#atheism

We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#cruelty #ethics #ethics-in-religion #morality #morality-without-religion

Of course what I'm about to share isn't true for me but... Friends, somebody said, are "god's apology for relations." (p. 129) ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#death #family #friends #death

I believe the simplest explanation is, there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization that there probably is no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe and for that, I am extremely grateful. ↗

— Stephen Hawking

#inspirational #science #design

By Hays' reasoning, penetrating a rectum with a penis is a violation of how God meant humans to function. However, penetrating a human body with a sword, a common way to kill people in biblical times, is acceptable. Apparently human bodies were designed to be penetrated by metal implements, but not by flesh. ↗

— Hector Avalos

#bible #christianity #christianity-and-homosexuality #god #homophobia

You don't get to advertise all the good that your religion does without first scrupulously subtracting all the harm it does and considering seriously the question of whether some other religion, or no religion at all, does better. ↗

— Daniel C. Dennett

#faith #religion #faith

There either is a god or there is not; there is a 'design' or not. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#god #intelligent-design #religion #design

What I have a problem with is not so much religion or god, but faith. When you say you believe something in your heart and therefore you can act on it, you have completely justified the 9/11 bombers. You have justified Charlie Manson. If it's true for you, why isn't it true for them? Why are you different? If you say "I believe there's an all-powerful force of love in the universe that connects us all, and I have no evidence of that but I believe it in my heart," then it's perfectly okay to believe in your heart that Sharon Tate deserves to die. It's perfectly okay to believe in your heart that you need to fly planes into buildings for Allah. ↗

— Penn Jillette

#faith #manson #religion #faith

Renouncing false beliefs will not usher in the millennium. Few things about the strategy of contemporary apologists are more repellent than their frequent recourse to spurious alternatives. The lesser lights inform us that the alternative to Christianity is materialism, thus showing how little they have read, while the greater lights talk as if the alternative were bound to be a shallow and inane optimism. I don't believe that man will turn this earth into a bed of roses either with the aid of God or without it. Nor does life among the roses strike me as a dream from which one would not care to wake up after a very short time. ↗

— Walter Kaufmann

#materialism #religion #dreams

We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes—one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way. ↗

— Stephen Jay Gould

#diversity #freedom #history #liberty #suffering

Atheism is a non-prophet organization. ↗

— George Carlin

#organization