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Influence Quotes

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Influence Quotes

“There are many ways in which people are made aware of their power to believe in the supremacy of Divine guidance and power: through music or visual art, some event or experience decisively influencing their life, looking through a microscope or telescope, or just by looking at the miraculous manifestations or purposefulness of Nature.”

People Way Believe Art Made Atheism Influence Events Divine Guidance Manifestation Visuals Miraculous Supremacy Telescopes Microscopes Visual Art Divine Guidance Purposefulness

Author:Ernst Boris Chain

“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.”

Action Humanity Fighting Atheism Influence Effects Pernicious Theism Thoughts And Actions Absolutism

Book:Mother Earth Bulletin

Source: Mother Earth Bulletin

“It has long been observed, that an atheist has no just reason for endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another understanding: and industriously labour to win a proselyte, and eagerly catch at the slightest pretense to dignify their sect with a distinguished name.”

Source: The Beauties of Samuel Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous

“I am not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion, I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case.”

Source: Letters to a Young Contrarian

“The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.”

“Since 1787 the principle of freedom of religion has been attacked but never overthrown. Keeping education in the United States free of sectarian influence has long been one of the primary struggles of believers in freedom of religion.”

Long Has Beens States United Principles United States Struggle Atheism Influence Positive Atheism Believer Primaries Freedom Of Religion

Author:Joseph Leon Blau

“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

“In fact, it is because the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual's decision on whether and when to pray.”

Trying May Facts Use Government Individual Community Prayer Decision Powerful Atheism Influence Effects Praying Authority Positive Atheism

Author:Barbara Brandriff Crabb

“Dogmas of every kind put assertion in the place of reason and give rise to more contention, bitterness, and want of charity than any other influence in human affairs.”

Want Giving Humans Kind Reason Atheism Influence Charity Affair Positive Atheism Bitterness Dogma Assertion Contention

Book:Letters to the press: the unknown Conan Doyle

Source: Letters to the press: the unknown Conan Doyle

“Antiquity was often delighted to cast a halo of mythical glory around its illustrious names. The immortal works of this great philosopher seemed to entitle him to more than mortal honors. A legend into the authenticity of which we will abstain from inquiring, asserted that his mother, Perictione, a pure virgin, suffered an immaculate conception through the influence of Apollo. The god declared to Ariston, to whom she was about to be married, the parentage of the child.”

Source: History of the Intellectual Development of Europe

“Had the Bible been in clear straightforward language, had the ambiguities and contradictions been edited out, and had the language been constantly modernised to accord with contemporary taste it would almost certainly have been, or become, a work of lesser influence.”

Has Beens Language Clear Atheism Influence Taste Contemporary Contradiction Ambiguity Accord Straightforward Edited

Author:John Kenneth Galbraith

“A normal feminine influence in recasting our religious assumptions will do more than any other one thing to improve the world.”

World Religious One Thing Atheism Influence Normal Positive Atheism Assumption Feminine

Book:His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers

Source: His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers

“Obey; this may be right; but beware of reverence.... Government is nothing but regulated force; force is its appropriate claim upon your attention. It is the business of individuals to persuade; the tendency of concentrated strength, is only to give consistency and permanence to an influence more compendious than persuasion.”

Giving May Government Individual Force Attention Atheism Influence Claims Positive Atheism Tendencies Appropriate Reverence Consistency Persuasion Permanence

Book:Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness

Source: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness

“We are well aware that religion is not as bad an influence as it was a short time ago, as history is counted. But it is a sufficiently bad influence even in modern times, and its reduced viciousness (in practice) is due plainly enough to its reduced power.”

Wells Enough Practice Atheism Influence Modern Dues Short Time Modern Times

Author:E. Haldeman-Julius

“Fortunately, there are old terrors and powers that religion no longer can exercise so effectively as it did only a few score years ago. But the atmosphere and the attitude of bigotry remain. If religion cannot ordinarily invoke the armed force of law to punish heretics, it still plays upon the psychology of fear and predominantly its influence is to frighten men and distort their views and poison every process of their reasoning.”

