Atheist Quotes

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"There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that
entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get.
On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly."
[H.L. Mencken]

"A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute
condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I
reverse the phrase of Voltaire and say, 'if God really
existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.'"
[Mikhail Bakunin, "God and the State", 1874]

"radical antiabortion groups like Operation Rescue and Rescue America have
to be dealt with as domestic terrorists as deadly as the ones who blew up
the World Trade Center and as fanatic as the cultists in Waco. "
[John Laws]

"Infidelity is liberty; all religion is slavery."
[Robert G. Ingersoll, "Thomas Paine", 1870]

Jesus -- The other white meat!

"Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable.
For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are
told--and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The
characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the
characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for
territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings
fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior,
which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when
our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume
we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists.
Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion."
[Michael Crichton in "The Lost World"]

"If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people
love you, fine- but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea
of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you've been bad or
good- and CARES about any of it- to hang it all on that, folks, is the
chimpanzee part of the brain working."
[Frank Zappa, American musician (1940-1993), "The
Real Frank Zappa Book," by Frank Zappa and Peter
Occhiogrosso, "Church and State" chapter p. 301]

"Wouldn't it be terrible if I quoted some reliable
statistics which prove that more people are driven
insane through religious hysteria than by drinking."
[W.C. Fields]

"When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age
in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all
excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music."
[Denis Diderot (1713-84), "Philosophic Thoughts," ch. 3 (1746)
repr. in Selected Writings, ed. by Lester G. Crocker, 1966)]

"I'm not a slave to a god that doesn't exist"
[Marilyn Manson, "The Fight Song"]

"God:" The word that comes after "go-cart."
[Samuel Butler (1835-1902), English author]

"I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front
line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism."
[Frank Buchman (1878-1961), U.S. evangelist.
New York World-Telegram (25 Aug. 1936)]

"If God knows the future with infallible certainty, the future
is predetermined, and man is impotent to change it."
[George H. Smith, "Atheism, The Case Against God"]

The State of Virginia (act of assembly of 1705, c. 30) provided that
"...if a person brought up in the Christian religion denies the being of
a God, or the Trinity, or asserts that there are more Gods than one, or
denies the Christian religion to be true, or the scriptures to be of
divine authority, he is punishable on the first offense by incapacity to
hold any office or employment ecclesiastical, civil or military; on the
second by disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian,
executor, or administrator and by three years imprisonment, without bail.
A father's right to the custody of his own children being founded in law
on his right of guardianship, this being taken away, they may of course
be severed from him, and put, by the authority of a court, into more
orthodox hands."
[Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on the State of Virginia,
from _Thomas Jefferson: Writings_, pg. 284-285]

"Miracles happen to those who believe in them. Otherwise
why does not the Virgin Mary appear to Lamaists, Mohammedans,
or Hindus who have never heard of her."
[Bernard Berenson (1865-1959),
New York Times Book Review]

A society without religion is like a crazed psychopath without a loaded .45

"All are inclined to believe what they covet, from
a lottery-ticket up to a passport to Paradise."
[Lord Byron. Byron's Letters and Journals,
vol. 3 (1974), entry for 27 Nov. 1813]

"If the American people wish to adhere to the principle of separation as
seen in the long perspective of history, they should decide to prohibit
non-sectarian religious instruction in public schools as a form of
multiple establishment of religion."
[R. Freeman Butts, The American Tradition in Religion and Education,
1950, p. 189, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great
Quotations on Religious Freedom]

"The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often
a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks
like giving a hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our
holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no
doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain
enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who
practice utmost humility, is boundless."
[Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"]


"Remember that millions of Christians still base their belief in a God
upon the words of the Bible, which is a collection of the most
flabbergasting fictions ever imagined -- by men, too, who had lawless
but very poor and crude imagination. Ingersoll and numerous other
critics have shot the Christian holy book full of holes. It is worthless
and proves nothing concerning the existence of a God. The idea of a God
is worthless and unprovable."
[E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"]