quotations about atheism
The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts:
Those with brains, but no religion,
And those with religion, but no brains.
ABU'L-'ALA' AL-MA'ARRI
attributed, Crusades Through Arab Eyes
It is not possible even to state the doctrine of an atheistic creation without using the language of theism in the statement.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Letters to Unknown Friends
I don't think even the blackest atheist has an idea of what real separation [from God] will be. Outer darkness. What we live in you might call ... "inner darkness."
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit, Run
Sometimes when I'm faced with an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we have finished eating that magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believes there's a cook.
RONALD REAGAN
Speaking My Mind
By night an atheist half believes in God.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
It is not at all uncommon, even among ourselves, to hear persons and parties branded as atheistical, only because individuals who so stigmatize them have not been able, and perhaps are not in the least willing, to appreciate the sort of theism which they profess.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
The Natural History of Atheism
The big misconception about atheists and atheism is that we don't believe in anything, or that we have no morals and that's just not true. Most of us are very nice people.
HEATHER HENDERSON
"'We're Not Scary': Atheists Seek Understanding", NBC 7 San Diego, March 18, 2016
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
O Magazine, Dec. 2006
Nothing enlarges more the gulf of atheism, than that wide passage, which lies between the faith and lives of men pretending to be Christians.
EDWARD STILLINGFLEET
Origines Sacrae
Religion assures us that our afflictions shall have an end; she comforts us, she dries our tears, she promises us another life. On the contrary, in the abominable worship of atheism, human woes are the incense, death is the priest, a coffin the altar, and annihilation the Deity.
FRANCOIS-RENE DE CHATEAUBRIAND
The Genius of Christianity
Fervid atheism is usually a screen for repressed religion.
WILHELM STEKEL
Autobiography
Atheism ... that bugbear of women and fools ... is the very top and perfection of free-thinking. It is the grand arcanum to which a true genius naturally riseth, by a certain climax or gradation of thought, and without which he can never possess his soul in absolute liberty and repose.
GEORGE BERKELEY
Alciphron
It is hard to see how a great man can be an atheist. Without the sustaining influence of faith in a divine power we could have little faith in ourselves. We need to feel that behind us is intelligence and love. Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create. Faith is the great motive power, and no man realizes his full possibilities unless he has the deep conviction that life is eternally important, and that his work, well done, is a part of an unending plan.
CALVIN COOLIDGE
speech, Jul. 25, 1924
Modern, post-Enlightenment atheism has a particular social function: it draws authority away from the clergy, towards the secular "priests" of science. In the ancient world, the conflict between science and religion did not exist, at least not in these terms. But it does not follow that nobody in antiquity ever questioned the traditional stories about the gods, which were often patently ridiculous.
EMILY WILSON
"Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World review -- disbelief has been around for 2,500 years", The Guardian, March 9, 2016
The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation.
EMMA GOLDMAN
Anarchism and Other Essays
With modern science or atheism, a new concept may be met with opposition, but once it becomes established, old texts and beliefs are scrapped and referenced for limited purposes.
SPENCER KASSIMIR
"Atheism: A new faith", Washington Times, March 23, 2016
There are no atheists in foxholes.
WILLIAM THOMAS CUMMINGS
Field Sermon on Bataan
Agnostics are just atheists without balls.
STEPHEN COLBERT
I Am America
Nothing shall warp me from the belief that every man is a lover of truth. There is no pure lie, no pure malignity in nature. The entertainment of the proposition of depravity is the last profligacy and profanation. There is no skepticism, no atheism but that. Could it be received into common belief, suicide would unpeople the planet.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
lecture, Mar. 3, 1844
You cannot fight Islamic terrorism from an atheistic standpoint because atheism is not a standpoint. It offers people nowhere to stand, just a floating platform where no one feels secure.
DONALD HANK
"There's only one way Europe can be saved", Renew America, March 25, 2016