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Atheism Quotes

“I believe that the Jews have made a contribution to the human condition out of all proportion to their numbers: I believe them to be an immense people. Not only have they supplied the world with two leaders of the stature of Jesus Christ and Karl Marx, but they have even indulged in the luxury of following neither one nor the other.”

Source: Aristotle Onassis

“Once people get hung up on theology, they've lost sanity forever. More people have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ than any other name in the history of the world.”

People World Has Beens Religion Jesus Names Lost Christ Forever Atheism Jesus Christ Theology Sanity Hung World History

Author:Gore Vidal

“When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.”

People Political Religion Atheism Judgment Tools Seeds Manipulation

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“We shouldn't even need the word 'atheism'. If people didn't invent ridiculous imaginary gods, rational people wouldn't have to deny them.”

People Ifs Needs Religion Atheism Deny Ridiculous Rational Imaginary

Author:Ricky Gervais

“One People, one Reign, one Leader.”

People Religion Leader Atheism Reign

Author:Adolf Hitler

“At no time have I ever said that people should be stripped of their right to the insanity of belief in God. If they want to practice this kind of irrationality, that's their business. It won't get them anywhere; it certainly won't make them happier or more compassionate human beings; but if they want to chew that particular cud. they're welcome to it.”

People Ifs Want Should Humans Kind Said Belief Human Beings Practice Atheism Particular Welcome Insanity Compassionate Belief In God Irrationality

Author:Madalyn Murray O'Hair

“Tolerance is thin gruel compared to the rapture of absolute truths. It's not surprising that religious people are often better protected by atheists and agnostics than each other.”

People Religion Religious Atheism Absolutes Atheist Tolerance Surprising Protected Rapture Absolute Truth

Author:Wendy Kaminer

“I love how people walk around with crucifixes, skullcaps, pointy hats, funny beards and then say 'you should keep your atheism to yourself.'”

People Should Walks Atheism Hats Beard

Author:Ricky Gervais

“Dewey repudiated what he called militant atheism. He felt that people have innate religious qualities, such as compassion for sufferers, an urge to improve life, and a sense of awe before the mysteries of existence. However, by the standards of conventional religion, Dewey was an atheist.”

People Felt Religious Existence Quality Compassion Mystery Atheism Standards Atheist Positive Atheism Awe Urges Conventional Innate Militant Sufferers

Author:James A. Haught

“Consciously or unconsciously, most theists see in gods and devils, heaven and hell, reward and punishment, a whip to lash the people into obedience, meekness and contentment.... The philosophy of atheism expresses the expansion and growth of the human mind. The philosophy of theism, if we can call it a philosophy, is static and fixed.”

“As [The Nation columnist Katha] Pollitt points out, when one starts looking beneath the surface of things and adding together the out-front atheists with the indifferent nonbelievers, you end up with a much larger group of people than Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Unitarians put together.”

People Ends Together Nations Groups Atheism Fronts Atheist Jew Positive Atheism Surface Buddhist Indifferent Columnists Beneath The Surface Unitarian

Author:Natalie Angier

“Myth was regarded as primary; it was concerned with what was thought to be timeless and constant in our existence. Myth looked back to the origins of life, to the foundations of culture, and to the deepest levels of the human mind. Myth was not concerned with practical matters, but with meaning. Unless we find some significance in our lives, we mortal men and women fall very easily into despair. The mythos of a society provided people with a context that made sense of their day-to-day lives; it directed their attention to the eternal and the universal.”

Source: The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism

“Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself, as well as from others, than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture? ... I do not mean to imply that the evil are anything other than a small minority among the religious or that the religious motives of most people are in any way spurious. I mean only that evil people tend to gravitate toward piety for the disguise and concealment it can offer them.”

“We are a people of many races, many faiths, creeds, and religions. I do not think that the men who made the Constitution forbade the establishment of a State church because they were opposed to religion. They knew that the introduction of religious differences into American life would undermine the democratic foundations of this country. What holds for adults holds even more for children, sensitive and conscious of differences. I certainly hope that the Board of Education will think very, very seriously before it introduces this division and antagonism in our public schools.”

