Atheism Quotes

“The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should guard against the encroachment of religion in areas where it has no place, and in particular the control of education by religious authority. The attempts to ban the teaching of evolution or other scientific theories -- a feeble echo of medieval church tyranny and hostility to learning, but an echo nonetheless are serious threats to freedom of inquiry and should be vigorously combated.”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should not be cowed by exaggerated sensitivity to people's religious beliefs and fail to speak vigorously and pointedly when the devout put forth arguments manifestly contrary to all the acquired knowledge of the past two or three millennia. Those who advocate a piece of folly like the theory of an 'intelligent creator' should be held accountable for their folly; they have no right to be offended for being called fools until they establish that they are not in fact fools. Religiously inclined writers like Stephen L Carter may plead that 'respect' should be accorded to religious views in public discourse, but he neglects to demonstrate that those views are worthy of respect. All secularists -- scientists, literary figures, even politicians (if there are any such with the requisite courage) -- should speak out on the issue when the opportunity presents itself.”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should insist on the need to engage in a meaningful debate on the entire issue of the truth or falsity (or probability or improbability) of religious tenets, without being subject to accusations of impiety, immorality, impoliteness, or any of the other smokescreens used by the pious to deflect attention from the central issues at hand.”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“One is not “converted” to Christianity- one must first be sick enough for it.

-Friedrich Nietzsche”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“The priest knows of only one great danger: that science – the sound comprehension of cause and effect. But science flourishes, on the whole, only under favourable conditions – a man must have time, he must have an overflowing intellect, in order to “know.”…. “Therefore man must be made unhappy” – this been, in all ages, the logic of the priest.

-Friedrich Nietzsche”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“There is no logical connection between having any degree of power, including the power to create the universe, and being morally good.

-A.J. Ayer”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“Faith” means the will to avoid knowing what is true.

-Friedrich Nietzsche”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“Science makes men ‘godlike’- it is all up with priests and gods when man becomes scientific! – Moral: science is the forbidden per se; it alone is forbidden…. That shalt not know.

-Friedrich Nietzsche”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“The thing that sets us apart is not that we are unable to find God, either in history, or in nature, or behind nature – but that we regard what has been honoured as God, not as “divine,” but as pitiable, absurd, as injurious; not as a mere error, but as a crime against life.

-Friedrich Nietzsche”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons. This argument would be a valid one if all men of all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God; but we know that this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight as evidence of what really exists.

-Charles Darwin”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“And though it is quite true that some who deem themselves Christian put the Old Testament completely in the background, this is, I allege, because they are outgrowing their Christianity.

-Charles Bradlaugh”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“Every religion is constantly changing, and at any given time is the measure of the civilization attained by what Guizot described as the “just milieu” of those who profess it. Each religion is slowly, but certainly, modified in its dogma and practice by the gradual development of the people amongst whom it is professed. Each discovery destroys in whole or part some theretofore-cherished belief. No religion is suddenly rejected by any people; it is, rather, gradually outgrown.

-Charles Bradlaugh”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“If I believe that God tells me to love my enemies, but at the same time hates His own enemies and requires me to have one will with Him, which has the larger scope, love or hatred?

-George Eliot”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“So long as belief in propositions is regarded as indispensable to salvation, the pursuit of truth as such is not possible, any more than it is possible for a man who is swimming for his life to make meteorological observations on the storm which threatens to overwhelm him. The sense of alarm and haste, the anxiety for personal safety, which Dr. Cummings insists upon as the proper religious attitude, unmans the nature, and allows no thorough, calm thinking, no truly noble, disinterested feeling.

-George Eliot”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“If we think that the search for God is a vain search, and that there is no reality to be discovered, then the history of religion becomes a study of the aberrations of the human mind.

-Cyril Bailey”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“The question we should have been asking is not whether the proposition that God exists is true as a matter of fact, or acceptable as an explanatory hypothesis, but rather what function the belief in God fulfils in the lives of those who hold it.

-A.J. Ayer”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“I suspect that the widespread assumption that religious belief is necessary for the maintenance of moral standards arises not so much from any assessment of the empirical evidence as from a tacit or explicit acceptance of the proposition that if there is no God there is no reason to be moral.

-A.J. Ayer”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“The truth is, however, that those who take this position do not understand, or think they understand, something by the words “God exists.” It is only when the account they give of what they understand appears unworthy of credence that they take refuge in saying that it falls short of what the words really mean. But words have no meaning beyond the meaning that is given to them, and a proposition is not made the more credible by being treated as an approximation to something that we do not find intelligible.

-A.J. Ayer”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“In W.H. Mallock’s satire "The New Republic,” a character representing Dr. Jowett is made to admit that an atheist opponent can disprove the existence of God, as he would define him. “All atheists can do that.” This does not, however, disturb the doctor’s faith. “For,” he says, “the world has at present no adequate definition of God; and I think we should be able to define a thing before we can satisfactorily disprove it."

-A.J. Ayer”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.

-Bertrand Russell”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“It is customary to suppose that, if a belief is widespread, there must be something reasonable about it. I do not think this view can be held by anyone who has studied history.

-Bertrand Russell”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“People will tell us that without the consolation of religion they would be intolerably unhappy. So far as this is true, it is a coward’s argument. Nobody but a coward would consciously choose to live in a fool’s paradise. When a man suspects his wife of infidelity, he is not thought the better for shutting his eyes to the evidence. And I cannot see why ignoring evidence should be contemptible in one case and admirable in the other.

-Bertrand Russell”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“It is always disastrous when governments set to work to uphold opinions for their utility rather than for their truth. As soon as this is done it becomes necessary to have a censorship to suppress adverse arguments, and it is thought wise to discourage thinking among the young for fear of encouraging “dangerous thoughts.”

-Bertrand Russell”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“The question whether there is a God is one which is decided on very different grounds by different communities and different individuals. The immense majority of mankind accept the prevailing opinion of their own community.

-Bertrand Russell”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“Suppose that an infinite God exists, what can we do for him? Being infinite, he is conditionless; being conditionless, he cannot be benefited or injured. He cannot want. He has. Think of the egotism of a man who believes that an infinite being wants his praise!

-Robert Ingersoll”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“To assert that God is intelligent, is to assert that he has ideas; and Locke has proved that ideas result from sensation. Sensation can exist only in an organized body, an organized body is necessarily limited both in extent and operation. The God of the rational Theosophist is a vast and wise animal…

-Percy Shelley”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“In the case of the god who still survives in the loyalty of men after his centuries of scrutiny, it can always be noted that little besides his name has endured. His attributes will been so revised that he is really another god.

-Carl Van Doren”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“As to the gods, they have been, I find, countless, but even the names of most of them lie in the deep compost which is known as civilization, and the memories of few of them are green. There does not seem to me to be good reason for holding that some of them are false and some of them, or one of them, true. Each was created by the imaginations and wishes of men who could not account for the behavior of the universe in any other satisfactory way. But no god has worshippers forever. Sooner or later they have realized that the attributes once ascribed to him, such as selfishness or lustfulness or vengefulness, are unworthy of the moral systems which men have evolved among themselves. Thereupon follows the gradual doom of the god, however long certain of the faithful may cling to his cult.

-Carl Van Doren”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“Beauty as a gift from heaven has proved useless. It will, however, become the essence and impetus of life when man learns to see in the earth the only heaven fit for man.

-Emma Goldman”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader

“It is the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon humanity, its paralyzing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism is fighting with all its power.

-Emma Goldman”
― S.T. Joshi, Atheism: A Reader