#atheism

I don't differentiate much, except in degree, between people who believe in religion from those who believe in astrology, magic or the supernatural. ↗

— Andy Rooney

#astrology #atheism #belief #beliefs #magic

As is well known, the priests are the most evil enemies—but why? Because they are the most impotent. It is because of their impotence that in them hatred grows to monstrous and uncanny proportions, to the most spiritual and poisonous kind of hatred. The truly great haters in world history have always been priests; likewise the most ingenious haters: other kinds of spirit hardly come into consideration when compared with the spirit of priestly vengefulness. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#hatred #priest #religion #religion

Almost all religions provide opportunities for human beings to convince themselves of their own righteousness, to speak in the name of God, and even to go to war on God's behalf. This 'blasphemy of certainty' is also rife among secularists who in their case have not God but science or the proletariat on their side. ↗

— Stephen R. Prothero

#holy-war #religion #religion

It seems to me there is less meanness in atheism, by a good measure. It seems that the spirit of religious self-righteousness this article deplores is precisely the spirit in which it is written. Of course he's right about many things, one of them being the destructive potency of religious self-righteousness. (p. 146) ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#religion #self-righteousness #religion

I am, indeed, an absolute materialist so far as actual belief goes; with not a shred of credence in any form of supernaturalism—religion, spiritualism, transcendentalism, metempsychosis, or immortality. ↗

— H.P. Lovecraft

#immortality #materialism #naturalism #religion #supernatural

Atheism is the opium of the mathematicians. Atheism is the religion of Mathematics. ↗

— Bill Gaede

#atheist #exist #gaede #god #mathematical-physics

Of course his dust would be absorbed in other living things and to that degree at least he would exist again, though it was plain enough that the specific combination which was he would never exist again. ↗

— Gore Vidal

#death #nothingness #death

Past and present religious atrocities have occured not because we are evil, but because it is a fact of nature that the human species is, biologically, only partly rational. Evolution has meant that our prefrontal lobes are too small, our adrenal glands are too big, and our reproductive organs apparently designed by committee; a recipe which, alone or in combination, is very certain to lead to some unhappiness and disorder. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#evolution #design

Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#atheism #humanism #secularism #humans

The lives God gives to us, the awful things we can’t escape from. Sometimes I think that sort of God would enjoy making hell for us after we die. ↗

— C.J. Sansom

#atheism #faith #god #hell #faith