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The problem of good as it faces the atheist is this: Nature, which is the nuts-and-bolts reality for the atheist, has no values and thus can offer no grounding for good and evil. Values on the atheist view are subjective and contingent.
William A. DembskiPeople are invariably surprised to hear me say I am both an atheist and an agnostic, as if this somehow weakens my certainty. I usually reply with a question like, โWell, are you a Republican or an American?โ The two words serve different concepts and are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism addresses knowledge; atheism addresses belief. The agnostic says, โI don't have a knowledge that God exists.โ The atheist says, โI don't have a belief that God exists.โ You can say both things at the same time. Some agnostics are atheistic and some are theistic.
Dan BarkerI just became a stronger agnostic, and then I started to realize that everyone who was saying they were agnostic really hadn't thought about it that much. Still, I went with agnosticism for a long, long time because I just hated to say I was an atheist -- being an atheist seemed so rigid. But the more I became comfortable with the word, and the more I read, it started to stick.
Julia SweeneyI 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 SpurgeonEverybody is an atheist in saying that there is a god - from Ra to Shiva - in which he does not believe. All that the serious and objective atheist does is to take the next step and to say that there is just one more god to disbelieve in.
Richard DawkinsIf you can remain as an atheist in a falling plane, then it means you are a real atheist!
Mehmet Murat IldanYou have two choices with Obama. You either believe that he is a man of Christ... or you think he's a liar. And I'm surprised by the number of atheist free thinkers that support Obama, and their argument is essentially, 'He's lying about being religious 'cause you have to do that to get elected.' It's a horrible reason to like somebody.
Penn JilletteWhat I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God. Which there isn't. I'm an atheist.
Stephen HawkingReligious liberty in a nation is as real as the liberty of its least popular religious minority. Look not to the size of cathedrals or even to the words on the statute books for proof of the reality of religious freedom. Ask what is the fate of the Protestant in Spain, the Jew in Saudi Arabia, the Arab in Israel, the Catholic in Poland or the atheist in the United States.
Paul BlanshardIt's not so much that I'm an atheist so much as the sneaking suspicion that I myself may be god
Thom YorkeIf you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.
C. S. LewisFor moral reasons I am an atheist - for moral reasons. I am of the opinion that you would recognize a creator by his creation, and the world appears to me to be put together in such a painful way that I prefer to believe that it was not created by anyone than to think that somebody created this intentionally.
Stanislaw LemThere's no bigger atheist than me. Well, I take that back. I'm a cancer screening away from going agnostic and a biopsy away from full-fledged Christian.
Adam CarollaIf thou beest ever so exact in thy morals, and not a worshiper of God, then thou art an atheist.
William GurnallFor years [H.P] Lovecraft was defined as an atheist. Well, he wasn't saying anything about what he really was at all. He wasn't even an agnostic. That's exactly what the situation is, in other words, when you enter an eternal realm. You've got to know there is no religion.
Paul LaffoleyWorry is really just a form of atheism. Every time you worry, you're acting like an atheist. You're saying, "It all depends on me." That's just not in the Bible.
Rick WarrenI 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 GumbelIn a city a man may feel second to none. But alone in the immensity of the universe, among all the creatures that preceded man and built up the human species, even a most fervent atheist will wonder if Darwin found the visible road but not the invisible mechanism.
Thor HeyerdahlThese atheist cultures were certainly diligent in preserving the relics of their saints.
Elizabeth KostovaTurn pimp, flatterer, quack, lawyer, parson, be chaplain to an atheist, or stallion to an old woman, anything but a poet; for a poet is worse, more servile, timorous and fawning than any I have named.
William CongreveIn fact, the answers that religion, as we have come to know it, provides to the question of human worth have played so dominant a role in the preceding centuries that believers often cannot conceive how non-believers can muster sufficient commitment to their own lives to get out of bed each morning, let alone the ethical wherewithal to regard others as deserving of moral regard. Once one "comes out" as an atheist, these are the inquisitions to which one is often subjected.
Rebecca GoldsteinIn Gilead, the narrator's friend's son describes himself not as an atheist but in "state of categorical unbelief." He says, "I don't even believe God doesn't exist, if you see what I mean." I pointed this passage out to Mom and said it closely matched my own views-I just didn't think about religion.
Will SchwalbeIโm not a religious person; I would call myself an atheist. I donโt have a good story behind it, Iโm just reasonable.
Anthony JeselnikIf by some bizarre chance there turns out to be a god [...], I'm willing to bet he's an atheist too.
Salman RushdieI have the honesty to say I'm an Atheist. There is nothing that supports the idea of a personal God.
Ernst MayrIโm an atheist, and I believe religion is totally against human rights and womenโs rights.
Taslima Nasrin...if you ask me whether or not I'm an atheist, I wouldn't even answer. I would first want an explanation of what it is that I'm supposed not to believe in, and I've never seen an explanation.
Noam Chomsky[Nikola Tesla] said he had no interest in the spiritual. He didn't believe in telepathy, didn't believe in any of that stuff, didn't believe in any religion, and he just thought all these people were being superstitious and wanted them to go away. And in that way he was very close to H.P. Lovecraft, who was almost a believing atheist.
Paul LaffoleyAll this could be part of a plan. There is no way an atheist can prove itโs not. But itโs some plan, isn't it? With mass destruction, pitiless extermination, annihilation going on all the time. And all of this set in motion on a scale thatโs absolutely beyond our imagination, in order that the pope can tell people not to jerk off.
Christopher HitchensThe 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 BesantIf we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
Thomas JeffersonAs an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population.
Sam HarrisIf I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.
Christopher HitchensLincoln said you cannot be President without spending some item on your knees. I have repeated that and a bunch of Atheists got all over me. Wait a minute. Does that mean that you cannot be President if you are an Atheist? I say yea that does mean that.
George H. W. BushIโm a total atheist, and for me itโs just about trying to find something that rises above the banal day-to-day bullshit of living.
Myla GoldbergI'm culturally Jewish but, like most scientists, an atheist: I don't believe there's a God or supernatural world. Buddhism offers guidance on what to do in a world without God: It opines that truly being present in the worldโ experiencing and hanging out with your loved ones, provides all the significance you could want.
Alison GopnikMy faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.
Anne RiceI don't bill myself as an atheist but as a naturalist. Naturalism is a belief system. A lot of scientists bristle at that. We all have to believe we can find the truth. Evidence is my guide. I rely on observation, experimentation and verification.
Greg GraffinThe Cross! There, and there only (though the deist rave, and the atheist, if Earth bears so base a slave); There and there only, is the power to save.
William CowperThe real heretic is not the atheist or agnostic (who are often decent people) but those who murmur "it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as it makes you feel good." This turns religion into a subjective matter, like taste in furnishings, and robs theology of its claim to ultimate truth.
Sydney J. HarrisI am an atheist, although I very much admire and have been influenced by many traditionally religious people.
Nat HentoffI was brought up an atheist and have always remained so. But at no time was I led to believe that morality was unimportant or that good and bad did not exist. I believe passionately in the need to distinguish between right and wrong and am somewhat confounded by being told I need God, Jesus or a clergyman to help me to do so.
Nigella Lawson