#theist

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe? ↗

— Quentin Crisp

#audience #believe #catholics #god #i

I am atheist in a very religious mould. I'm always asking myself the big questions. Where did we come from? Is there a meaning to all of this? When I find myself in church, I edit the hymns as I sing them. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#am #asking #atheist #big #big questions

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

Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#inspirational #truth #inspirational

For a while, I became an atheist; now that I'm grown up, though, I'm not hard-edged enough to be an atheist. Even though I live with a flaming atheist, I love going to temple. I love all the rituals. ↗

— Padma Lakshmi

#became #enough #even #flaming #going

I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#atheist #god #religion #imagination

Among leaders who have made the greatest impact through ages, I would consider Muhammad before Jesus Christ. ↗

— James Gavin

#atheist #christ #christian #fair #gavin

I cattolici mi rendono nervoso perché sono sleali. E i protestanti? domandò ridendo, quelli mi fanno star male con quel loro pasticciare intorno alla coscienza. E gli atei? rideva ancora. Quelli mi annoiano perché parlano sempre di Dio. E lei che cos'è, in conclusione? Io sono un clown. ↗

— Heinrich Böll

#inspirational-quotes #religious #inspirational