Atheism-christiansquoting.org.uk

Here lies an Atheist
All dressed up
And no place to go.
Epitaph in a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery
I tried atheism for a while, but my faith just wasn't strong enough.

Atheism is a non prophet organisation

The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.

Atheists believe that Nobody is responsible for this mess.

Maybe the atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman.

To be an atheist requires an infinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.
Joseph Addison , Spectator, 8 March 1711

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 one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." -Isaac Asimov, in "Free Inquiry", Spring 1982, vol.2 no.2, p. 9

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. -Francis Bacon

We find the most terrible form of atheism, not in the militant and passionate struggle against the idea of God himself, but in the practical atheism of everyday living, in indifference and torpor. We often encounter these forms of atheism among those who are formally Christians. - Nicolai A. Berdyaev

If atheism spread, it would become a religion as intolerable as the ancient ones. ~ Gustave le Bon 1841-1931, Aphorisms du temps présent

You think you are too intelligent to believe in God. I am not like you. ~Napoleon Bonaparte 1769 -1821

Judge Bork was telling of a Supreme Court case he was involved with, regarding religion in schools. Between court appearances he remarked to the atheists that they should have gone to Congress to achieve their goal. They said that they had. He asked what the reply was. "They told us to go to Hell!"
"It was not immediately apparent to me why that bothered them." --Judge Bork, C-SPAN, July 2002

He that doth not believe that there is a God, is more vile then a devil. To deny there is a God, is a sort of atheism that is not to be found in hell.
Thomas Brooks

Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God. --Heywood Broun

They love talking about it and they hate hearing about it . . . I fancy there is more than meets the eye in this curious controversial attitude; the desire to ask rhetorical questions and not to ask real questions; the wish to heckle and not to hear. ~G.K. Chesterton, The Thing, (1929)

The two most evangelical groups in the world are atheists and vegetarians, especially the least knowledgeable and least intelligent individuals within those groups.- Clark Coleman

Atheism is the result of ignorance and pride; of strong sense and feeble reasons; of good eating and ill-living. It is the plague of society, the corrupter of manners, and the underminer of property. Jeremy Collier

The three great apostles of practical atheism that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are health, wealth, and power. --Charles Caleb Colton

TThere are no atheists in foxholes.--William Thomas Cummings (1903-1944) (Field sermon, Bataan [1942]; From Carlos P. Romulo's _I Saw the Fall of the Philippines_ [1942])

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.- Charles Darwin

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.
In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. - Richard Dawkins, in _Scientific American_ (1995):

The idea that he is a devotee of reason seeing through the outdated superstitions of other, lesser beings is the foremost conceit of the proud atheist. This heady notion was first made popular by French intellectuals such as Voltaire and Diderot, who ushered in the so-called Age of Enlightenment.
That they also paved the way for the murderous excesses of the French Revolution and many other massacres in the name of human progress is usually considered an unfortunate coincidence by their philosophical descendants. -Vox Day The irrational atheist November 17, 2003

The atheist is without God but not without faith, for today he puts his trust in the investigative method known as science, whether he understands it or not. Since there are very few minds capable of grasping higher-level physics, let alone following their implications, and since specialization means that it is nearly impossible to keep up with the latest developments in the more esoteric fields, the atheist stands with utter confidence on an intellectual foundation comprised of things of which he knows nothing. In fairness, he cannot be faulted for this, except when he fails to admit that he is not actually operating on reason in this regard, but is instead exercising a faith that is every bit as blind and childlike as that of the most unthinking Bible-thumping fundamentalist. --Vox Day, "The irrational atheist"

Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics. This is why, when pressed, the atheist will often attempt to hide his lack of conviction in his own beliefs behind some poorly formulated utilitarianism, or argue that he acts out of altruistic self-interest. But this is only post-facto rationalization, not reason or rational behavior. -Vox Day

IF GOD DOES NOT EXIST, THEN EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED. -- Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881)

