185 replies to this topic

[thefirstimmortal]

Theists claim that there is a god; atheists do not. Religionists often challenge atheists to prove that there is no god; but this misses the point. Atheists claim god is unproved, not disproved. In any argument, the burden of proof is on the one making the claim.
If a person claims to have invented an antigravity device, it is not incumbent on others to prove that no such thing exists. The believer must make a case. Everyone else is justified in refusing to believe until evidence is produced and substantiated.

[Cyto]

I second this.

"If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory of mankind, nothing of value would be lost.."

----Robert Ingersoll


And finally, from one of the men who will never leave the history books.

Albert Einstein (Autobiographical Notes)
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"The few took advantage of the ignorant many. They pretended to have received messages from the Unknown. They stood between the helpless multitude and the gods. They were the carriers of flags of truce. At the court of heaven they presented the cause of man, and upon the labor of the deceived they lived."

"We find now that the prosperity of nations has depended, not upon their religion, not upon the goodness or providence of some god, but on soil and climate and commerce, upon the ingenuity, industry, and courage of the people, upon the development of the mind, on the spread of education, on the liberty of thought and action; and that in this mighty panorama of national life, reason has built and superstition has destroyed."

"I believe in the religion of reason -- the gospel of this world; in the development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world."

[thefirstimmortal]

Some atheists feel the argument is pointless until the term "god" is made understandable.
Words like "spirit" and "supernatural" have no referent in reality, and ideas like "all-knowing"
and "omnipotent" are self-contradictory.

[thefirstimmortal]

Thank God, I am still an atheist.

[thefirstimmortal]

"With force I have subdued the brains of the proud." Cardinal Bellarmine, Chief Inquisitor at the trail of Galileo.

[thefirstimmortal]

I do not believe what has been served to me to believe. I am a doubter, a questioner, a
skeptic and if revealed religions have revealed anything it is that they are usually wrong.
Few intelligent Christians can still hold to the idea that the Bible is
an infallible Book, that it contains no linguistic errors, no historical
discrepancies, no antiquated scientific assumptions, not even bad
ethical standards. Historical investigation and literary criticism have
taken the magic out of the Bible and have made it a composite
human book, written by many hands in different ages. The
existence of thousands of variations of texts makes it impossible to
hold the doctrine of a book verbally infallible. Some might claim for
the original copies of the Bible an infallible character, but this view
only begs the question and makes such Christian apologetics more
ridiculous in the eyes of the sincere man.
Those beliefs, at the time it was formulated, may not only have appealed to the imagination but also
fit well with all that was then known. It can nevertheless be made to appear ridiculous
because of facts uncovered later by science. What could be more foolish than to base one's
entire view of life on ideas that, however plausible at that time, now appear to be quite
erroneous? And what would be more important than to find our true place in the universe by
removing one by one these unfortunate vestiges of earlier beliefs? Yet it is clear that some
mysteries have still to be explained scientifically. While these remain unexplained, they can
serve as an easy refuge for religious superstition. It seemed to me of the first importance to
identify these unexplained areas of knowledge and to work toward their scientific
understanding whether such explanations would turn out to confirm existing beliefs or to
refute them.

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.

[thefirstimmortal]

Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner (1858-1934)
Atheist activist, writer, and orator, named after Hypatia of Alexandria, the scientist who in 415 was
torn to pieces by a mob of Christian monks

Before August, 1914, it was the correct thing to proclaim Christ as the Prince
of Peace and Christianity as the religion of love and the brotherhood of man.
We had a Peace Sunday each year when lip-service was paid to Peace from
thousands of pulpits. After August, 1914, these sames pulpits resounded with
prases of the Lord as a man of war ((Exodus, xv. 3) and declarations that the
great European War was a Christian war, sent directly by Almighty God
himself. The earlier attitude, disassociating Christanity from war, was both
dishonest and, to say the least of it, ungrateful; for Christianity has been
nursed, nourished, and spread abroad by war and by what we now call
frightfulness.
-- Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, "Slavery" chapter of Christianity & Conduct; Or, The Influence of Religious Beliefs on Morals
(1919), quoted from Gaylor, Women Without Superstition, p. 311

[thefirstimmortal]

I have seldom met an intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and distorted by religion.

