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Atheism Quotes

Browse 5132 quotes about Atheism.

Atheism Quotes

“Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.”

Men Should Purpose Left Atheism Citizens Conscience Constitution Positive Atheism Desirable Conquest

Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

“Those who would legislate against the teaching of evolution should also legislate against gravity, electricity and the unreasonable velocity of light, and also, should introduce a clause to prevent the use of the telescope, the microscope and the spectroscope or any other instrument of precision which may in the future be invented, constructed or used for the discovery of truth.”

Should May Use Light Used Religion Atheism Teaching Evolution Discovery Instruments Gravity Introducing Electricity Precision Unreasonable Telescopes Microscopes Clauses Velocity

Author:Luther Burbank

“The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me. I don't want to have anything to do with such a God. But while I cannot conceive of such a God, I do recognize the existence of a great universal power - a power which we cannot even begin to comprehend and might as well not attempt to. It may be a conscious mind, or it may not. I don't know. As a scientist I should like to know, but as a man, I am not so vitally concerned.”

People Knows Men Want Should Mind Wells May Ideas Might Fear Existence Hell Atheism Conscious Concerned Scientist Universal Rage Burning Good God Conscious Mind

Author:Luther Burbank

“When men live as if there were no God, it becomes expedient for them that there should be none.”

Ifs Men Should Atheism

Book:The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson ...: Containing Fifty Four Sermons and Discourses, on Several Occasions. Together with The Rule of Faith

Source: The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson ...: Containing Fifty Four Sermons and Discourses, on Several Occasions. Together with The Rule of Faith

“Science should be taught not in order to support religion and not in order to destroy religion. Science should be taught simply ignoring religion.”

Should Order Support Atheism Taught Positive Atheism Science Religion

Author:Steven Weinberg

“How some dare scorn (as if a fabulous lie) that they should rise whom death to dust doth bind -- and like to beasts, a beastly life they lead, who naught attend save death when they are dead.”

Ifs Should Lying Atheism Dare Dust Beast Fabulous Scorn Beastly

Author:William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling

“I have always believed that there should be no subject about which one cannot make jokes, religion included. Clearly, one is always constricted by contemporary mores and trends because, after all, what one seeks above all is an appreciative audience.”

Should Audience Atheism Subjects Jokes Positive Atheism Contemporary Trends Always Believe Appreciative

Author:Rowan Atkinson

“For telling a good and incisive religious joke, you should be praised. For telling a bad one, you should be ridiculed and reviled. The idea that you could be prosecuted for the telling of either is quite fantastic.”

Should Ideas Religious Atheism Jokes Positive Atheism Fantastic

Author:Rowan Atkinson

“Do you doubt that the least effects of nature were not used as marks of the wrath of heaven? It was to the interest of pontiffs, priests, and augurs, as much as it is to the interest of lawyers and doctors that there should be lawsuits and sickness. No wonder they took care that the people should not grow slack in their religion.”

People Should Care Used Heaven Grows Interest Wonder Doubt Atheism Effects Doctors Mark Positive Atheism Lawyer Sickness Priests Wrath Lawsuit

Author:Pierre Bayle

“The influence of the leaders is due in very small measure to the arguments they employ, but in a large degree to their prestige. The best proof of this is that, should they by any circumstance lose their prestige, their influence disappears.”

Should Loses Leader Atheism Influence Circumstances Degrees Argument Positive Atheism Dues Disappear Proof Prestige

Book:The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind

Source: The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind

“The Chief Justice's ... main point seemed to be that the references to God in the Pledge of Allegiance aren't really religious and therefore are not that important - something I would think would offend Christians who think it should stay because it is religious and does matter. Too many Christians appear to be desperate to shore up their failing confidence in their own religious beliefs by having the government officially endorse those beliefs.”

“One seems to believe almost all that they believe; and when they stop short and call it a Religion, and you pass on, and call it only a reminiscence of one, should you not part with the kiss of peace?”