But what grounds the right of self-ownership itself? The answer, according to Locke, was that it derives from God. How? God, being the creator of everything that exists other than Himself - including us - is the ultimate owner of everything that exists - including us. Therefore, when a person harms another person by killing him, stealing from him, and so forth, he in effect violates the rights of God, because he damages what is God's property. To respect God's rights over us, therefore, we must recognize our duty not to kill, harm, or steal from each other, which entails treating each other as having certain rights relative to each other - the rights to life, liberty, and property. And these rights can usefully be summed up as rights of self-ownership. But ultimately, as it turns out, we don't really own ourselves: God does. Relative to Him, we are merely "leasing" ourselves, as it were, and are accountable to Him for how we use His property. Relative to other human beings, however, we are in effect self-owners; we must treat others as if they owned themselves, and not use them as if they were our property. That Locke's version of classical liberalism favors a decidedly religious social order should be obvious. Of course, Locke is also famous for promoting the idea of religious toleration, and would vehemently reject the suggestion that any particular denomination or its teachings ought to be promoted by government. But Locke was nevertheless very far in his thinking from the interpretation of the doctrine of the separation of church and state favored by the ACLU. For he also held that toleration cannot be extended to atheists, precisely because their denial of the existence of God amounted, in his view, to the denial of the very foundations of the moral order in general, and the classical liberal political order in particular. In Locke's estimation, if the suggestion that liberalism entails a right of toleration of atheism isn't exactly a self-contradiction, it will do until the real thing comes along; for the existence of any rights at all presupposes the falsity of atheism. -- Edward Feser, The Trouble with Libertarianism http://www.techcentralstation.com/072004C.html

But the thing I've really never understood about atheists is why try to find fault with a religion based mainly on treating others the way you'd like to be treated? ~ Benjamin Furleigh, Mason City Globe Gazette (Jan 13 1997)

It amazes me to find an intelligent person who fights against something which he does not at all believe exists. ~Mohandas Gandhi

Only in Atheism does the spring rise higher than the source, the effect exist without the cause, life come from a stone, blood from a turnip, a silk purse from a sow's ear, a Beethoven Symphony or a Bach Fugue from a kitten walking across the keys..... --James M. Gillis

I'm an atheist. I'm not neutral about religion, I'm hostile to it. I think it is a positively bad idea, not just a false one. And I mean not just organized religion, but religious belief itself-Christopher Hitchens_Free Inquiry_, Fall 1996

To admit there is no god is to provide free license to pillage and rape with clear conscience.
Eli Khamarov "Surviving on Planet Reebok

We have grown used to a Godless universe, but we are not yet accustomed to one which is loveless as well, and only when we have so become shall we realize what atheism really means.-- Joseph Wood Krutch

But if God is gone and man is no longer master, then who is master? - Milan Kunder

Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist. --C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.--C.S. Lewis _Mere Christianity_

The only atheism is the denial of truth. --Arthur Lynch

There are absolute atheists ... Absolute atheism is in no way a mere absence of belief in God. It is rather a refusal of God, a fight against God, a challenge to God. ~ Maritain Jacques

In some awful, strange, paradoxical way, atheists tend to take religion more seriously than the practitioners.~Jonathon Miller

In agony or danger, no nature is atheist. The mind that knows not what to fly to, flies to God. --Henry More (1614-1687)

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, I hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that. --Thomas Nagel _The Last Word_

In America, however, most of our atheists are actually thinly disguised Christians, or sometimes thinly disguised Jews, who want to retain the humanism taught by the Creator, without believing in the Creator. They believe in the image of God, without believing in God. They want the Kingdom of God &emdash; the Kingdom of compassion, justice, peace, love, integrity, honesty, and commitment &emdash; without God, the King. -- Michael Novak, "The Atheist Civil-Liberty Union?"

One must feel sorry for atheists. They seem so lonely. Alone not only under the vast stars of a summer's night, in all this immense cosmos. And passing through it as we do all, as evanescently as fireflies. But alone also in this religion-drenched country, most of whose public spaces reek of faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. -- Michael Novak, "The Atheist Civil-Liberty Union?"

Atheists in our midst are proof that all consciences can be accommodated here, even those that have no ground for holding that conscience is sacred, inalienable, and prior to civil society. --Michael Novak, "The Atheist Civil-Liberty Union?"

And what will happen to our own civilization, when the full atheistic agenda of the ACLU has finally and completely been accomplished? When there is no one who can speak publicly, under government auspices, about the ground of our rights? When no public symbols or ceremonies remind the young of these sacred sources, from whose depths alone spring their special nobility and unique calling? When the United States of America has thoroughly abandoned in public the faith of our forebears, and only the desolate winds of atheism blow across our monuments? When our rights are reduced to those of a barnyard? Poor ACLU. No more than the Jacobins of France in 1789 do they know what they do. Michael Novak, "The Atheist Civil-Liberty Union?"

