Quotessence
Home / Topics / Positive Atheism Quotes

Positive Atheism Quotes

Browse 1875 quotes about Positive Atheism.

Related topics

MenIfsReligiousPeopleBelieveHumansWorldAtheistThinkingKnowsChristianChurchHas BeensMindMayShouldBeliefReasonFactsDoeStatesWayIdeasMadeReligionChristianityGovernmentLawLibertyGivingFirstsNeedsSeemsExistenceLongWantMatterMoralMeanChildrenCountryOpinionChristPersonsSoulWould BeYearsKindRealUniverseOrderPrayerWholeTwoWellsIndividualLastsAgeFormGodHeavenForceHeartSuperstitionsTryingViewsDiesJusticeLittlesSaidAuthorityCertainEndsEvidenceFeelsJesusNaturalOughtNationsPrinciplesPurposeRaceSchoolSectsTheologyUseClaimsDangerousEffectsFatherHandsMankindSelfSubjectsTurnsAgnosticCausesDoctrineDutyEnoughmore

Positive Atheism Quotes

“The crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain, our national character. You are considered by them as not only having rendered important service in our own revolution, but as being, on a more extended scale, the friend of human rights, and able advocate of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas Paine, the Americas are not, nor can they be, indifferent.”

HumansImportantCharacterAbleLibertyRightsAtheismCrimeRevolutionHuman RightsPositive AtheismScalesWelfareIndifferentStainsIngratitudePaine
Author:James Monroe
Create image

“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.”

PeopleMenGivingStatesForceDifferencesUnitedPayUnited StatesAtheismCrimeFiguresAmountMouthsSlaveBritishPositive AtheismDebtTricksCunningRobbersPistols
Author:Anne Royall
Create image

“If those millions squandered on designing missionaries had been deposited in funds for the support of yourselves, when old age, misfortune, or sickness (from which none are exempt,) overtakes you, or for the distressed of your race, what a heaven of happiness you would have created on earth: ye would now be an ornament to your sex, and ages to come would call you blessed. But it is in vain to try - a priest-ridden female is lost to reason. Why? because she has surrendered her reason to the ... missionaries ... the orthodox; they are the grand deceivers.”

IfsTryingReasonAgeEarthLostHeavenSexRaceMillionsSupportAtheismDesignFemaleBlessedPositive AtheismOld AgeVainReason WhySicknessFundPriestsOrthodoxMisfortunesOrnamentsDeceiver
Author:Anne Royall
Create image

“What makes a free thinker is not his beliefs, but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought, he finds a balance in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.”

IfsWayMaySeemsWould BeYoungBeliefAtheismBalanceCarefulPositive AtheismFavorsUnhappyConclusionOddThinkerEldersFree Thinkers
Book:The Value of Free Thought: How to Become a Truth-seeker and Break the Chains of Mental Slavery
Create image

“It is no credit to the orthodox that they do not now believe all the absurdities that were believed 150 years ago. The gradual emasculation of the Christian doctrine has been effected in spite of the most vigorous resistance, and solely as the result of the onslaughts of freethinkers.”

YearsBelieveHas BeensChristianResultsAtheismYears AgoCreditPositive AtheismResistanceDoctrineSpiteOrthodoxAbsurdityVigorousFreethinkerChristian DoctrineEmasculation
Book:Why I Am Not a Christian
Create image

“Civilization is perhaps approaching one of those long winters that overtake it from time to time. Romantic Christendom - picturesque, passionate, unhappy episode - may be coming to an end. Such a catastrophe would be no reason for despair.”

MayLongEndsReasonWould BeAtheismCivilizationDespairWinterPassionatePositive AtheismUnhappyNo ReasonEpisodesCatastropheChristendomPicturesqueComing To An End
Book:The Works of George Santayana: Character and opinion in the United States. The genteel tradition at bay. Dewey's naturalistic metaphysics. Philosophical heresy
Create image

“It is pathetic to observe how lowly the motives are that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity... To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously - these have been thought points of honor with the gods.”

