Quotes & More Quotes by Atheists (sig fodder inside)

Galvasean · 22-09-2010 1:48pm #1

Quotes:
http://listverse.com/2007/12/07/top-15-quotes-by-famous-atheists/

More Quotes:
http://listverse.com/2010/09/17/20-more-quotes-by-atheists/

My favourites (both by the same guy):

Isaac Asimov wrote:

"If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul."

"Creationists make it sound like a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night"

stevejazzx · 22-09-2010 1:59pm

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do.:):D;):rolleyes::p!@!!!***.......

Bertrand Russell

sensibleken · 22-09-2010 3:16pm

While not an athiest as far as i know, no list can be complete without a bit of Groucho

"If you want to know where God is, ask a drunk"

"In the beginning there was nothing and God said 'let there be light'. There was still nothing, but you could see it!'

liah · 22-09-2010 3:17pm

“We atheists do not believe in gods, or angels, or demons, or souls that endure, or a meeting place after all is said and done where more can be said and done and the point of it all revealed. We don’t believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.”
-Unknown

Ickle Magoo · 22-09-2010 3:29pm

George W. Foote wrote:

It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible.

Douglas Adams wrote:

People will then often say, ‘But surely it’s better to remain an Agnostic just in case?’ This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I’ve been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.)

Beruthiel · 22-09-2010 3:29pm

My fav D. Adams quote:

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

sonicthebadger* · 23-09-2010 12:01pm

"The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head."
Terry Pratchett.

magicbastarder · 23-09-2010 4:42pm

i think it's been posted here before - 'the reason people use a crucifix against vampires is that vampires are allergic to bull****' - richard pryor.

sensibleken · 23-09-2010 5:22pm

'If you let jesus into your heart, he will go straight to your head and kick your brain out your nose'- me

lynski · 23-09-2010 9:06pm

"The problem with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and putting things in it."
— from the great Terry Pratchett

vibe666 · 23-09-2010 10:16pm

it's in my sig, but that doesn't mean anyone has ever looked at it.

Isaac Asimov, from the article "On Religiosity" in Free Inquiry magazine: "Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism."

it just struck a chord with me.

Tyler MacDurden · 23-09-2010 10:41pm

I've almost certainly posted these before but;

They will have time enough, in those endless aeons, to attempt all things, and to gather all knowledge ... no Gods imagined by our minds have ever possessed the powers they will command ... But for all that, they may envy us, basking in the bright afterglow of Creation; for we knew the Universe when it was young.
Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future (1962)

If the Ionian spirit had won, I think we - a different 'we' of course - might now be venturing to the stars. Our first survey ships to Alpha Centauri and Barnard's Star, Sirius and Tau Ceti would have returned long ago. Great fleets of interstellar transports would be under construction in Earth orbit - unmanned survey ships, liners for immigrants, immense trading ships to plow the seas of space. On all these ships there would be symbols and writing. If we looked closely, we might see that the language was Greek. And perhaps the symbol on the bow of one of the first starships would be a dodecahedron, with the inscription 'Starship Theodorus of the Planet Earth.'

Carl Sagan, Cosmos

And the (approximate) translation of my sig:

Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not. Protagoras (attrib.) in Plato's Theaetetus.

mikhail · 24-09-2010 9:03pm

David Thorne on being told that, "There's an old saying that life without religion is life without beauty."

Perhaps your church youth group could put together an interpretive dance routine representing the behaviour of Saturn's moon Hyperion, shattered by an ancient collision and falling randomly back together, tugged to and fro by the gravitational pull of Titan, sixteen sister moons, the multi-billionfold moonlets of Saturn’s rings, Saturn’s gravitational field, companion planets, the variability’s of Sol, stars, galaxy, neighbouring galaxies... or possibly not, according to an old saying, there is no beauty in this.

Delirium · 25-09-2010 11:03pm

"The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden story. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your f*cking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions...'Get smart and I'll f*ck you over,' sayeth the Lord. Is this not an absolutely anti-intellectual religion?" - Frank Zappa.

legspin · 29-09-2010 11:50pm

www.sneakingunder.com/atheist/quotes.html

Quite enjoyed these ones

Nemi · 30-09-2010 1:12am

liah wrote: »

We believe in human rights

I don't, which made me think that I may be the only one who isn't an individual. As in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qANMjwLmo6Y

Which is as good a way as any of introducing a little quote from Nietzsche;

To recognize untruth as a condition of life: that, to be sure, means to resist customary value-sentiments in a dangerous fashion; and a philosophy which ventures to do so places itself , by that act alone, beyond good and evil.

Des Carter · 30-09-2010 3:12am

Two of my favour include:

So you really think that God would plant a bunch of bones in the earth to test your faith? Either you're in denial or God has some serious self-esteem issues.
-Coral Yoshi

and

The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also
- Mark Twain

(I Know it is unclear wheather Mark Twain was in fact an atheist but I like the quote so I dont really care)

vibe666 · 30-09-2010 9:28am

from Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists in bnt's thread about atheists knowing more about religion than the religious:

“I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people,” Mr. Silverman said. “Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.”