Should Believe Seems Atheism Kissing Positive Atheism

Book:Letters of Thomas Carlyle to John Stuart Mill, John Sterling and Robert Browning

Source: Letters of Thomas Carlyle to John Stuart Mill, John Sterling and Robert Browning

“If men do their best endeavours to free themselves from all errors, and yet fail of it through human frailty, so well I am persuaded of the goodness of God, that if in me alone should meet a confluence of all such errors of all the Protestants in the world that were thus qualified, I should not be so much afraid of them all, as I should be to ask pardon for them.”

Source: The works of William Chillingworth, 1: in three volumes

“In a discussion of this kind our interest should be centered not on the weight of the authority but on the weight of the argument. Indeed the authority of those who set out to teach is often an impediment to those who wish to learn. They cease to use their own judgment and regard as gospel whatever is put forward by their chosen teacher.”

Should Kind Use Wish Interest Teach Teacher Atheism Authority Judgment Argument Weight Regard Positive Atheism Cease Chosen Discussion Impediments

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Nature ordains that a man should wish the good of every man, whoever he may be, for this very reason that he is a man.”

Men Should May Reason Wish Atheism Positive Atheism Every Man

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero

“But there are still many who continue to marvel at the wisdom of God in so planning the universe that big rivers run by great towns, and that death comes at the end of life instead of in the middle of it. Divest pleas ... of their semi-philosophic jargon, reduce his illustrations to homely similes, and he is marvelling at the wisdom of God who so planned things that the two extremities of a piece of wood should come at the ends instead of in the middle.”

Should Stills Two Ends Bigs Running Universe Pieces Atheism Middle Rivers Towns Woods Planning Simile Illustration End Of Life Jargon Philosophic Extremity Homely

Author:Chapman Cohen

“There is one passage in the Scriptures to which all the potentates of Europe seem to have given their unanimous assent and approbation...."There went out a decree in the days of Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed."”

World Should Seems Given Atheism Europe Positive Atheism Scripture Passages Decree Augustus Augustus Caesar

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“We know that no one should tell a woman she has to bear an unwanted child. We know that religious beliefs cannot define patriotism.”

Knows Should Children Belief Religious Atheism Bears Positive Atheism Religious Belief Unwanted

Author:Walter Cronkite

“The American people need no course in philosophy or political science or church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman. To most of us, the manipulative invoking of religion to advance a politician or a party is frightening and divisive. The American people will tolerate religious leaders taking positions for or against candidates.”

“Why should we censure Othello when the Criterion Lover says, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me"?”

Should Atheism Lovers Criteria Censure

Book:Letters of Emily Dickinson

Source: Letters of Emily Dickinson

“All forms of dogmatic religion should go. The world did without them in the past and can do so again.”

World Should Past Form Can Do Atheism Positive Atheism Dogmatic

Author:Theodore Dreiser

“Real religion should be something that liberates men. But churches don't want free men who can think for themself and find their own divinity within. When a religion becomes organized it is no longer a religious experience but only superstition and estrangement.”

Thinking Men Want Should Real Church Religious Atheism Positive Atheism Organized Divinity Superstitions Free Man Religious Experience Estrangement

Author:Federico Fellini

“I expect to see, on television, the porcine Governor of the State of Michigan decrying to the whole world that my client should be in jail for rendering kindness and compassion, primarily because the porcine Governor of the State of Michigan is a religious nut.”

World Should States Whole Religious Compassion Kindness Atheism Television Whole World Jail Nuts Governors Clients Michigan Kindness And Compassion Rendering

Author:Geoffrey Fieger

“Counterfeit tolerance includes the opportunism of one who seeks, or accepts, tolerance for himself, as a minority, but who would deny it to others if ever he should be in a position to grant it.”

Ifs Should Accepting Atheism Position Deny Positive Atheism Tolerance Minorities Grants Counterfeit Opportunism

Author:Carl Joachim Friedrich

“The Bible should be taught so early and so thoroughly that it sinks straight to the bottom of the mind where everything that comes along can settle on it.”

Should Mind Atheism Taught Bottom Positive Atheism Settling

Book:Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962

Source: Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962

“The separation of Church and State in everything relating to taxation should be absolute.”

Should States Church Atheism Absolutes Separation Taxation Church And State Separation Of Church And State

Author:James A. Garfield

“He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound ... to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be indispensably necessary to prevent a greater evil.”