[thefirstimmortal]

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.
-- Pearl S. Buck, Treasury of Women's Quotations

[thefirstimmortal]

I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels. I have enough for this life.

[thefirstimmortal]

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our education system.
We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

[thefirstimmortal]

The whole LSD, STP, marijuana, heroin, hashish, prescription cough medicine crowd suffers
from the "Watchtower" itch: you gotta be with us, man, or you're out, you're dead. This pitch is
a continual and seeming MUST with those who use the stuff. It's no wonder they keep getting
busted.
-- Charles Bukowski, comparing drug addiction with being a Jehovah's Witness, in Tales of Ordinary Madness, "The Big Pot
Game" (1967)

[thefirstimmortal]

The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me. The ravings of insanity! Superstition gone to seed! I don't want to have anything to do with such a God.
-- Luther Burbank

[thefirstimmortal]

The time has come for honest men to denounce false teachers and attack false gods.

[thefirstimmortal]

Science, unlike theology, never leads to insanity.

[thefirstimmortal]

This should be enough for one who lives for truth and service to his fellow passengers on the
way. No avenging Jewish God, no satanic devil, no fiery hell is of any interest to me.
-- Luther Burbank

[thefirstimmortal]

Let us read the Bible without the ill-fitting colored spectacles of theology, just as we read
other books, using our own judgment and reason, listening to the voice within, not to the
noisy babel without. Most of us possess discriminating reasoning powers. Can we use them
or must we be fed by others like babes?

[thefirstimmortal]

Most people's religion is what they would like to believe, not what they do believe. And very
few of them stop to examine its foundations.

[thefirstimmortal]

Nature is not personal. She is the compound of all these processes which move through the
universe to effect the results we know as Life and of all the ordinances which govern that
universe and that make Life continuous. She is no more the Hebrew's Jehovah than she is
the Physicist's Force; she is as much Providence as she is Electricity; she is not the Great
Pattern any more than she is the Blind Chance.
-- Luther Burbank,

[thefirstimmortal]

I have seen myself lose intolerance, narrowness, bigotry, complacence, pride and a whole
bushel-basket of other intellectual vices through my contact with Nature and with men. And
when you take weeds out of a garden it gives you room to grow flowers. So, every time I lost
a little self-satisfaction, or arrogance, I could plant some broadness or love of my own in its
place, and after a while the garden of my mind began to bloom and be fragrant and I found
myself better equipped for my work and more useful to others as a consequence.

[thefirstimmortal]

I do not believe what has been served to me to believe. I am a doubter, a questioner, a
skeptic.

[thefirstimmortal]

Religion grows with the intelligence of man, but all religions of the past and probably all of the
future will sooner or later become petrified forms instead of living helps to mankind. Until that
time comes, however, if religion of any name or nature makes man more happy, comfortable,
and able to live peaceably with his brothers, it is good.
-- Luther Burbank

[thefirstimmortal]

I cannot help feeling that all religions are on a tottering foundation. None is
perfect or inspired. As for their prophets, there are as many today as ever before, only now
science refuses to let them overstep the bounds of common sense.

[thefirstimmortal]

The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me. I
don't want to have anything to do with such a God. But while I cannot conceive of such a
God, I do recognize the existence of a great universal power -- a power which we cannot
even begin to comprehend and might as well not attempt to. It may be a conscious mind, or it
may not. I don't know. As a scientist I should like to know, but as a man, I am not so vitally
concerned.
-- Luther Burbank

[thefirstimmortal]

As for Christ -- well, he has been most outrageously belied. His followers, like those of many
scientists and literary men, have so garbled his words and conduct that many of them no
longer apply to present life. Christ was a wonderful psychologist. He was an infidel of his day
because he rebelled against the prevailing religions and government. I am a lover of Christ as
a man, and his work and all things that help humanity, but nevertheless just as he was an
infidel then, I am an infidel today.
Edgar Waite

[thefirstimmortal]

The more I study religions, the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.

[thefirstimmortal]

Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.

[thefirstimmortal]

If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people
will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.

[thefirstimmortal]

We have fools in all sects, and impostors in most; why should I believe
mysteries no one can understand, because written by men who chose to mistake madness for
inspiration and style themselves Evangelicals?
-- Lord Byron, from Rufus K. Noyes, Views of Religion

[thefirstimmortal]

The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.