“In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.”

People Age Atheism Crisis Positive Atheism Myth Nostalgia Old Days Good Old Days

Author:Brooks Atkinson

“He who dishonors himself [by lying about his opinions] for the sake of being honored by others will find that two mistakes have been made - one by himself, and the other, by the people.”

People Has Beens Made Two Lying Mistake Opinion Atheism Sake Positive Atheism Honored Dishonor

Author:Robert Green Ingersoll

“A very wise father once remarked, that in the government of his children, he forbid as few things as possible; a wise legislature would do the same. It is folly to make laws on subjects beyond human prerogative, knowing that in the very nature of things they must be set aside. To make laws that man cannot and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. It is very important in a republic, that the people should respect the laws, for if we throw them to the winds, what becomes of civil government?”

People Ifs Men Should Humans Children Important Government Law Father Knowing Wise Atheism Subjects Wind Positive Atheism Folly Republic Contempt Legislature Prerogative Very Wise

Author:Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“One thing about religious truths is that we have to take them on faith, and faith needs reassurance. What’s more reassuring than noticing that some other people, whom you admire, are so certain that it’s all true that they’re willing to go the ultimate mile?”

People Needs Certain Religious One Thing Atheism Willing Truth Is Ultimate Positive Atheism Miles Admire Noticing Reassurance Reassuring Religious Truth

Author:Rodney Stark

“I don't think there's a problem. First of all, I don't think music turns people into social liabilities. Because you hear a lyric - there's no medical proof that a person hearing a lyric is going to act out the lyric. There's also no medical proof that if you hear any collection of vowels and consonants, that the hearing of that collection is going to send you to Hell.”

People Ifs Thinking Firsts Persons Problem Turns Social Hell Atheism Hearing Positive Atheism Proof Medical Collections Liability Vowels Consonants

Author:Frank Zappa

“Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are in my opinion more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality.”

People Writing Facts Law Opinion Atheism Dangerous Positive Atheism Sexuality Celebrate Songwriters Bad Laws

Book:Real Frank Zappa Book

Source: Real Frank Zappa Book

“Our [Virginia's] act for freedom of religion is extremely applauded. The Ambassadors and ministers of the several nations of Europe resident at this court have asked me copies of it to send to their sovereigns, and it is inserted at full length in several books now in the press; among others, in the new Encyclopédie. I think it will produce considerable good even in those countries where ignorance, superstition, poverty and oppression of body and mind in every form, are so firmly settled on the mass of the people, that their redemption from them can never be hoped.”

Source: Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson

“I believe the American people are more concerned with a man's views and abilities than with the church to which he belongs. I believe the founding fathers meant it when they provided in Article VI of the Constitution that there should be no religious test for public office. And I believe that the American people mean to adhere to those principles today.”

“[Middleton] contended that the religious leaders of the fourth century had admitted, eulogised, and habitually acted upon principles that were diametrically opposed, not simply to the aspirations of a transcendent sanctity, but to the dictates of the most common honesty. He showed that they had applauded falsehood, that they had practised the most wholesale forgery, that they had habitually and grossly falsified history, that they had adopted to the fullest extent the system of pious frauds, and that they continually employed them to stimulate the devotion of the people.”

Source: History of the rise and influence of the spirit of rationalism in Europe

“And may I not be allowed to ... read in the character of the American people, in their devotion to true liberty and to the Constitution which is its palladium [protection], ... a Government which watches over ... the equal interdict [prohibition] against encroachments and compacts between religion and the state.”

People May States Character Government Liberty Watches Atheism Equal Constitution Positive Atheism Protection Devotion Prohibition Encroachment

Author:James Madison

“The Book of Revelation has all the authority, in these theological uplands, of military orders in time of war. The people turn to it for light upon all their problems, spiritual and secular.”