What use is it to us to hear it said of a man that he has thrown off the yoke, that he does not believe there is a God to watch over his actions, that he reckons himself the sole master of his behavior, and that he does not intend to give an account of it to anyone but himself? Does he think that in that way he will have straightway persuaded us to have complete confidence in him, to look to him for consolation, for advice, and for help, in the vicissitudes of life? Do such men think that they have delighted us by telling us that they hold our souls to be nothing but a little wind and smoke -- and by saying it in conceited and complacent tones? Is that a thing to say blithely? Is it not rather a thing to say sadly -- as if it were the saddest thing in the world?... -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensee

Infidelity reproves nothing that is bad. It only ridicules and denounces all that is good. It tears down, but never builds up; destroys, but never imparts life; attacks religion, but offers no adequate substitute. ~ P. Pavlov (1849 -1936)

Few men are so obstinate in their atheism, that a pressing danger will not compel them to the acknowledgement of a divine power.--Plato (428-348 BC)

Atheism is a disease of the soul, before it becomes an error of the understanding. -- Plato

It is better to have no opinion of God at all than such as one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only unbelief--the other is contempt. --Plutarch (46-120)

I started to believe in God when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I was simply puzzled by what my school teachers told me. They repeated to us many times that God did not exist. And I wondered who it was that did not exist with such power that people couldn't stop talking about him. It was useless to ask my teachers about it because I already knew what their answer would be. And it was useless to ask my parents because they always avoided the topic. So I thought this was some dangerous secret and I decided to find out for myself who this God is...It wasn't God's power that interested me. I was just a small girl and everyone around me was more powerful than me and could punish me...I learnt that God was kind and that he loves me. This is something I desperately needed. - Irina Ratushinskaya Irina Ratushinskaya, a Ukrainian poet, who on her 29th birthday in March 1983, received a seven-year prison sentence for expressing "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" in her verses; these seven years of hard labor were to be followed by five years of internal exile.

For those who are adamant that "conscience" provides knowledge of an objective moral order, Nietzsche replies that such an "inner voice" is merely a construct of history, instinct and social practice. He asks, "But why do you listen to the voice of conscience? And what gives you the right to consider such a judgment true and infallible? … Your judgment "this is right" has a pre-history in your instincts, like,dislikes, experiences, and lack of experiences …. [T]hat you feel something to be right…may be due to the fact that you never thought much about yourself and simply have accepted blindly what you have been told ever since your childhood was right." "It is selfish to experience one's own judgment [of conscience] as a universal law ~~ Thomas Raucherstein, Nietzsche and Rorty on Morality and the Death of God (2000)

[The] belief that a groundless ethic can promote an increase in tolerance and peace is simply false. Historical examples indicate that atheism has contributed (directly) to the most horrific totalitarian regimes the world has ever seen. If God is dead, then one can certainly conclude that humanity is dead as well. In the absence of God, there is no one to have mercy on our souls.~ Thomas Raucherstein, Nietzsche and Rorty on Morality and the Death of God (2000)

That God does not exist, I cannot deny,
That my whole being cries out for God
I cannot forget
Jean-Paul Sartre
There are three possible kinds of God: the god of one's own ego, in which the atheist believes, and which is also the god of modern confusionism; the god of nature, of stone and gold and silver, which belonged to the old religions of idolatry; and the Supreme God, who made both man and nature, and redeemed them both upon the cross. Those who tell us that they deny the existence of God are merely substituting one god for another. --Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979) _On Being Human_ [1982]

The modern atheist is always angered when he hears anything said about God and religion. He would be incapable of such a resentment if God were only a myth. --Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979), _Peace of Soul_ [1954]

Infidelity is seated in the heart; its origin is not in the head. It is the wish that Christianity might not be true, that leads to an argument to prove it. ~Charles Simmons 1798-1856

Atheism is a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God. -- Tom Stoppard

God doesn't believe in atheists. -- Thomas A. Sundberg

Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position. ~ John Updike

If one is going to eliminate the creator of all things, then it is a good idea to replace the creator with a very clear idea of what constitutes goodness in the human scale. ~Gore Vidal, Creation

The atheist's most embarrassing moment is when he feels profoundly thankful for something, but can't think of anybody to thank for it.--Mary Ann Vincent (1818-1887)

The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars who reason badly, and who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the eternity of things and of inevitability. --Voltaire (1694-1778) _Philosophical Dictionary_ [1764]

Most of the great men of this world live as if they were atheists. Every man who has lived with his eyes open, knows that the knowledge of a God, his presence,and his justice, has not the slightest influence over the wars, the treaties, the objects of ambition, interest, or pleasure, in the pursuit of which they are wholly occupied. -- Voltaire

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up -- they have no holidays.-- Henny Youngman