Dades · 30-09-2010 10:26am

legspin wrote: »

Quite enjoyed these ones

This is a good one from that lot that might be pertinent to a few recent threads:

Isaac Asimov wrote:

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

Shenshen · 30-09-2010 10:40am

One of my favourites :

I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior

Terry Pratchett

Mark Hamill · 30-09-2010 10:46am

Shenshen wrote: »

One of my favourites :

Terry Pratchett

Great quote

, I wonder where I have read it before

Shenshen · 30-09-2010 10:49am

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Great quote , I wonder where I have read it before

*lol
You're giving yourself too much credit, the book is at home on my bookshelf, as are most of his books

Mark Hamill · 30-09-2010 11:40am

Shenshen wrote: »

*lol
You're giving yourself too much credit, the book is at home on my bookshelf, as are most of his books

Most?

I have everything he has written, right down to "The Unalduterated Cat" and "Once More* With Footnotes" :cool:

Another Pratchett Quote:
"Gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at"

PS: Did you see the sword he made out of meteor rocks?

Shenshen · 30-09-2010 3:00pm

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Most? I have everything he has written, right down to "The Unalduterated Cat" and "Once More* With Footnotes" :cool:

Another Pratchett Quote:
"Gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at"

PS: Did you see the sword he made out of meteor rocks?

:eek:

Wow... just .... wow. That looks absolutely amazing.

vibe666 · 30-09-2010 11:47pm

Shenshen wrote: »

:eek:

Wow... just .... wow. That looks absolutely amazing.

that is pretty awesome.

i wonder how much it cost tho?

that's the thing when you've got money like that, you can afford to do nutty, frivolous things and call it 'eccentric' just for the sake of it instead of giving the money to a worthwhile charity instead.

he's a great author tho, love his books. i think if we're all honest about it we'd probably all end up doing stupid stuff for the sake of it if we could afford to.

Shenshen · 01-10-2010 11:03am

vibe666 wrote: »

that is pretty awesome.

i wonder how much it cost tho?

that's the thing when you've got money like that, you can afford to do nutty, frivolous things and call it 'eccentric' just for the sake of it instead of giving the money to a worthwhile charity instead.

he's a great author tho, love his books. i think if we're all honest about it we'd probably all end up doing stupid stuff for the sake of it if we could afford to.

Mind you, as far as I know he's generously supporting Alzheimer research...
So allow him a bit of eccentricity

The Mad Hatter · 01-10-2010 11:24am

vibe666 wrote: »

that is pretty awesome.

i wonder how much it cost tho?

that's the thing when you've got money like that, you can afford to do nutty, frivolous things and call it 'eccentric' just for the sake of it instead of giving the money to a worthwhile charity instead.

he's a great author tho, love his books. i think if we're all honest about it we'd probably all end up doing stupid stuff for the sake of it if we could afford to.

Well, he's the biggest-selling author in the world - I think he's got enough to spare.

Linoge · 01-10-2010 3:58pm

My favs, although not all strictly atheists....

"Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits."
Dan Barker

"When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion."
Abraham Lincoln

"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism."
Carl Sagan

"Ask a deeply religious Christian if he'd rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don't seem so bad lately."
Scott Adams

"I'm still an atheist, thank God."
Luis Bunuel

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
Voltaire

Errr... sorry for whoring them all!

Goduznt Xzst · 02-10-2010 3:18am

"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of 10 things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these 10 things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! . . . But He loves you!" —George Carlin

"A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell—mouths mercy, and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!" —Mark Twain

Dades · 02-10-2010 9:35am

^^ That Mark Twain one is a keeper.

Delirium · 03-10-2010 12:02am

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived" - Isaac Asimov

"Be born anywhere, little embryo novelist, but do not be born under the shadow of a great creed, not under the burden of original sin, not under the doom of Salvation" - Pearl S. Buck

Delirium · 05-10-2010 11:49am

"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." ~ Delos B. McKown

Beruthiel · 05-10-2010 12:26pm

Linoge wrote: »

"I'm still an atheist, thank God."
Luis Bunuel

Love this one. May add it to me sig.

Scarinae · 08-10-2010 9:04pm

"All I say is that I think that it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don’t regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of rational evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist. The chance’s of theism’s truth being to my mind so microscopically small, I would be a pedant and a hypocrite to call myself anything else."
H.P. Lovecraft

"My response is that when Creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's going to make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's full of mercy'"
David Attenborough

(David Attenborough calls himself an agnostic rather than an atheist though, which doesn't surprise me considering he has received hate mail from creationists for not crediting god with creating the natural world in his documentaries)

MrPudding · 09-10-2010 10:27am

I am fond of the two in my signature, and here are a couple more. I have to say, I am partial to some of the quotes from religious people...

Bishop Ratzinger, 31 December 1979 wrote:

The christian believer is a simple person: bishops should protect the faith of their little people against the power of intellectuals.

This used to be in my signature and is still one of my favourites:

Epicurus wrote:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

Another favourite:

Voltaire wrote:

Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool

And another...

Anne Lamott wrote:

You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.