People Book War Problem Light Spiritual Order Turns Atheism Military Authority Positive Atheism Revelations Secular Theological Book Of Revelation

Author:H. L. Mencken

“Figures cannot calculate the amount collected by those public and private robbers: it is more than would liberate every slave in the United States; it would pay the British debt! They say, We do not force people to give. I see no difference between forcing a man out of his money, at the mouth of a pistol, and forcing it from by trick and cunning; the crime is the same.”

People Men Giving States Force Differences United Pay United States Atheism Crime Figures Amount Mouths Slave British Positive Atheism Debt Tricks Cunning Robbers Pistols

Author:Anne Royall

“[G]et two-thirds of the states to alter the Constitution; come out with their national religion, and then let the people get their throats ready.”

People Two States Atheism Ready Thirds Constitution Positive Atheism Throat

Author:Anne Royall

“[Kant] was like many people: in intellectual matters he was skeptical, but in moral matters he believed imjplicitly in the maximx that he had imbibed at his mother's knee.”

People Matter Mother Moral Atheism Intellectual Positive Atheism Knees Skeptical

Author:Bertrand Russell

“If people think God is interesting, the onus is on them to show that there is anything there to talk about. Otherwise they should just shut up about it.”

People Ifs Thinking Should Shows Interesting Atheism Positive Atheism Shut Up

Author:Richard Dawkins

“People sometimes try to score debating points by saying, Evolution is only a theory. That is correct, but it's important to understand what that means. It is also only a theory that the world goes round the Sun - it's just a theory for which there is an immense amount of evidence. There are many scientific theories that are in doubt. Even within evolution, there is some room for controversy. But that we are cousins of apes and jackals and starfish, let's say, that is a fact in the ordinary sense of the word.”

“Our leaders have described the recent atrocity with the customary cliche: mindless cowardice. Mindless may be a suitable word for the vandalising of a telephone box. It is not helpful for understanding what hit New York on September 11. Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from. It came from religion.”

“The present Luddism over genetic engineering may die a natural death as the computer-illiterate generation is superseded.... I fear that, if the green movement's high-amplitude warnings over GMOs turn out to be empty, people will be dangerously disinclined to listen to other and more serious warnings.”

Source: A Devil's Chaplain: Selected Writings

“It seems to me that if one had kept silence up to now regarding religion, people would still be submerged in the most grotesque and dangerous superstition ... regarding government, we would still be groaning under the bonds of feudal government ... regarding morals, we would still be having to learn what is virtue and what is vice. To forbid all these discussions, the only ones worthy of occupying a good mind, is to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and barbarism.”

“The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual.”

People Ends States Reason Government Law Purpose Individual Liberty Atheism Positive Atheism Governors Laws Of Nature Purpose Of Government

Author:Denis Diderot

“We are a free people; and now you have planted in our country the title deeds of our future slavery. You are neither god nor demon; who are you, then, to make slaves? Orou! You understand the language of these men, tell us all, as you have told me, what they have written on this sheet of metal: This country is ours. This country yours? And why? Because you have walked thereon? If a Tahitian landed one day on your shores, and scratched on one of your rocks or on the bark of your trees: This country belongs to the people of Tahiti - what would you think?”

People Ifs Thinking Men Country Language Written Tree Atheism Rocks One Day Slavery Slave Deeds Positive Atheism Our Country Titles Demon Shore Our Future Metals Sheets Bark Tahiti

Author:Denis Diderot

“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

“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

“And to think of this great country in danger of being dominated by people ignorant enough to take a few ancient Babylonian legends as the canons of modern culture. Our scientific men are paying for their failure to speak out earlier. There is no use now talking evolution to these people. Their ears are stuffed with Genesis.”

“The two big mistakes were the belief in a sky god - that there's a man in the sky with 10 things he doesn't want you to do and you'll burn for a long time if you do them - and private property, which I think is at the core of our failure as a species. That's the source of my indignations, my dissatisfactions, however it comes out on the stage. I feel betrayed by the people I'm part of, these creatures, these magnificent creatures.”

“Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma.”

People Religious Atheism Atheist Noise Reasonable Dogma Agnostic There Is No God There Being No God Religious Dogma

Author:Sam Harris

“I regard irreligious people as pioneers. If there had been no priesthood the world would have advanced ten thousand times better than it has now.”

