments the gods remain deaf to the agony of the human race. Confucius cares not for the poverty, squalor and misery of the people of China. Buddha remains undisturbed in his philosophical indifference to the famine and starvation of outraged Hindoos; Jahve continues deaf to the bitter cry of Israel; while Jesus refuses to rise from the dead against his Christians who are butchering each other.”

Source: Mother Earth, a Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Social Science and Literature

“Atheism ... in its philosophic aspect refuses allegiance not merely to a definite concept of God, but it refuses all servitude to the God idea, and opposes the theistic principle as such. Gods in their individual function are not half as pernicious as the principle of theism which represents the belief in a supernatural, or even omnipotent, power to rule the earth and man upon it. It is the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon humanity, its paralyzing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism is fighting with all its power.”

Source: Mother Earth Bulletin

“The God idea is growing more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is learning to understand natural phenomena and in the degree that science progressively correlates human and social events.”

Mind Humans Ideas Social Natural Growing Atheism Events Degrees Positive Atheism Proportion Human Mind Natural Phenomena Social Events

Book:Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader

Source: Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader

“Imagine, capitalist America also divides the anarchists into two categories, philosophic and criminal. The first are accepted in highest circles; one of them is even high in the councils of the Wilson Administration. The second category, to which we have the honor of belonging, is persecuted and often imprisoned. Yours also seems to be a distinction without a difference. Don't you think so?”

“It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.”

People Atheism Ancient Positive Atheism Craving Being Positive Hebrew

Book:The Passionate State of Mind

Source: The Passionate State of Mind

“Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own. Whether it is our own meaningless self we are upholding, or some doctrine devoid of evidence, we can do it only in a frenzy of faith.”

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Author:Eric Hoffer

“There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses.”

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Book:The Passionate State of Mind

Source: The Passionate State of Mind

“All mass movements avail themselves of action as a means of unification. The conflicts a mass movement seeks and incites serve not only to down its enemies but also to strip its followers of their distinct individuality and render them more soluble in the collective medium.”

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Book:THE TRUE BELIEVER

Source: THE TRUE BELIEVER

“Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. We join a mass movement to escape from individual responsibility, or, in the words of an ardent young Nazi, to be free from freedom. It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility?”