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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 that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.
Isaac AsimovNo it's not!" said Constable Visit. "Atheism is a denial of a god." "Therefore It Is A Religious Position," said Dorfl. "Indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny.
Terry PratchettJudging from the tendency and effect of his arguments, an atheist does not appear positively to refuse that a God may be... His verdict on the doctrine of God is only that it is not proven. It is not that it is disproven. He is but an atheist. He is not an anti-theist.
Thomas ChalmersHe was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.
George OrwellI am not an atheist. An atheist is someone who has compelling evidence that there is no Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. I am not that wise, but neither do I consider there to be anything approaching adequate evidence for such a god. Why are you in such a hurry to make up your mind? Why not simply wait until there is compelling evidence?
Carl SaganI heard the story of a man, a blasphemer...an atheist, who was converted singularly by a sinful action of his. He had written on a piece of paper, "God is nowhere," and ordered his child to read it, for he would make him an atheist too. The child spelled it, "God is n-o-w h-e-r-e. God is now here." It was a truth instead of a lie, and the arrow pierced the man's own heart.
Charles SpurgeonMy dad was a militant atheist, or is a militant atheist. My mum was sort of bought up in a religious family because she was a Protestant from Ireland but wasn't especially religious.
Tony BlairHere is book called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, written by a couple of Christian apologists, which is essentially saying I don't pretend enough to know things I don't know to be an atheist.
Peter BoghossianNot one man in a thousand has either strength of mind or goodness of heart to be an Atheist. I repeat it. Not one man in a thousand has either strength of mind or goodness of heart to be an Atheist.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeI have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.
Ben SteinLet's drop the whole 'atheist evangelism' thing and call out bullshit questions like 'what does atheism have to offer?' for just what they are: Bullshit. I mean, what does knowing that the Earth goes around the Sun have to offer? Who cares? It just is.
Rebecca WatsonBeing an atheist makes someone a clearer thinking, fairer person. They [atheists] are not doing things to be rewarded in heaven; they're doing things because they're right, because they live by a moral code.
Ricky GervaisAccording to my definition of God, I'm not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes I'm looking at God. Whenever I'm listening to something I'm listening to God.
Pete Seeger"Atheist" is quite clear in its meaning of "somebody without a belief in God." It is more complex in its usage since it has often been used to blacken anyone with the slightest doubt about the teachings of religion.
Jim HerrickGod is in the mountains. Impassive, immovable, jagged giants, separating the celestial from the terrestrial with eternal diagonal certainty. As if silently monitoring the beating heart of the creator from the universe's perfect birth. Stood in the thin air and the awe, one inhales God, involuntarily acknowledging that we are but fragments of a whole, a higher thing. The mountains remind me of my place, as a servant to truth and wonder. Yes, God is in the mountains. Perhaps the pulpit too and even in the piety of an atheist's sigh. I don't know; but I feel him in the mountains.
Russell BrandAn argument frequently used by believers [is] to force unbelievers to soften their terms by accepting their opponents' definition; "Atheist" means without a concept of God that is logically convincing, not with proof that God does not exist.
Jim HerrickWhat you should say to outsiders is that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our Association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself shall not stand upon it.
Susan B. AnthonyMen tell us sometimes there is no such thing as an atheist. There must be. There are some men to whom it is true that there is no God. They cannot see God because they have no eye. They have only an abortive organ, atrophied by neglect.
William Henry DrummondI grew up in a mixed religious household. And it was volatile. My dad's atheist, my mom's agnostic. Just constant fighting. There's no God! There might be!
Bonnie McFarlaneThe atheist realizes that there must not only be an acceptance of his right to hold his opinion, but that ultimately his is the job to turn his culture from religion, to eliminate those irrational ideas which have held the human race in intellectual slavery.
Madalyn Murray O'HairI am an atheist, I have no religious beliefs. And obviously I donโt believe in spirituality of some kind.
Javed AkhtarReligious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws, moreover the former is never made a condition for the knowledge they teach, but there are always scrupulously careful to take into consideration the possibility that by reason both the agnostic and atheist may attain truth in their own way. Such tolerance may be surprising to religious believers in the West, but it is an integral part of Vedantic belief.
Romain RollandI was an atheist and I came to experience a relationship with God which had a radically transforming effect on my life, on my relationships, on every aspect of my life, for the better. So, obviously I hope other people will experience that.
Nicky GumbelI had abandoned Catholicism, but even during my short militant atheist period I maintained an interest in western religious art and music.
Tim CraneThe highest praise of God consists in the denial of him by the atheist who finds creation so perfect that it can dispense with a creator.
Marcel ProustShouldn't atheist have an equal obligation to explain pleasure in a world of randomness. Where does pleasure come from?
Gilbert K. ChestertonThe thing that concerns me more than anything is when anybody becomes closed off and exclusive of other people's ideas. All of our brains are in the same mode of searching when trying to understand reality, and when we come to a belief system that makes sense to us we hold it strongly, whether it's an atheist view, or a Christian view, or a Muslim view, whatever, then it's very hard to let go and I think it's so important to try to foster dialogue.
Andrew B. NewbergI don't have any real spirituality in my life - I'm kind of an atheist - but when music can take me to the highest heights, it's almost like a spiritual feeling. It fills that void for me.
Jack BlackThe atheist barista (who's obsessed with astrology) asked me, "So what's your sign?" I responded, "The sign of the cross." I think she spit in my coffee.
Mark HartAn atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.
Carl SaganThe 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. JoshiThese atheist cultures were certainly diligent in preserving the relics of their saints.
Elizabeth KostovaI've won every debate I've had with an atheist, and never converted even a single one.
Francis Joseph SheedI am like all other atheists only in that I do not believe there are any gods. Beyond that, I may differ dramatically in my values and beliefs from any other atheist. On both sides of the political spectrum, one can find the neo-conservative Objectivists and the ultra-liberal Communists, both of whom hate each other. These two factions take up nearly opposite sets of values, yet both are comprised of unabashed atheists.
Richard CarrierThe footprint of the savage traced in the sand is sufficient to attest the presence of man to the atheist who will not recognize God, whose hand is impressed upon the entire universe.
Hugh MillerThe Atheist waits for proof of God. Till that proof comes he remains, as his name implies, without God. His mind is open to every new truth, after it has passed the warder Reason at the gate.
Annie BesantWhen a man calls himself an atheist, he is not attacking God; he is attacking his own conscience.
Michael PearlAll I say is that I think 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 radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.
H. P. Lovecraft