#atheism

Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up the old ones. ↗

— Ruth Hurmence Green

#religion #intelligence

One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad. ↗

— Aleister Crowley

#atheism #bible #religion #religion

Religion doesn't just cloud our minds. It asks us to deliberately deceive ourselves-- to replace reason with its opposite, faith. And when men operate on faith, they can no longer be reasoned with, which makes them more dangerous than any sane man, good or evil. ↗

— James L. Sutter

#faith #reason #religion #death

If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#atheism #atheist #christianity #death #god

Maybe awful things is how God speaks to us, Vernon thought, trudging up the lightless tunnel. Maybe folks don’t trust in good things no more. Maybe awful things is all God’s got to remind us he’s alive. Maybe war is God come to life in men. Vernon pushed on toward the light of day. He stepped out onto the ledge and into the heat, and it felt like leaving a theater after the matinee had shown a sad film, the glare of sunshine after the darkness far too real to suffer. ↗

— Alan Heathcock

#bleak #christian-behavior #loss-of-faith #misery #no-redemption

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#agnosticism #atheism #atheist #philosophy #equality

It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction of religion. A country which forbids an established church by law is prey to any denomination. The best that can be said is that this is pluralism of a kind. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#christianity #jerry-falwell #jesse-jackson #pluralism #religion

Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity. ↗

— Stephen Greenblatt

#christianity #faith #religion #war #faith

I always got a bit pissed off with those broadsheet sceptics who make their living being passionately angry about homeopathy, God, synchronicity or whatever, because it's as if they can't get past their emotions, and in their rage they become as faith-driven as the beliefs they criticise. I always said they give scientists a bad name. After all, science has to be about asking unthinkable questions, not closing down debate. ↗

— Scarlett Thomas

#religion #scepticism #sceptics #skepticism #skeptics