Has BeensGivenAtheismHonorHighestPositive AtheismRememberedMotiveAttributesDeitiesPathetic
Book:Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana
Create image

“Religious doctrines would do well to withdraw their pretension to be dealing with matters of fact. That pretension is not only the source of the conflicts of religion with science and the vain and bitter controversies of sects; it is also the cause of the impurity and incoherence of religion in the soul.”

WellsSoulMatterFactsCausesReligiousAtheismSourceConflictPositive AtheismDoctrineBitterVainControversyMatter Of FactSectsPretensionImpurityIncoherence
Book:Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana
Create image

“Any attempt to speak without speaking any particular language is not more hopeless than the attempt to have a religion that shall be no religion in particular.... Every living and healthy religion has a marked idiosyncrasy. Its power consists in its special and surprising message and the bias which that revelation gives to life.”

GivingSpeakLanguageAtheismSpecialParticularHealthyMessagesPositive AtheismRevelationsHopelessSurprisingBiasIdiosyncrasies
Author:George Santayana
Create image

“An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one. I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

KnowsHas BeensMadeSaidI CanHelpingFeelingsMightLeftWaitingSoundAtheismDesignPositionComplexesAtheistCome UpFollowingPositive AtheismMade ItExplanationFulfilledMight Have BeenUnsatisfiedSelfish GeneHumeFeeling Pretty
Author:Richard Dawkins
Create image

“What has happened is that genetics has become a branch of information technology. It is pure information. It's digital information. It's precisely the kind of information that can be translated digit for digit, byte for byte, into any other kind of information and then translated back again. This is a major revolution. I suppose it's probably "the" major revolution in the whole history of our understanding of ourselves. It's something would have boggled the mind of Darwin, and Darwin would have loved it, I'm absolutely sure.”

MindKindWholeUnderstandingTechnologyHappenedAtheismInformationRevolutionPureMajorsPositive AtheismBranchesDigitalGeneticsBack AgainInformation Technology
Author:Richard Dawkins
Create image

“I don't think God is an explanation at all. It's simply redescribing the problem. We are trying to understand how we have got a complicated world, and we have an explanation in terms of a slightly simpler world, and we explain that in terms of a slightly simpler world and it all hangs together down to an ultimately simple world. Now, God is not an explanation of that kind. God himself cannot be simple if he has power to do all the things he is supposed to do.”

IfsThinkingWorldTryingKindProblemTogetherTermSimpleAtheismComplicatedPositive AtheismExplanationComplicated World
Author:Richard Dawkins
Create image

“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.”

PeopleWorldTryingMeanImportantSometimesFactsRoomsSunDoubtAtheismTheoryEvolutionAmountOrdinaryEvidenceRoundsPositive AtheismScoreImmenseCousinControversyApesScientific TheoryJackalsStarfish
Author:Richard Dawkins
Create image

“Either it is true that a medicine works or it isn't. It cannot be false in the ordinary sense but true in some alternative sense. If a therapy or treatment is anything more than a placebo, properly conducted double-blind trials, statistically analyzed, will eventually bring it through with flying colours. Many candidates for recognition as orthodox medicines fail the test and are summarily dropped. The alternative label should not (though, alas, it does) provide immunity from the same fate.”

IfsShouldDoeFateFailingAtheismOrdinaryTestsBlindMedicinePositive AtheismFlyingTrialsRecognitionAlternativesLabelsTherapyCandidatesColourTreatmentOrthodoxAlasImmunityPlacebo
Author:Richard Dawkins
Create image

“Are science and religion converging? No. There are modern scientists whose words sound religious but whose beliefs, on close examination, turn out to be identical to those of other scientists who straightforwardly call themselves atheists.”

TurnsBeliefSoundReligiousAtheismModernScientistAtheistPositive AtheismScience And ReligionExaminationIdentical
Book:A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love
Create image

“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.”

PeopleMindMayUnderstandingPayLeaderAtheismNew YorkBoxesPositive AtheismContraryInsaneHelpfulCowardCowardiceSeptemberTelephonesClicheSeptember 11SuitableAtrocitiesMindless
Author:Richard Dawkins
Create image

“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.”

