Agnostic Quotes

“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.”
― Isaac Asimov

“As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.”
― Bertrand Russell

“If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated."

(Notebooks)”
― Voltaire

“A totally nondenominational prayer: Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that I be forgiven for anything I may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness.  Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which I may be eligible after the destruction of my body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.”
― Roger Zelazny, Creatures of Light and Darkness

“Are we biology or God or something higher? I know my heart beats and I listen to it. The beat is biology, but what is the song? ”
― James Frey

“I wouldn't burden any decent system of faith by participating in it... I'm not agnostic. Just nonpartisan. Theological Switzerland, that's me.”
― Jim Butcher, Death Masks

“A belief is not true because it is useful”
― Henri-Frédéric Amiel

“I am an Agnostic because I am not afraid to think. I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil.”
― Clarence Darrow

“A God who could make good children as easily a 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 is 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, The Mysterious Stranger

“I leave pansies, the symbolic flower of freethought, in memory of the Great Agnostic, Robert Ingersoll, who stood for equality, education, progress, free ideas and free lives, against the superstition and bigotry of religious dogma. We need men like him today more than ever. His writing still inspires us and challenges the 'better angels' of our nature, when people open their hearts and minds to his simple, honest humanity. Thank goodness he was here.”
― Bruce Springsteen

“I have always considered myself as an Agnostic...”
― Alexander Graham Bell, Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude

“All religions are man-made; God has not yet revealed himself beyond doubt to anybody.”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity

“If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks.”
― Mark Twain

“The real difference is this: the Christian says that he has knowledge; the Agnostic admits that he has none; and yet the Christian accuses the Agnostic of arrogance, and asks him how he has the impudence to admit the limitations of his mind. To the Agnostic every fact is a torch, and by this light, and this light only, he walks.

The Agnostic knows that the testimony of man is not sufficient to establish what is known as the miraculous. We would not believe to-day the testimony of millions to the effect that the dead had been raised. The church itself would be the first to attack such testimony. If we cannot believe those whom we know, why should we believe witnesses who have been dead thousands of years, and about whom we know nothing?

The Agnostic takes the ground that human experience is the basis of morality. Consequently, it is of no importance who wrote the gospels, or who vouched or vouches for the genuineness of the miracles. In his scheme of life these things are utterly unimportant. He is satisfied that “the miraculous” is the impossible. He knows that the witnesses were wholly incapable of examining the questions involved, that credulity had possession of their minds, that 'the miraculous' was expected, that it was their daily food.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol 1: Lectures

“Each mind conceives god in its own way. There may be as many variation of the god figure as there are people in the world”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity

“We are ultimately unknowable to ourselves and others. Our past and future are mostly unknowable. God is unknowable. For the present the universe - its origins and its destiny - is unknowable, as is whether there are many universes. Infinity is unknowable. These are some of the fundamental reasons why I call myself an agnostic.”
― Michael Krasny, Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic's Quest

“Obviously, if theism is a belief in a God and atheism is a lack of a belief in a God, no third position or middle ground is possible. A person can either believe or not believe in a God. Therefore, our previous definition of atheism has made an impossibility out of the common usage of agnosticism to mean 'neither affirming nor denying a belief in God.' Actually, this is no great loss, because the dictionary definition of agnostic is still again different from Huxley’s definition. The literal meaning of agnostic is one who holds that some aspect of reality is unknowable. Therefore, an agnostic is not simply someone who suspends judgment on an issue, but rather one who suspends judgment because he feels that the subject is unknowable and therefore no judgment can be made. It is possible, therefore, for someone not to believe in a God (as Huxley did not) and yet still suspend judgment (ie, be an agnostic) about whether it is possible to obtain knowledge of a God. Such a person would be an atheistic agnostic. It is also possible to believe in the existence of a force behind the universe, but to hold (as did Herbert Spencer) that any knowledge of that force was unobtainable. Such a person would be a theistic agnostic.”
― Gordon Stein

“For wicked people to do evil requires money, and good people superstition. Combining these elements and we get organized religion, but to achieve the worst of all evil conflate politics to the compound and the tragedies are endless.”
― Sean S Kamali

“The Agnostic is one who asserts 'what no one denies' that there are limits to the sphere of human intelligence.”
― Leslie Stephen

“I do not expect that the mere fact that I was once an evangelical apologist and now see things differently should itself count as evidence that I must be right. That would be the genetic fallacy. It would be just as erroneous to think that John Rankin must be right in having embraced evangelical Christianity since he had once been an agnostic Unitarian and repudiated it for the Christian faith.”
― Robert M. Price

“Using scripture to decode morality is like using the abacus to code iOS.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“When I stand alone with the earth and sky a feeling of something in me going off in every direction into the unknown of infinity means more to me than any organized religion gives me.”
― Georgia O’Keeffe

“I am sick and tired of hearing, the universe knows best. If the universe knew best, no child would cry of hunger. If the universe knew best, no young girl would fall victim to human trafficking. If the universe knew best, nobody would have to struggle till death to feed their family. If the universe knew best, not a single person would ever become a refugee. If the universe knew best, not a single human being would have to suffer on the face of earth. Any universe or god that allows for such horrors to teach humanity lessons or whatever, got to be extremely sick. Insects from the sewers deserve more respect than such sick forces.

The reason these horrors take place is that, contrary to all cowardly beliefs, there is no higher force concerned with human welfare. If we want these horrors to end, we gotta take the initiative to end them ourselves, without relying on prehistoric fairytales. So, stop all that supernatural nonsense, and take some responsibility for the world you live in. Stop delegating your human duties to a fictitious force and stand civilized wielding your backbone for a change.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Her Insan Ailem: Everyone is Family, Everywhere is Home

“God is the fact that all of our efforts will never fictionalize.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Infidelity is the first sign of religion, Disbelief is the sign of practical divinity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“When amidst believers,
speak in the tongue of believers.
When amidst atheists,
speak in the tongue of atheists.

But if you find yourself amidst
militants and fundamentalists,
do not speak, just listen,
and you'll learn
how not to be a human being.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World

“Intellect is not the answer,
Belief is not the answer.
These only amplify what we really are,
Good becomes great, jerk becomes jerker.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“I don't care for booze, drugs, God or government, I only care for human upliftment. I can accept anything and everything that facilitates human welfare, but I have zero tolerance for derangement.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“Militant atheists are no more humanist, than religious fundamentalists are religious.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“Everybody has imaginary friends,
My imaginary friend is my late teacher,
And I find it therapeutic to talk to him,
Whenever I hit rock bottom during disaster.

Quite like air, water and food,
It's something we humans need to survive.
Last thing this world needs is more war
to prove whose imaginary friend
bears the greatest of might.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo