Atheist Argument Quotes
Quotes tagged as "atheist-argument"
Showing 1-30 of 53
![Christopher Hitchens](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1434046956i/3956._UY200_CR23,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years.
Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks 'That's enough of that. It's time to intervene,' and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person.
Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either.
It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy.
And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true.”
―
Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks 'That's enough of that. It's time to intervene,' and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person.
Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either.
It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy.
And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true.”
―
![Ricky Gervais](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1273090368i/220215._UX200_CR0,13,200,200_.jpg)
“… Science is constantly proved all the time. You see, if we take something like any fiction, any holy book… and destroyed it, in a thousand years’ time, that wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book, and every fact, and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they’d all be back, because all the same tests would [produce] the same result.”
―
―
![Bangambiki Habyarimana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1506434057i/7947977._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“All religions are man-made; God has not yet revealed himself beyond doubt to anybody.”
― Pearls Of Eternity
― Pearls Of Eternity
![Abhaidev](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1621070216i/14177542._UX200_CR0,28,200,200_.jpg)
“One of the strategies which atheists adopt is proving the non-existence of God by demonstrating that He is not divine. ‘There is so much bad happening in this world, if God is out there would he allow all of that?’ It is a fallacy. A true atheist doesn’t want to prove that God is evil. A true atheist should, instead, prove God doesn’t exist at all. It’s laughable. I mean, I can understand westerners using this strategy, for according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, God is considered divine. There is a clear difference between the agents of evil and the agents of good. But if you are someone who has the privilege of knowing eastern philosophy, and you still take this path, which is proving the non-existence of God by proving he is evil, it’s funny and laughable, and a sign of ignorance.”
― The Gods Are Not Dead
― The Gods Are Not Dead
![Bangambiki Habyarimana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1506434057i/7947977._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Each mind conceives god in its own way. There may be as many variation of the god figure as there are people in the world”
― Pearls Of Eternity
― Pearls Of Eternity
![Bangambiki Habyarimana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1506434057i/7947977._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“There is nothing behind the curtains of religions, people put there whatever their imaginations can fathom”
― Pearls Of Eternity
― Pearls Of Eternity
![Bangambiki Habyarimana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1506434057i/7947977._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Don't create unbelief or doubt in people's minds. When you do so you ruin their lives and you have nothing to give them in its place. It's ok if people delude themselves; those delusions keep their day running.”
― Pearls Of Eternity
― Pearls Of Eternity
![Bangambiki Habyarimana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1506434057i/7947977._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Why doesn't the pope convert to Calvinism? Why doesn't the Dalai Lama, convert to Christianity, why doesn't Billy Graham convert to Islam, Why doesn't the Ayatollahs convert to Buddhism, Why isn't Buddhism swept away? Religious leaders know that all religions are equal; they know that no one of them has the monopoly to the knowledge of God. They know that each religion is trying to find the hidden God and that no one religion can claim to have found him beyond doubt. That's why they remain where they are and respect each other.”
― Pearls Of Eternity
― Pearls Of Eternity
![Bangambiki Habyarimana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1506434057i/7947977._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Once you believe that god is not a private property of anybody, you are on your way to becoming a new messiah. Maybe your own if not the world's”
― Pearls Of Eternity
― Pearls Of Eternity
![Jerry A. Coyne](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1263127393i/647715.jpg)
“For good people to do evil doesn't require only religion, or even any religion, but simply one of it's key elements: belief without evidence-in other words, faith.
And that kind of faith is seen not just in religion, but any authoritarian ideology that puts dogma above truth and frowns on dissent.
This was precisely the case in the totalitarian regimes of Maoist China and Stalinist Russia, whose excesses are often (and wrongly) blamed on atheism.
Faith vs. Fact. p. 220”
―
And that kind of faith is seen not just in religion, but any authoritarian ideology that puts dogma above truth and frowns on dissent.
This was precisely the case in the totalitarian regimes of Maoist China and Stalinist Russia, whose excesses are often (and wrongly) blamed on atheism.
Faith vs. Fact. p. 220”
―
![Bangambiki Habyarimana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1506434057i/7947977._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“An atheist is someone who is disappointed in his search of god. He is a man who strongly needed god but couldn't find him. Atheism is a cry of despair”
― Pearls Of Eternity
― Pearls Of Eternity
“Christians believe:
If you love God you go to heaven.