I think that will do for now. I am going to watch the Mentalist.

MrP

Fluffybums · 09-10-2010 12:35pm

Originally Posted by Bishop Ratzinger, 31 December 1979
The christian believer is a simple person: bishops should protect the faith of their little people against the power of intellectuals.

Soooo like this. Especially in light of what my mum (Irish, Catholic) told me last night. Apparently a couple of days before she was to marry an English, Anglican in an Anglican church in England a priest came to see her. He then laid in to amongst other things about what she was doing to her family, she told him he had no right to speak for her parents (they were living in Ireland). As this priest was leaving he said she was a highly intelligent women - it was not meant as a complement.

Incidentally they will be celebrating their 50th anniversary next year.

muppeteer · 09-10-2010 2:26pm

"Out of ignorance came fear, out of fear came god"
-Unknown

(Anybody have an idea where this one came from? Google fails me)

Improbable · 09-10-2010 4:36pm

muppeteer wrote: »

"Out of ignorance came fear, out of fear came god"
-Unknown

(Anybody have an idea where this one came from? Google fails me)

I think you're quoting that from common sense...

jayzusb.christ · 10-10-2010 3:21pm

He then laid in to amongst other things about what she was doing to her family, she told him he had no right to speak for her parents (they were living in Ireland). As this priest was leaving he said she was a highly intelligent women - it was not meant as a complement.

Incidentally they will be celebrating their 50th anniversary next year.

That brought a smile to my face in a way that a smiley can't properly express. Fair play to your mother - an extremely brave move for an Irish woman 50 years ago. A priest advising on matters of marriage - fuxake, you might as well ask a lifelong vegetarian about how to cook a good steak.

strobe · 11-10-2010 12:04am

Always my favourite for it's honesty and forthrightness. Doesn't quite encapsulate my current philosophy on how to conduct myself in the world....but comes very very close.

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest" - Diderot

MrPudding · 11-10-2010 10:00am

strobe wrote: »

Always my favourite for it's honesty and forthrightness. Doesn't quite encapsulate my current philosophy on how to conduct myself in the world....but comes very very close.

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest" - Diderot

I like that. A lot. Obviously I am not condoning the strangling of royalty with the entrails of the clergy, but I do like the quote.

MrP

Shenshen · 11-10-2010 10:49am

MrPudding wrote: »

I am fond of the two in my signature, and here are a couple more. I have to say, I am partial to some of the quotes from religious people...

Originally Posted by Anne Lamott
You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.

I think that will do for now. I am going to watch the Mentalist.

MrP

I simply love this one... it sums up everything I find wrong with people proclaiming faith...

Dades · 11-10-2010 11:06am

strobe wrote: »

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest" - Diderot

Great quote, that. I posted it on Facebook a few months back and freaked some people out.

robindch · 11-10-2010 4:29pm

Anne Lamott wrote:

You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.

georgieporgy · 12-10-2010 12:11am

Volaire, on his death bed, asked for a priest so he could confess and make peace with God. Alas his friends rallied round and helped him stay the course.

"be careful what you wish for " would be the the quote worth remembering

MrPudding · 12-10-2010 12:12am

georgieporgy wrote: »

Volaire, on his death bed, asked for a priest so he could confess and make peace with God. Alas his friends rallied round and helped him stay the course.

"be careful what you wish for " would be the the quote worth remembering

Yawn.

MrP

georgieporgy · 12-10-2010 12:42am

MrPudding wrote: »

Yawn.

MrP

don't take my word for it

Voltaire, the famous skeptic,
Voltaire died a terrible death. His nurse said: "For all the money in Europe I wouldn’t want to see another unbeliever die! All night long he cried for forgiveness."

The Mad Hatter · 12-10-2010 12:43am

georgieporgy wrote: »

Volaire, on his death bed, asked for a priest so he could confess and make peace with God. Alas his friends rallied round and helped him stay the course.

"be careful what you wish for " would be the the quote worth remembering

"If that comes it'll be when I'm very ill; when I'm half-demented either by drugs or by pain and I won't have control over what I say. I mention this in case you ever hear a rumour later on, because these things happen and the faithful love to spread these rumours: 'On his deathbed, he finally...' Well, I can't say that the entity that by then wouldn't be me wouldn't do such a pathetic thing, but I can tell you that, not while I'm lucid, no. I could be quite sure of that."

-Christopher Hitchens, responding to the question of whether he would ever consider a conversion, even to "hedge his bets."

georgieporgy · 12-10-2010 12:54am

is someone confusing Christopher Hutchins with Voltaire?

Hello..o

The Mad Hatter · 12-10-2010 1:39am

georgieporgy wrote: »

is someone confusing Christopher Hutchins with Voltaire?

Hello..o

No.

Improbable · 12-10-2010 2:32am

From my point of view, the Hitchens quote is more about the fact that deathbed confessions are a tricky business. He's trying to convert because he's dying and he's afraid. It's being a completely different person than what you were. With fear being such a driving force behind human actions, it's not surprising.

Quotes & More Quotes by Atheists (sig fodder inside)

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