Atheist Quotes
I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them.
Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what so ever.
Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.
To have a positive religion is not necessary. To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts, and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.
I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.
When men stop believing in God, it isn`t that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.
If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane.
The easy confidence with which I know another man`s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.
The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it.
Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says "Everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved in the writing of this book."?
We all ought to understand we`re on our own. Believing in Santa Claus doesn`t do kids any harm for a few years but it isn`t smart for them to continue waiting all their lives for him to come down the chimney with something wonderful. Santa Claus and God are cousins.
I don`t differentiate much, except in degree, between people who believe in religion from those who believe in astrology, magic or the supernatural.