Atheist Manifesto Quotes

“The three monotheism share a series of identical forms of aversion: hatred of reason and intelligence; hatred of freedom; hatred of all books in the name of one book alone; hatred of sexuality, women,and pleasure; hatred of feminine; hatred of body, of desires, of drives. Instead Judaism, Christianity, and Islam extol faith and belief, obedience and submission, taste for death and longing for the beyond, the asexual angel and chastity, virginity and monogamous love, wife and mother, soul and spirit. In other words, life crucified and nothingness exalted.”
― Michel Onfray, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

“How strange that excision – female circumcision, with several languages using the same term for both kinds of mutilation – of little girls should revolt the westerner but excite no disapproval when it is performed on little boys. Consensus on the point seems absolute. But ask your interlocutor to think about the validity of this surgical procedure, which consists of removing a healthy part of a nonconsenting child’s body on nonmedical grounds – the legal definition of… mutilation.”
― Michel Onfray, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

“You cannot kill a breeze, a wind, a fragrance, you cannot kill a dream or an ambition. God, manufactured by mortals in their own quintessential image, exists only to make daily life bearable despite the path that every one of us treads toward extinction. As long as men are obliged to die, some of them, unable to endure the prospect, will concoct fond illusions.We cannot assassinate or kill an illusion. In fact, illusion is more likely to kill us — for God puts to death everything that stands up to him, beginning with reason, intelligence, and the critical mind. All the rest follows in a chain reaction.”
― Michel Onfray, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

“La démocratie vit de mouvements, de changements, d’agencements contractuels, de temps fluides, de dynamiques permanentes, de jeux dialectiques. Elle se crée, vit, change, se métamorphose, se construit en regard d’un vouloir issu de forces vivantes. Elle recourt à l’usage de la raison, au dialogue des parties prenantes, à l’agir communicationnel, à la diplomatie autant qu’à la négociation. La théocratie fonctionne à l’inverse : elle nait, vit et jouit de l’immobilité, de la mort et de l’irrationnel. La théocratie est l’ennemie la plus à craindre de la démocratie, avant-hier à Paris avant 1789, hier à Téhéran en 1978, et aujourd’hui chaque fois qu’Al-Quaïda fait parler la poudre.”
― Michel Onfray, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

“It’s almost as if religion needs innocence, lack of education, and ignorance in order to thrive!”
― Michel Onfray, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

“I thought of the lands of Israel, Judaea and Samaria, of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, of Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee. Places where the sun bakes men’s heads, desiccates their bodies, afflicts their souls with thirst. Places that generate a yearning for oases where water flows cool, clear and free, where the air is balmy and fragrant, where food and drink are abundant. The afterlife suddenly struck me as a counterworld invented by men exhausted and parched by their ceaseless wanderings across the dunes or up and down rocky trails baked to white heat. Monotheism was born of the sand.”
― Michel Onfray, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

“Every theocracy is a denial of democracy. Even better: the smallest hint of theocracy neutralizes the very essence of democracy.”
― Michel Onfray, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

“(...) L’intelligence, cette vertu sublime que définit l’art de lier ce qui, a priori, et pour la plupart, passe pour délié.”
― Michel Onfray, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

“Désormais, sous prétexte de laïcité, tous les discours se valent : l’erreur et la vérité, le faux et le vrai, le fantasque et le sérieux. Le mythe et la fable pèsent autant que la raison. La magie compte autant que la science. Le rêve autant que la réalité. Or tous les discours ne se valent pas : ceux de la névrose, de l’hystérie et du mysticisme procèdent d’un autre monde que celui du positiviste. Pas plus qu’on ne doit renvoyer dos à dos bourreau et victime, bien et mal, on ne doit tolérer la neutralité, la bienveillance affichée pour la totalité des régimes de discours, y compris ceux des pensées magiques. Faut-il rester neutre ? Doit-on rester neutre ? A-t-on encore les moyens de ce luxe ? Je ne crois pas...”
― Michel Onfray, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

“[Über das Paradies:] Die fünf Bücher Mose, die Genesis und der Koran beschäftigen sich eingehend mit dieser hysterischen Geographie. Die muslimische Variante ist jedoch am gelungensten und lohnt wirklich die Lektüre: Bäche, Gärten, Flüsse, Quellen, Blumenbeete, jede Menge Früchte und wunderbare Getränke, großäugige Houris, allzeit jungfräulich, liebenswürdige junge Menschen, Betten im Überfluß, prächtige Kleider, wunderbare Stoffe, außergewöhnlicher Schmuck, Gold, Perlen, Parfums, kostbares Geschirr ... es fehlt nichts in diesem Werbeprospekt des ontologischen Fremdenverkehrsamtes.”
― Michel Onfray, Wir brauchen keinen Gott. Warum man jetzt Atheist sein muß

“Specific terrors.”
― Michel Onfray, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam