#atheist

People who commit crimes should be responsible for those crimes. It doesn't matter whether they're priests or ministers or atheists. ↗

— John Ashcroft

#commit #crimes #matter #ministers #people

If children understand that beliefs should be substantiated with evidence, as opposed to tradition, authority, revelation or faith, they will automatically work out for themselves that they are atheists. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#authority #automatically #beliefs #children #evidence

There are atheists and Christians, and there are people in both groups who are a little too heavy-handed. ↗

— Andy Dick

#both #christians #groups #heavy-handed #little

In theater or movies you see either 'I'm religious' or 'I'm an atheist.' I've never seen too much discussion of 'I believe there's a higher power but I'm hesitant to reach out to him because I don't know if I'm worthy of his attention.' ↗

— Zach Braff

#attention #because #believe #discussion #either

I have never met a happy atheist. I believe in separation of church and state, but I think we have gone so far over in the other direction of separating church and state. ↗

— Dixie Carter

#believe #church #direction #far #gone

An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God. ↗

— Simone Weil

#atheist #concentrated #faith #god #impersonal

Anyone I love takes away part of my freedom, but in that case it is I who wished it; and there is so much pleasure in loving that one gladly sacrifices something for its sake. Any one who loves me takes away all my freedom. Anyone who admires me (as a writer) threatens to take it away from me. I even fear those who understand me, which is why I spend so much time covering my tracks - both in my private life and in the persona I express through my books. What would have delighted me, had I loved god, is the thought that god gives nothing in return. ↗

— Henry de Montherlant

#atheism #atheist #freedom #god #writing

The God to whom I was introduced as a child was basically a Jewish one: male, fatherly, Anglo-European, bearded, angrily loving, judgmental, righteously indignant,mand frighteningly powerful, not to mention present everywhere and all-knowing. In trying to make sense of this God, man has continued to manufacture and manipulate images of this perceived deity. The images have changed over the centuries, based on the mood of the times. During kind times when harvests were abundant and peace reigned (admittedly rare in the ancient world), God was benevolent. When plpague and famine killed millions, God was portrayed as enraged and vengeful. To this day, this emotionally infantile God remains in power, a fear-based aberration produced by fevered imaginations, promoted by those who understand how such a deity can be used to gain and consolidate power over believers, and protected by flocks of billions who refuse to question their damning God for fear of their own damnation -- or out of an even greater immediate terror of social and cultural isolation. But I argue that it is PRECISELY this image of God -- an infantile, simplistic, ridiculous notion of the sublime power that underlies the world -- that is destroying civil religion, fueling the rage of the "angry atheist" movement, and pitting science against the spiritual at a time when we should be using every tool within reach to discover what it means to be human -- and divinely human at that. ↗

— Carlton D. Pearson

#atheist #god #infantile-god #change

In Latin America, even atheists are Catholics. ↗

— Carlos Fuentes

#atheists #catholics #even #latin #latin america

In America, now, let us - Christian, Jew, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, wiccan, whatever - fight nativism with the same strength and conviction that we fight terrorism. My faith calls on its followers to love one's enemies. A tall order, that - perhaps the tallest of all. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#america #atheist #calls #christian #conviction