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Yes, I think I use the term radical rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as atheist some people will say, Don't you mean agnostic? I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one...etc., etc. It's easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal and that it's an opinion I hold seriously.
Douglas AdamsIt is philosophically impossible to be an atheist, since to be an atheist you must have infinite knowledge in order to know absolutely that there is no God. But to have infinite knowledge, you would have to be God yourself. It's hard to be God yourself and an atheist at the same time!
Ron CarlsonWhy am I an atheist? I ask you: Why is anybody not an atheist? Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated. I resent anyone pushing their religion on me. I don't push my atheism on anybody else. Live and let live. Not many people practice that when it comes to religion.
Andy RooneyI'm not saying that atheists can't act morally or have moral knowledge. But when I ascribe virtue to an atheist, it's as a theist who sees the atheist as conforming to objective moral values. The atheist, by contrast, has no such basis for morality. And yet all moral judgments require a basis for morality, some standard of right and wrong.
William A. DembskiHe is an atheist who does not believe in himself. The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is an atheist who does not believe in himself.
Swami VivekanandaI should have died when I was sixteen, when I planned to commit suicide. And I was an atheist until then. I was an atheist, and what the heck, if life sucks what do you have to live for? If you're an atheist, it's just about living, you know? So at the time, I didn't want to wake up anymore and then seriously, God chased me down and proved that he was real and that he loved me.
Lacey MosleyPeople 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 BarkerIf I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
Isaac AsimovQuestioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It's because I'm not quite an atheist and it worries me. There's that little bit that holds on: 'Well, I'm almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.'
David BowieAll human beings are moral beings. So, certainly there are alliances. We are in the countries, that are secular states, and we obey its laws. I think we must recognize that common moral base. But in alliances we must always be careful just of what level the alliance is perceived. I will go and lecture to an atheist society, for example, but I will not lecture for them, because I am not an atheist. You see the difference.
John LennoxIf only I wasn't an atheist, I could get away with anything. You'd just ask for forgiveness and then you'd be forgiven. It sounds much better than having to live with guilt.
Keira KnightleyThe position of the Atheist is a clear and reasonable one. I know nothing about โGodโ and therefore I do not believe in Him or in it; what you tell me about your God is selfโcontradictory, and therefore incredible. I do not deny โGod,โ which is an unknown tongue to me; I do deny your God, who is an impossibility. I am without God.
Annie BesantIf you want to turn out an atheist child, unconditional love constantly is a good way to do it.
Penn JilletteAn Atheists loves himself and his fellow man instead of a god. An Atheist thinks that heaven is something for which we should work for now - here on earth - for all men together to enjoy.
Madalyn Murray O'HairIf thou beest ever so exact in thy morals, and not a worshiper of God, then thou art an atheist.
William GurnallWhat happens in our lives is not really anybody's fault but our own... When I was in high school, I was in an atheist crowd, and it was the consensus that religion was a crutch.
Gillian AndersonI'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful.
Christopher HitchensI'd like to think that I'm not just making the point that I'm an atheist over and over, but that I explore different facets of religion. There's no way of bringing up religion without sounding like an asshole.
David CrossIn 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 HeyerdahlI was brought up Catholic. I'm lapsed. From the age of three I was with the nuns. Now I'm an atheist. I think religion does a lot for us but I can't quite believe it, alas... It's just a personal choice. I love the idea of heaven though. Who doesn't? It's lovely.
Paul BettanyI 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 BlackIn 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 JeselnikNew York was the only really hostile city. Perhaps there is a certain element of the lumpen literati that is so dogmatically atheist and materialist and Earth-bound that it finds the grandeur of space and the myriad mysteries of cosmic intelligence anathema.
Stanley KubrickAtheist Jews double crossers stole our [black peopleโs] secrets. . . . They give us to worship a dead Jew and not ourselves . . . . Selling fried potatoes and people, the little arty bastards talking arithmetic they sucked from the arabโs head.
Amiri BarakaAll manners of freedom, including freedom of expression, freedom of conscious, freedom of thought...it accepts tolerance. But it is not an atheist society. Religion is the private affair of an individual...be present in the public domain, but state has to be clearly separated from religion. When I'm speaking, I'm speaking only for myself. At the same time, I know that these ideas have wide support among the Iranian population.
Akbar GanjiTo argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.
Thomas PaineI was called before the head matron, a tall woman with a stolid face. She began taking my pedigree. What religion? was the first question. None, I am an atheist. Atheism is prohibited here. You will have to go to church. I replied that I would do nothing of the kind. I did not believe in anything the Church stood for and, not being a hypocrite, I would not attend.
Emma GoldmanIndependent of the critique I'm making, I'm just trying to paint a more comprehensive portrait of American religion than you get from a right versus left, religious conservatives versus secular liberal, believer versus atheist, binary. Too often, we just look at religion in America through that kind of either/or lens. I think it's much more complicated than that.
Ross DouthatCommunism is as Jewish as the Mafia is Italian. It's a fact that almost all of the convicted spies for communism have been atheist Jews like the Rosenbergs. And international communism was invented by the Jew Karl Marx and has since been led mostly by Jews - like Trotsky.
George Lincoln Rockwell"The Theory of Everything" is an extraordinary story because [Jane Hawing] was incredibly religious and [Stephen Hawking] was an atheist, so you have this conflict both on a domestic level between a couple in a difficult situation but also this bigger conflict of science versus religion, so it's a really fascinating project.
Felicity JonesDewey repudiated what he called militant atheism. He felt that people have innate religious qualities, such as compassion for sufferers, an urge to improve life, and a sense of awe before the mysteries of existence. However, by the standards of conventional religion, Dewey was an atheist.
James A. HaughtA Muslim fanatic and a Christian fanatic, a Jewish fanatic, a secular fanatic, an atheist fanatic, a communist fanatic - all of them are the same. The thinking that, 'If you don't think like me, that if you are not with me, then you are against me;' this is something to condemn.
Marjane SatrapiIf there is a god, the only genuine friend he has is an atheist. He does not blame him for anything.
Chapman CohenThose are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.
John LockeWhat, indeed, is an atheist? He is one who destroys delusions which are harmful to humanity in order to lead men back to nature, to reality, to reason. He is a thinker who, having reflected on the nature of matter, its energy, properties and ways of acting, has no need of idealized powers or imaginary intelligences to explain the phenomena of the universe and the operations of nature.
Baron d'HolbachI liked making people laugh, and I decided I was an atheist early on. My Dad was all right with that. We argued about it all the time, but it was good-natured. He was the most open-minded human being I've ever known.
Dave BarryI 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