Ifs Men Should Evil Liberty Cases Greater Atheism Duty Bounds Positive Atheism

Book:Enquiry concerning political justice: with selections from Godwin's other writings

Source: Enquiry concerning political justice: with selections from Godwin's other writings

“Satyagraha means insistence on what one knows to be the truth. The insistence implies the exercise of free will as the need of social obligation. If one is content to know the truth himself, he does not become a votary of Satyagraha. A Satyagrahi should not only know the truth but should insist upon it in social relations. So Satyagraha is activation of truthfulness.”

“Why get excited over this latest episode in the long, sad history of American anti-intellectualism? Let me suggest that, as patriotic Americans, we should cringe in embarrassment that, at the dawn of a new, technological millennium, a jurisdiction in our heartland has opted to suppress one of the greatest triumphs of human discovery.”

Source: I Have Landed

“Religion is still parasitic in the interstices of our knowledge which have not yet been filled. Like bed-bugs in the cracks of walls and furniture, miracles lurk in the lacunae of science. The scientist plasters up these cracks in our knowledge; the more militant Rationalist swats the bugs in the open. Both have their proper sphere and they should realize that they are allies.”

Should Stills Realizing Atheism Wall Bed Scientist Miracle Filled Cracks Allies Spheres Furniture Bugs Militant Plasters

Author:John B. S. Haldane

“The utter folly of our time is lamentable, that men should think to assist God with human help and to protect the Church of Christ by worldly ambition.”

Thinking Men Should Humans Helping Christ Church Atheism Protect Ambition Positive Atheism Our Time Folly Worldly Church Of Christ

Author:Hilary of Poitiers

“I myself am not comfortable with the notion of secularists congregating in groups, except perhaps for defensive purposes: the last thing a secularist should wish to do is to act like a religion, with its rigid hierarchies, its suppression of divergent opinion, and, above all, its ruthless attempts (now mercifully inhibited by laws) to outlaw "heresy" by brute force. Opinions must be changed, one at a time if necessary, but if there are those who wish to persist in religious belief, they should certainly be allowed to do so.”

“The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should insist on the need to engage in a meaningful debate on the entire issue of the truth or falsity (or probability or improbability) of religious tenets, without being subject to accusations of impiety, immorality, impoliteness, or any of the other smokescreens used by the pious to deflect attention from the central issues at hand.”

Needs Should Hands Used Religious Attention Issues Atheism Subjects Atheist Positive Atheism Debate Meaningful Agnostic Probability Pious Accusation Immorality Falsity Improbability

Author:S. T. Joshi

“It is the inevitable effect of religion on public policy that makes it a matter of public concern. Advocates of religiosity extol the virtues or moral habits that religion is supposed to instill in us. But we should be equally concerned with the intellectual habits it discourages.”

Should Matter Moral Virtue Atheism Effects Policy Habit Intellectual Concern Concerned Positive Atheism Inevitable Discouraging Public Policy Instill

Author:Wendy Kaminer

“People of faith should not invoke the power of the state to decide what everyone can believe or think or read or do. In such cases, like abortion or prayer or prohibition or sexual identity, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the free conscience of each person, not the coercive rule of secular law.”

People Thinking Should Believe Persons States Law Prayer Roles Cases Atheism Identity Conscience Appeals Abortion Secular Prohibition Invoke

Author:Edward Kennedy

“I believe that religious witness should not mobilize public authority to impose a view where a decision is inherently private in nature or where people are deeply divided about whether it is... Americans are plainly and persistently divided about abortion and the fiat of government cannot settle the issue as a matter of conscience or of conduct.”

People Should Believe Matter Government I Believe Religious Decision Views Issues Atheism Authority Conscience Positive Atheism Witness Settling Abortion Divided

Author:Edward Kennedy

“I want here to make three suggestions: first, that the doubts the ordinary man feels about religion are justified, and need not be stifled or concealed; second, that there is no ground for the view that Christianity is the only alternative to communism, or that there can be no sound character training that is not based on religion; and, third, I want to make some practical suggestions to the parents who are not believers, on what they should tell the children about God, and what sort of moral training they should give them.”

“I believe that a person should take an affirmative outlook. There are always problems in life, old and new, uncertainties, and unexpected contingencies. The optimal way to deal with this is not to give up in despair, but to move ahead using the best intelligence and resources that we have to overcome adversity.”

“I ... believe the study of human history remains important and should not be banned. We should ensure that any archaeological studies are conducted with sensitivity and respect. Reburying relics, in my view, does not help anyone go anywhere.”

Should Believe Humans Doe Important Helping I Believe Views Study Atheism Remains Positive Atheism Sensitivity Human History Banned Relics

Author:Richard Leakey

“Puritans should wear fig leaves on their eyes.”

Should Eye Atheism Positive Atheism Puritan Figs

Author:Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

“Where Church and State are habitually associated, it is natural that minds, even of a high order, should unconsciously come to regard religion as only a subtler mode of police.”

Should Mind States Order Natural Church Atheism Police Regard Positive Atheism Church And State

Book:Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)

“Certainly it was no design of the atoms to place themselves in a particular order, nor did they decide what motions each should have. But atoms were struck with blows in many ways and carried along by their own weight from infinite times up to the present.”

Way Should Order Atheism Design Particular Should Have Weight Infinite Blow Atoms Infinite Time

Author:Lucretius

“Religion! O Diabole! Fie, I am asham'd, however that I seem, To think a word of such simple sound, Of such great matter should be made the ground.”

Thinking Should Made Matter Seems Sound Simple Atheism

Book:The works of Christopher Marlowe

Source: The works of Christopher Marlowe

“It goes with the passionate intensity and deep conviction of the truth of a religious belief, and of course of the importance of the superstitious observances that go with it, that we should want others to share it - and the only certain way to cause a religious belief to be held by everyone is to liquidate nonbelievers. The price in blood and tears that mankind generally has had to pay for the comfort and spiritual refreshment that religion has brought to a few has been too great to justify our entrusting moral accountancy to religious belief.”

Source: The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science

“It is far more probable that our senses should deceive us, than that an old woman should be carried up a chimney on a broom stick; and that it is far less astonishing that witnesses should lie, than that witches should perform the acts that were alleged.”

Should Lying Atheism Sticks Positive Atheism Senses Witness Witch Deceiving Astonishing Old Woman Chimneys Brooms

Author:Michel de Montaigne

“One day I was just looking at the coins is what brought this up. I saw "In God We Trust" on my coins. I said, "I don't trust in God," what is this? And I recalled there was something in the Constitution that said you're not allowed to do that and so I did some research. And as soon as I did the research, I realized the law seemed to be on my side and I filed the suit. It's a cool thing to do. Everyone should try it.”

Should Trying Said Law Sides Saws Atheism One Day Research Constitution I Realized Suits Things To Do Trust In God Coins Don't Trust Cool Things God We Trust

Author:Michael Newdow

“This issue is whether or not our government should be infusing religion into the public schools. Our churches are very strong in this nation and I think that's great and everybody should have the ability to worship as he or she sees fit. I choose to worship not believing in God and government should not thrust a religious idea down my throat.”

“Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia should be commended for acknowledging that his views are so strong that - should the Pledge case reach the Supreme Court - he wouldn't be able to maintain the requisite impartiality.”

Should Able Strong Justice Views Cases Atheism Court Positive Atheism Supreme Supreme Court Pledge Impartiality Supreme Court Justice Court Justice

Author:Michael Newdow

“If the ancient churches, in debating and deciding the greatest mysteries of religion, knew nothing of these two texts, I understand not why we should be so fond of them now the debate is over.”

Ifs Should Two Church Mystery Atheism Ancient Positive Atheism Debate

Book:Delphi Collected Works of Sir Isaac Newton (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Collected Works of Sir Isaac Newton (Illustrated)

“Creeds like pacifism or anarchism, which seem on the surface to imply a complete renunciation of power, rather encourage this habit of mind. For if you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics ... the more you are in the right (and) everybody else should be bullied into thinking otherwise.”

Ifs Thinking Should Mind Seems Atheism Habit Ordinary Positive Atheism Surface Creeds Anarchism Bullied Renunciation Pacifism Habits Of Mind Dirtiness

Book:All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays

Source: All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays