‘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
119: I think you’re being a little bit silly. As I said before, I believe that rational thought and faith are different parts of what makes us human and therefore are not mutually exclusive but complimentary. That makes it perfectly possible for a geek like me to believe in the laws of nature and at the same time believe that said laws didn’t come about by chance but rather by design.
But at this point, I doubt it’d matter to any of you if I said the God I believed in was the Flying Spaghetti monster. In fact, I’d probably be ridiculed for believing in pasta.
#121 Mustard, any location of this “atheist sunday schools” outside of your imagination? I’d happily meet with like-minded people 🙂
Infidel, not only do they have agendas, they also have strongly-held beliefs, very few of which are based on things they themselves have proven. Choosing instead to believe what others tell them.
And we’re all entitled to our beliefs, no matter whether they are instilled in us by Hwang Woo-Suk, Charles Darwin, or Ted Haggard.
So. Why don’t we just call the whole thing off, be comfortable in our beliefs, and quit busting other believers’ balls?
I believe in Flying Spaghetti Monster!
What do you have against my faith, Shadowbird?
Faith vs Science
What “good” is a faith that EVERY time it tries to explain the physical world, it is wrong? Is that make what it says about the spiritual world more supported or less?
Still not “formally” in conflict though, except in the exercise of common sense.
I don’t believe in God, The closest I had to a religious upbringing was my parents telling me that ‘Baby Jesus’ made me hit my head on a kitchen cabinet once because I’d been naughty earlier in the day. My question to everyone, atheist or theist is this:
Regardless of whether or not you adhere to a religion bad things will happen in your life. These bad things vary in magnitude but no-one lives a totally blessed life, free of any injustice or misfortune. To a Christian the obvious form of recourse is to turn to God, wherein they will find (regardless of whether or not he exists) a comfort they can’t find anywhere else. To an atheist the obvious recourse is to acknowledge that life, without divine influence, is nothing more than a random series of events that we may no more try to control than we could the weather, shrug and move on. The outcome is the same, the individual takes from his system of beliefs the means by which to continue with his life.
See what I’m getting at?
Atheists scorn Christians for their blind devotion to an unprovable God and their refusal to see another side to the argument.
Christians scorn atheists for their blind devotion to inconclusive science and their refusal to see another side of the argument.
Atheism is a faith, just the same as Christianity. To throw one’s hat into either ring should not be to say “this is the way things are”, but to say “this is the way that brings me the most comfort”
I apologise for rambling on at everyone, but this entire discussion (not only here but on every single other website that even seems to mention God) is pointless, irrelevant and counter-productive.
The day we all learn that it doesn’t matter a jot what anyone else thinks so long as our beliefs help us and their beliefs help them we will all take a massive step towards the society we all want to live in. It’s not just true of the atheist vs Christian argument, but can be applied to ANY system of beliefs whatsoever. How can it possibly affect you what somebody else believes if it makes that persons life better?
Grow up world, get a grip and stop bickering about which wrong answer is the RIGHTEST wrong answer.
#126: It’s called picking a random example.
Besides, it is well-known that the Church of the FSM was created as a parody religion, in answer to Kansas’ misguided attempts to teach religion as science. (And yes, I as a Christian recognize that as silly; after all, I do believe science and faith are not one and the same.)
All of this arguing over god/no god, faith this, atheist Sunday school (?!? wtf?) that, serves no purpose other that to get a bunch of people banging away on their keyboards. The universe is too vast and we’re too insignificant to ever know any of it. Science and god be damned, we’ll never know the truth either way.
#125
“So. Why don’t we just call the whole thing off, be comfortable in our beliefs, and quit busting other believers’ balls?”
First smart words from you, Musty, I could agree on, but there are few problems:
your faith believers send missionaries who bust my balls and door every once a while on sundays, the jewish believers bust my wallet with kosher tax i am forced to pay to their rabies every time i buy milk,
and so on and on… its not as easy to do 🙂
All faiths – including yours – try to spread onto each other’s turf, involving us, atheists, in your wars and politics etc, unfortunately 🙁
#104 – I love how you hold up a funhouse mirror to reality, and then explain reality.
Do you think I’m reading a sidebar in The Local Rag about the Mars Rover finding possible evidence of life on Mars, then I start knocking on all my neighbor’s doors proselytizing that there is life on Mars? Why do you wish to portray obviously smart people as suckers and maroons?
I was about to type that I was sorry that I had chosen to casual use that “scientific method” quip almost 7000 posts ago… But actually, it turned out to be an illumination about how dim a view you hold toward people who are ruled by reason over faith.
#128: You’ve probably made the best and most truthful argument out of all of these comments. I both applaud and agree with you.
True fact: I am a non-militant, accepting Christian. My girlfriend is a non-militant, accepting atheist from a Buddhist background. If we can get along for as long as we have (the better part of a decade), is there any reason why we can’t as a whole species? (Well, besides Pat Robertson. He’s a dolt.)
#125 “So. Why don’t we just call the whole thing off, be comfortable in our beliefs, and quit busting other believers’ balls?”
Coming from someone as arrogant, patronizing and unpleasant as you seem to be this seems like a little bit of a strange comment.
#129 i think it may be a federal crime to make fun of an official religion 😉
#112 – Is everyone here unemployed? Same posters over and over and over…
No… But I might be if my boss ever figures out how much I post here 🙂
>>What “good” is a faith that EVERY time it
>>tries to explain the physical world, it is
>>wrong?
My faith does not try to explain the physical world, Bobbalina. It explains the spiritual world.
That’s what the evangelists for the CoA (Church of Atheism) do not understand. To their great detriment.
“Why don’t we just call the whole thing off, be comfortable in our beliefs, and quit busting other believers’ balls?
Oops, I guess that means that political discussions will have their limits as well. As it turns out, religion is going to be a hot topic in the next election. Who knew? I’m thinking that the person least likely to hear voices in his/her head has a political advantage in my assessment.
Good grief, what did I start?
Y’know, if I knew this was going to turn into a tennis match with the tennis balls ablaze and cannons for rackets, I would have never asked the question I did…even though it was a perfectly legit question.
At least I can say one thing…my beliefs in both science and God have been affirmed…but my faith in humanity remains nonexistent.
135: Would you rather I have used Jedi instead?
#128—basic factual error:
“To an atheist the obvious recourse is to acknowledge that life, without divine influence, is nothing more than a random series of events that we may no more try to control than we could the weather, shrug and move on.”
No–what happens in the main is due to cause and effect==the domain of science. We don’t yet control weather, but we use science ((rather than prayers)) to predict weather and protect ourselves from it. Same with volcanoes, floods, ice storms, forest fires etc.
It is uniformily the religious types that equate science and religion. Ignorance equates many dissimilar things.
#117 – . Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. — Denis Diderot
I need to learn more about Denis Diderot, he was an excellent thinker.
Or at the very least, a colorful thinker. I love the image that quote invokes.
It seems to me that atheists and theists seem to have one major thing in common, none want to say they simply don’t know about the existence of a god.
It even seems to apply those who are agnostic, since they believe that the existence of God is unknowable, not that they simply just don’t know.
Perhaps one factor of religion is that many people need to think they know the answers to the big scary questions, such as “How was the universe created?” or “Where do we go when we die?”.
#141 I’m not here to get into a dogmatic argument with anyone. The very first thing I said in my last post was “I don’t believe in God” so I fail to see how you can aim the statement “it is uniformly the religious types that equate science and religion” at me. If you truly believe that mankind ever can, or maybe more importantly ever should, scientifically explain every nuance of the universe then you have a truly astonishing optimism, of which I am incredibly jealous.
Maybe the weather wasn’t the best example I could have used, but I maintain that even if we do attain that degree of control over our environment bad things will still happen in life. And, strange though this may sound, I’m actually rather glad. If life wasn’t challenging, if we held all of the answers to everything, I fail to see what the fun in it would be.
#140 i wouldn’t go there since LucasFilms has many many lawyers and the name might be long trade marked 😉
“If life wasn’t challenging, if we held all of the answers to everything, I fail to see what the fun in it would be.”
umm…wouldn’t it be ‘heaven’
in regards to no control….take a 12 step cheat sheet (without the g-o-d reference)
The things I can change,the things I can’t,and wisdom to know the difference.
from this i concur that atheist are wiser than christians because they HAVE to accept the things they can’t change and are wise for knowing the difference…they don’t get to blame their imaginary friends.
144—Well, the discussion need not be dogmatic, but why bring that up until it does? Seemingly, you think my response is “dogmatic.” Interesting.
Ok–uniform would include you, but let me not be dogmatic. Let me correct that line and say it is “usually” the religious minded who equate religion and science. As actually was thinking of “other people” when I wrote that.
I never came close to suggesting man/science should/could explain every nuance of the universe. What caused the big-bang, if there was one, will probably elude us forever as there can be no proof, etc. But “should we” if we could. My answer would be yes. Knowledge is good. Ignorance is bad. You seem to again equate the consequences of these apposite states of being?
You are glad that bad things happen eh? Too weird for me. Bad things will always happen because that is pretty much the human condition. We should learn to deal with such issues the best we can and not go overboard? Another equating of dissimilar things, I see a pattern here.
I don’t think you have any need to worry about knowing and controlling everything. Doubt humans will satisfy those big ifs, but nice proposition there.
I think that’s only a description of heaven to very unimaginative Scientists!
Seriously though, this debate has raged for as long as people have realised that other people don’t think the same way they do. Kudos to everyone on actually having an opinion, but try not to lose sight of the line between debate and argument. There’s no need for a lot of the backwards and forwards slander that’s been going on here!
It’s midnight in the UK now… Hope you guys enjoy the rest of your day going round in circles!!
#146
“…without the g-o-d reference…”
“..from this i concur that atheist are wiser than christians because..”
what, yet another Jew who can’t spell “god” without fear? and trying to post something, anything bad about christianity?
Go back to your talmud and torah!
It is about polytheism of christians, not polytheism of jewish (but watch the threads, who knows, maybe we’ll live the day when other than christian religion will be dissected on dvorak)
#128 – The day we all learn that it doesn’t matter a jot what anyone else thinks so long as our beliefs help us and their beliefs help them we will all take a massive step towards the society we all want to live in.
#133 – I am a non-militant, accepting Christian. My girlfriend is a non-militant, accepting atheist from a Buddhist background. If we can get along for as long as we have (the better part of a decade), is there any reason why we can’t as a whole species? (Well, besides Pat Robertson. He’s a dolt.)
That’s great…
Let’s ignore the Christians and their Eternal Persecution Complex for a moment…
I don’t know, or much care, why these debates happen and devolve. But I can tell you this… It isn’t about religion for me. It isn’t about religion for any of the atheists I know. It’s much more primal than that.
Do you love Jesus? God? Odin? Cthulu? Zeus? Whatever helps you sleep at night is of no concern to me. This is a fight in which the point is often overlooked by the disassociative self-diagnosed victims of Asberger’s Syndrome that litter the nerdtastic Internet forums.
The point is political. It’s no less important than a fight for the freedoms and liberties of every last man woman and child against the oppressive tyranny of organized religion, and most specifically, fundamentalism.
No man or woman can be separated from their moral compass, and men or women of faith have that compass informed to some extent by religious teachings. Revisionist theologians will have you believe Jesus was a peace loving Jewish carpenter who preached peace, love, though not likely dope. That’s a safe enough thing to believe.
But there is a growing significant faction of fundamentalists who are hell-bent on waging war against our secular culture and imposing laws through controlling government that are based in Christian doctrine.
I know this because quite often these right wing leaders say things like, “we are hell-bent on waging war against our secular culture and imposing laws through controlling government that are based in Christian doctrine.” And then they actually do things to back it up, like attacking school system’s science courses, or trying to indoctrinate non-xians by trying wedge prayer back into schools.
It isn’t enough for them to live their lives and be happy. Their happiness seems to be predicated on everyone else’s misery.
So no… We cannot just live and let live because our enemy won’t do that either. Asshats like Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps, William Bennet, and Mike Huckabee are actively engaged in trying to baptize the nation and force a dogma down upon us.
This is a fight we must win with words and politics, because when push comes to shove, there is nothing that precludes me from choosing bullets to speak with instead… and that would truly be a tragedy for all sides.
Atheists aren’t alone in this fight. Plenty of people of faith (all faiths, not just xians, especially other than xians) should be involved.
When you guys narrow focus on specific points of theological debate, you miss why the venom and bile flies in the first place… Fundamentalist Christians seek to enslave secular society in a theocratic state. They must be marginalized. They must be shouted down. They can speak, but should never be allowed to speak louder than us. They are a threat to the security of a free nation, and should be seen as such.
There is no god.
Faith is belief in something in the absence of evidence.
Heil Bush
#133: What you’re saying is, if Theists and Atheists can get together an shag like rabbits, then we all might be able to put the idealogical differences aside long enough to last until the next snogging.
Good plan.
However the discussion is NOT pointless. Skip Atheism. The only valid ‘belief’ is Agnosticism. Anyone who claims to know the answer is a liar. A scientist is NOT Atheist. A scientist can only be Agnostic, or it is not a scientist.
An Agnostic Scientist seeks to understand to the highest degree a MODEL of the universe will permit. When the model is insufficient to predict observed events, a better model must be sought.
The model of a true scientist is constantly tested. The untested model is as baseless as faith (you heard me, String Theorists!).
Most scientists possess an unscientific attachment to one theory or another. If their theory is proven wrong the common scientist will fight to defend it. A TRUE scientist should always be disgusted by the inadequacy of the present best model of the universe, and should applaud its unseating.
Science in its pure and defined form is ABSOLUTELY the only correct way to live. It ALONE (and maybe luck; it’s part of science too) will lead us closer to true enlightenment. Faith, and poor science cause us to cling to untruths and misdirection. Very few if any scientists live according to the way of pure science. It’s a gradation. Some are close, some are no better than the worst Theist offender. The unattainable METHOD of science is the only way to discover truth.
Science is a subset of Agnosticism (some don’t know, and don’t care to know). Science is the only way to understand the workings. It tells us nothing of the meaning. It tells us nothing of good, nothing of evil. Only the workings.
I hope I’ve clarified.