People Ifs World Religion Women Atheism Thousand Ten Regard Pioneers Priesthood

Author:Anandi Gopal Joshi

“Whilst no people appears in history without the sign and palladium of a positive faith, without temple, altar, priesthood--that is to say, without a constituted religion--unbelief appears only under an individual form, sometimes proscribed, sometimes tolerated, seldom powerful, and never becoming established as the public and social expression of a nation.”

People Sometimes Form Individual Nations Social Powerful Atheism Expression Becoming Temples Altars Unbelief Priesthood

Author:Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

“Our enemies must not deceive themselves-in the 2,000 years of German history known to us, our people have never been more united than today. The Lord of the Universe has treated us so well in the past years that we bow in gratitude to a providence which has allowed us to be members of such a great nation. We thank Him that we also can be entered with honor into the ever-lasting book of German history!”

People Years Wells Book Today Past Universe Nations United Known Lord Enemy Atheism Honor Gratitude Members Treated Lasting Bows Deceiving Providence Great Nations German History

Book:Hitler's Words

Source: Hitler's Words

“For one cannot assume that God exists to help people who are too cowardly and too lazy to help themselves and think that God exists only to make up for the weakness of mankind. He does not exist for that purpose. He has always, at all times, blessed only those who were prepared to fight their own battles.”

People Thinking Doe Helping Purpose Fighting Atheism Mankind Battle Weakness Blessed Assuming Prepared All Time Lazy Cowardly God Exists

Book:Hitler's Words

Source: Hitler's Words

“While we destroyed the Centre Party, we have not only brought thousands of priests back into the Church, but to millions of respectable people we have restored their faith in their religion and in their priests. The union of the Evangelical Church in a single Church for the whole Reich, the Concordat with the Catholic Church, these are but milestones on the road which leads to the establishment of a useful relation and a useful co operation between the Reich and the two Confessions.”

Source: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939

“You, my Brown Guard, will regard it as a matter of course that this German people should go only by the way which Providence ordained for it when it gave to Germans the common language. So we go forward with the profoundest faith in God into the future. Would that which we have achieved have been possible if Providence had not helped us?”

People Ifs Way Should Has Beens Matter Courses Language Common Atheism Regard Brown Faith In God Providence Common Language

Book:The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939: An English Translation of Representative Passages Arranged Under Subjects and Edited by Norman H. Baynes

Source: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939: An English Translation of Representative Passages Arranged Under Subjects and Edited by Norman H. Baynes

“We are a people of different faiths, but we are one. Which faith conquers the other is not the question; rather, the question is whether Christianity stands or falls.... We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity... in fact our movement is Christian. We are filled with a desire for Catholics and Protestants to discover one another in the deep distress of our own people.”

People Ideas Different Facts Christian Desire Fall Christianity Atheism Movement Catholic Filled Conquer Tolerate Distress Protestants Different Faiths

Author:Adolf Hitler

“If positive Christianity means love of one's neighbour, i.e. the tending of the sick, the clothing of the poor, the feeding of the hungry, the giving of drink to those who are thirsty, then it is we who are the more positive Christians. For in these spheres the community of the people of National Socialist Germany has accomplished a prodigious work.”

Source: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939

“Imbued with the desire to secure for the German people the great religious, moral, and cultural values rooted in the two Christian Confessions, we have abolished the political organizations but strengthened the religious institutions.”

People Two Christian Political Desire Values Religious Moral Atheism Organization Institutions Secure Rooted Confession Great Religious

Book:The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939: An English Translation of Representative Passages Arranged Under Subjects and Edited by Norman H. Baynes

Source: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939: An English Translation of Representative Passages Arranged Under Subjects and Edited by Norman H. Baynes

“If any religion allows the persecution of the people of different faiths, if any religion keeps women in slavery, if any religion keeps people in ignorance, then I can't accept that religion.”

People Ifs I Can Different Accepting Atheism Ignorance Slavery Persecution Different Faiths

Author:Taslima Nasrin