Quotes on Atheism

A political convention is after all not a meeting of a corporation's board of directors; it is a fiesta, a carnival, a pig-rooting, horse-snorting, band-playing, voice-screaming medieval get-together of greed, practical lust, compromised idealism, career-advancement, meeting, feud, vendetta, conciliation, of rabble-rousers, fist fights (as it used to be), embraces, drunks (again as it used to be) and collective rivers of animal sweat.

Without God man has no reference point to define himself. 20th century philosophy manifests the chaos of man seeking to understand himself as a creature with dignity while having no reference point for that dignity.

Never, never pin your whole faith on any human being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand; but do not try building a house on it.

Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion go hand in hand.

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.

Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

Without the freedom to criticize, there is no true praise.

During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method was discovered for separating the ideas - which was to try one to see if it worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it. This method became organized, of course, into science.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

Naturally, since [the Sumerians] didn't know what caused the flood anymore than we do, they blamed the gods. (That's the advantage of religion. You're never short an explanation for anything.)

If you're an atheist, you know, you believe, this is the only life you're going to get. It's a precious life. It's a beautiful life. Its something we should live to the full, to the end of our days. Where if you're religious and you believe in another life somehow, that means you don't live this life to the full because you think you're going to get another one. That's an awfully negative way to live a life. Being a atheist frees you up to live this life properly, happily and fully

When I die I won't go to heaven or hell; there will just be nothingness.