‘A’ is for Atheist?
Top 15 Quotes By Famous Atheists – listverse.com:
1. Creationists make it sound like a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night — Isaac Asimov2. I don’t believe in God. My god is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life. — Andrew Carnegie
3. All thinking men are atheists. — Ernest Hemingway
4. Lighthouses are more helpful then churches. — Benjamin Franklin
5. Faith means not wanting to know what is true. — Friedrich Nietzsche
6. The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. — George Bernard Shaw
7. Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile. — Kurt Vonnegut
8. I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. — Frank Lloyd Wright
9. Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. — Denis Diderot
10. A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. — Samuel Clemens
11. The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life. — Sigmund Freud
12. Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. — Edward Gibbon
13. The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church. — Ferdinand Magellan
14. Not only is there no god, but try getting a plumber on weekends. — Woody Allen
15. It’s an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don’t try to make it posthumous. — Gloria Steinem
The last one is great!
Hey, they are all great. As I cut and pasted to my save file, the last entry was “related:”
“The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.”
– Paul Valéry, 1895
This goes to the Trinity post below where if you can understand the three leaf clover, or the 3 states of matter, then understanding the Trinity is supposed to make sense.
Extra Terrestrial – Intelligent being not of this Earth.
We were “made” in God’s image.
Man should be able to repeat this feat quite soon.
Why do people assume that rationality and faith are mutually exclusive?
Isn’t it possible to believe in God /and/ want to know how the universe works?
Woody Allen rules!
http://www.positiveatheism.org/crt/whichcom.htm
Franklin was not an atheist.
My favorite, from Bertrand Russell:
“You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.”
That’s right, he wasn’t. In fact, he gives steadfast proof of the existence of God.
Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy
-Benjamin Franklin
5, 12, & 15 I want to commit to memory
To Replier #3, I think that answers about all the aliens you saw on star trek
Pffft. A religious donnybrook is mildly entertaining every now and then, but it gets old after a day or two.
“As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see
-Benjamin Franklin (1792; letter to Ezra Stiles)
#5 – Isn’t it possible to believe in God /and/ want to know how the universe works?
Yes…
But once you get that universe thing figured out, you’ll probably feel pretty silly about all the god stuff.
Which brings me to the real point of why I’m posting here today. These are all great quotes, and Lord knows that I, as an atheist, and as an argumentative son of a bitch, like a good debate, and don’t even mind a little flaming.
But really… 15 quotes from atheists, true as they may be… are you just outright baiting the overwhelmingly populous Christian community for the sake of hits?
There are so many issues related to religion. Stem cells, abortion, creationism in schools, Republican politics, and today, a another goddamn senseless shooting. As long as religion is invoked in politics and policy, wars and acts of terror, attempts at censorship, whatever else, we’ll always have a chance to debate the god myth.
With that in mind, really, what is the point of just openly baiting the Christian persecution complex without any particular context?
“The moral and religious system which Jesus Christ transmitted to us is the best the world has ever seen, or can see.”
-Benjamin Franklin
hmm…
>>But once you get that universe thing figured
>>out, you’ll probably feel pretty silly about
>>all the god stuff.
Let us know, OFTLO, when you “get that universe thing figured out”, won’t you?
Any estimated date for completion of the task?
Ben Franklin was a deist/theist. Didn’t let religion get in the way of his spirituality.
Unfortunately, the spread the word teachings in the new testament has created most of Christianities problems through the ages. Many feel the need to foist their ideas on everyone else. This leads to the resentment many in the world have for them. They have been trying and continue to try to this day to get the rest of us to live in their images through nanny government interference and laws. If you don’t want to use drugs developed through stem cell research, fine. But don’t deny me that research. Don’t make my daughter learn some cockamaimy theory about the development of life with zero credible proof to back it up.
Doh, she already believes that nonsense. She’s already been indoctrinated. At least she can’t vote at her church because she is a woman.
Oh well, what can I do.
Don the Atheist.
#16 – Any estimated date for completion of the task?
I estimate I’ll have that task done before any church does. To narrow it down any more, I’ll need more information.
Lucky for me, there’s a “method” for doing “scientific” things.
>>I estimate I’ll have that task done before
>>any church does.
Most churches have already done it.
>>Lucky for me, there’s a “method” for
>>doing “scientific” things.
OFTLO, you’ve never used that “method” for doing a “scientific” thing in your life. The closest you get to science is reading about that stuff in USA Today, or hearing a summary on “60 Minutes”.
I’m wondering how many of those quoted notables didn’t have the word “agnostic” in their vocabulary. One can still rail against the God-driven communities without completely disregarding popular religion’s vision of God.
#20 “Most churches have already done it.”
Wrong answers don’t count, see Nietzsche’s quote (5) above.
>>Wrong answers don’t count, see Nietzsche’s
>>quote (5) above.
Oh nice. Highlight a quote from someone who died in the throes of syphilitic madness and who proclaimed (in “Ecce Homo”) that his “name would be known as holy”. Sheesh.
And re: Nietzche’s quote, I certainly want to know what’s true. The difference between you and me is that I’m willing to look in a variety of places for the truth. But then again, I’m not as dogmatic as you are.
#5, #14, actually OFTLO, I was going to answer the question, “Isn’t it possible to believe in God /and/ want to know how the universe works?”, with a no.
If you believe that the universe was made with magic, then you’ve pre-chosen your reason as to how and why it works.
>>If you believe that the universe was made with
>>magic, then you’ve pre-chosen your reason as to
>>how and why it works.
Jimbo, you know so little about spirituality and faith, you embarrass me, and I’m not even on your side.
You should really go back to that Atheist Sunday school and try to learn a few things.
“I think – and that itself exclude any possibility of god’s existence”
>>“I think – and that itself exclude
>>any possibility of god’s existence”
Nice. If that’s not the most misguided, grandiose, narcissistic statement you’ve made to date, I don’t know what is.
You might want to consider “thinking” a little more, and not close your mind down at the first USA Today article discussing dinosaur fossils.
Mister mustard, with you being handicapped by spirituality, I don’t expect you to be able to comprehend what I said. That’s okay. Like homosexuals or schizophrenia, it’s just the way you are wired.
I like the old picture better.
>>Mister mustard, with you being handicapped
>>by spirituality
Heh heh. I should just sit back and let you sink your own ship.
#23 Attacking the messenger much?
Believe me Nietzsche was wrong on a lot of things, heck the entire neo-con political philosophy is based on Nietzsche and look how well that is turning out. But, he is right about organized religion making slaves of its followers.
Trying to equate religious ideology with factual truth is the religious persons biggest mistake. Morality and spirituality need not be “factual” to be useful. In fact equating religious beliefs with “truth” just leads to disaster.
Dont worry about global warming, God will save us. Dont worry about peak oil, God will provide. Don’t worry about overpopulation, the world was made for man to use as we please. Science is anti-religion, therefore we should not bother learning it, we are better off in our ignorance.