PeopleIfsMayDiesTurnsNaturalGenerationsAtheismMovementSeriousComputerEmptyGreenPositive AtheismWarningEngineeringIlliterateGmosGenetic EngineeringNatural DeathGreen Movement
Book:A Devil's Chaplain: Selected Writings
Create image

“That there is a continuous link from humans to gorillas, with the intermediate species merely long dead, is beyond the understanding of speciesists. Tie the label Homo sapiens even to a tiny piece of insensible embryonic tissue, and its life suddenly leaps to infinite, incomputable value.... Self-styled pro-lifers, and others that indulge in footling debates about exactly when in its development a foetus becomes human, exhibit the same discontinuous mentality. Human, to the discontinuous mind, is an absolutist concept. There can be no half measures. And from this flows much evil.”

MindHumansLongSelfValuesEvilUnderstandingHalfPiecesAtheismDevelopmentConceptsFlowInfiniteSpeciesPositive AtheismTinyDebateLabelsTiesLeapLinksMentalityIndulgeExhibitsHomo SapiensTissuesIndulge InGorillasInsensibleHalf Measures
Author:Richard Dawkins
Create image

“Over the centuries, we've moved on from Scripture to accumulate precepts of ethical, legal and moral philosophy. We've evolved a liberal consensus of what we regard as underpinnings of decent society, such as the idea that we don't approve of slavery or discrimination on the grounds of race or sex, that we respect free speech and the rights of the individual. All of these things that have become second nature to our morals today owe very little to religion, and mostly have been won in opposition to the teeth of religion.”

LittlesHas BeensIdeasPhilosophyTodayIndividualSexRaceMoralRightsAtheismCenturySpeechRegardSlaveryMovedPositive AtheismScriptureDiscriminationTeethDecentOppositionEthicalFree SpeechConsensusMoved OnMoral Philosophy
Author:Richard Dawkins
Create image

“I became a little alarmed at the number of my readers who took the meme more positively as a theory of human culture in its own right - either to criticize it (unfairly, given my original modest intention) or to carry it far beyond the limits of what I then thought justified. This was why I may have seemed to backtrack.”

HumansMayLittlesCultureGivenNumbersAtheismTheoryReaderLimitsOriginalsIntentionPositive AtheismCriticizeModestJustifiedPositivelyMemes
Book:A Devil's Chaplain
Create image

“I had always been scrupulously careful to avoid the smallest suggestion of infant indoctrination, which I think is ultimately responsible for much of the evil in the world. Others, less close to her, showed no such scruples, which upset me, as I very much wanted her, as I want all children, to make up her own mind freely when she became old enough to do so. I would encourage her to think, without telling her what to think.”

ThinkingWorldWantMindChildrenEnoughWantedEvilAtheismResponsibleCarefulPositive AtheismUpsetSmallestSuggestionsInfantIndoctrinationScruples
Book:A Devil's Chaplain
Create image

“The world allured me & in an unguarded moment I listened to her siren voice. From that moment I seemed to lose interest in heavenly things. Friends reasoned with me & told me of the danger I was in. I felt my danger & was alarmed, but I had rambled too far to return & ever since my heart has been growing harder.”

WorldHeartHas BeensMomentsFeltVoiceInterestLosesGrowingAtheismDangerReturnMy HeartHarderPositive AtheismHeavenlyThat MomentSirens
Author:Emily Dickinson
Create image

“What shall we do my darling, when trial grows more, and more, when the dim, lone light expires, and it's dark, so very dark, and we wander, and know not where, and cannot get out of the forest - whose is the hand to help us, and to lead, and forever guide us? ... Where do you think I've strayed and from what new errand returned. I have come from to and fro, and walking up and down the same place that Satan hailed from when God asked where he'd been.”

ThinkingKnowsHelpingHandsLightGrowsDarkForeverAtheismWalkingPositive AtheismGuidesTrialsForestsWanderSatanUp And DownDarlingLoneErrands
Book:Selected Letters
Create image