Ifs Men Years Stills Play Law Force Process Views Attitude Psychology Atheism Influence Exercise Years Ago Terror Atmosphere Poison Reasoning Score Bigotry Heretic Armed Forces Invoke

Author:E. Haldeman-Julius

“It is almost impossible to convince people who are under the influence of ideological bigotry that whose whom they regard as belonging to the enemy species are human.”

People Humans Enemy Impossible Atheism Influence Regard Species Convince Bigotry Belonging Ideological

Author:Louis J. Halle

“I say then, that belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination.”

Source: Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition

“Their moral influence will then do infinitely more to advance the true interests of religion, than any measures which they may call on Congress to enact.”

May Interest Moral Atheism Influence Congress

Author:Richard Mentor Johnson

“If my church attempted to influence me in a way which was improper or which affected adversely my responsibilities as a public servant sworn to uphold the Constitution, then I would reply to them that this was an improper action on their part. It was one to which I could not subscribe.”

Ifs Way Action Church Responsibility Atheism Influence Constitution Positive Atheism Servant Affected Public Servants

Author:John F. Kennedy

“Because we are unqualifiedly and without reservation against any system of denominational schools, maintained by the adherents of any creed with the help of state aid, therefore, we as strenuously insist that the public schools shall be free from sectarian influences, and above all, free from any attitude of hostility to the adherents of any particular creed.”

States Helping School Attitude Atheism Influence Particular Positive Atheism Aids Creeds Public School Hostility Reservations

Book:Writings

Source: Writings

“Religion is ... the most pernicious single influence in human society, without one redeeming feature.”

Humans Atheism Influence Positive Atheism Features Human Society Pernicious Redeeming

Author:Theodore Schroeder

“"You don't believe in God," I said to Stein. "God is a word banging around in the human nervous system. He exists about as much as Santa Claus." "Santa Claus has had a tremendous influence, exist or not." "For children." "Lots of saints have died for God with a courage that's hardly childish." "That's part of the horror. It's all a fantasy. It's all for nothing."”

Believe Humans Children Said Fantasy Atheism Influence Horror Died Don't Believe Saint Positive Atheism Nervous Believe In God Santa Santa Claus Nervous System Banging

Book:The Blood of the Lamb: A Novel

Source: The Blood of the Lamb: A Novel

“It was in this year, 1828, that the standard of "the Christian Party in Politics" was openly unfurled... This was an evident attempt, through the influence of the clergy over the female mind - until this hour lamentably neglected in the United States - to effect a union of Church and State.”

“There was the strangest combination of church influence against me. Baker is a Campbellite; and therefore, as I suppose with few exceptions, got all of that Church. My wife had some relations in the Presbyterian churches, and some in the Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it would tell, I was set down as either one or the other, while it was everywhere contended that no Christian ought to vote for me because I belonged to no Church, and was suspected of being a Deist and had talked of fighting a duel.”

Christian Fighting Church Wife Atheism Influence Ought Vote Relation Positive Atheism My Wife Combination Exception Bakers Presbyterians Deist Vote For Me

Author:Abraham Lincoln

“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 United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature. . . . [In] the formation of the American governments . . . it will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of heaven. . . . These governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”

“The Church of Rome has made it an article of faith that no man can be saved out of their church, and all other religious sects approach this dreadful opinion in proportion to their ignorance, and the influence of ignorant or wicked priests.”

Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Diary, with passages from an autobiography. Notes of debates in the Continental Congress, in 1775 and 1776. Autobiography

“There isn't [in new atheism]. Nothing that wasn't in Bertrand Russell or probably Robert Ingersoll. But I suppose it is more of a political effect, in that all these books happened to come out at the same time. I like to think that we have some influence.”

Thinking Book Political Happened Atheism Influence Effects

Author:Richard Dawkins