If you don't go to heaven, you go to hell.
So, if you don't love God, you go to hell.
God created everything, including heaven and hell.
So he created a torture chamber, in case you don't love him back.
Crazy.”
― Inside The Mind of an Introvert
If you love God you go to heaven.
If you don't go to heaven, you go to hell.
So, if you don't love God, you go to hell.
God created everything, including heaven and hell.
So he created a torture chamber, in case you don't love him back.
Crazy.”
― Inside The Mind of an Introvert
![Stewart Stafford](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1547630381i/14583096._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Theology is a study of the series of disagreements that are the world's religions. Atheism fundamentally disagrees with these disagreements that preceded it.”
―
―
![Bangambiki Habyarimana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1506434057i/7947977._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“God has not yet revealed himself to no one in no unclear terms. Religions are attempts to find him; on that level they are all equal”
― Pearls Of Eternity
― Pearls Of Eternity
![Bangambiki Habyarimana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1506434057i/7947977._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“If you are a pastor there is no way you can lose faith without losing face, you are considered the devil incarnate by your former congregation”
― Pearls Of Eternity
― Pearls Of Eternity
![Jerry A. Coyne](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1263127393i/647715.jpg)
“For good people to do evil doesn't require only religion, or even any religion, but simply one of it's key elements: belief without evidence-in other words, faith.
And that kind of faith is seen not just in religion, but any authoritarian ideology that puts dogma above truth and frowns on dissent.
This was precisely the case in the totalitarian regimes of Maoist China and Stalinist Russia, whose excesses are often (and wrongly) blamed on atheism.”
― Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible
And that kind of faith is seen not just in religion, but any authoritarian ideology that puts dogma above truth and frowns on dissent.
This was precisely the case in the totalitarian regimes of Maoist China and Stalinist Russia, whose excesses are often (and wrongly) blamed on atheism.”
― Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible
![Quentin R. Bufogle](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1574231050i/2662374._UX200_CR0,29,200,200_.jpg)
“The difference between an atheist and a person of faith? One additional religion in the crazy column. You believe that all religions except yours are crazy. I believe that all religions including yours are crazy.”
― Horse Latitudes
― Horse Latitudes
![Quentin R. Bufogle](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1574231050i/2662374._UX200_CR0,29,200,200_.jpg)
“It's a random universe. Shit happens. Good people get stage 4 cancer and dipshits win the lottery. There is no justice. Everything doesn't always come out square in the end. Life isn't some elegant math equation -- it's a Sergio Leone screenplay and everyone gets snuffed. Not all of us have to ante up for our portion of the tab. Some get to do the ol' dine 'n' dash.”
― Horse Latitudes
― Horse Latitudes
![I claim not one religion, practice or belief. I do, however, study all of them.](https://images.gr-assets.com/quotes/1551623549p2/9505603.jpg)
“I claim not one religion, practice or belief. I do, however, study all of them. I'm disappointed.”
―
―
“A god that created me free and autonomous, yet, tells me how and what I should think. - On Religion and Free Will”
―
―
“I’m an atheist, and I hate God.
“You may be angry at God,” laughed the old man, “but you’re no atheist.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You can’t hate someone who doesn’t exist.”
―
“You may be angry at God,” laughed the old man, “but you’re no atheist.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You can’t hate someone who doesn’t exist.”
―
![Bangambiki Habyarimana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1506434057i/7947977._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Don’t curse the gods; you will feel shame when you have to call on them for help”
― Pearls Of Eternity
― Pearls Of Eternity
![Bangambiki Habyarimana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1506434057i/7947977._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Atheism is not against god, it is against the religious establishment who use god they have never seen or heard from to establish their influence over the minds of men.”
― Pearls Of Eternity
― Pearls Of Eternity
![Frank Sheed](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1296908581i/1115.jpg)
“The less instructed atheist will ask whether God can make a weight so heavy that He cannot lift it, in the happy belief that, whichever answer we give, we shall admit that there is something God cannot do. But the question is literally meaningless: a weight than an omnipotent Being cannot lift is as complete a contradiction in terms as a four-sided triangle. In either case the words are English, but do not mean anything because they cancel each other out. There is no point in piling together a lot of words, regardless of their meaning, and then asking triumphantly: 'Can God make that?' God can do anything, but a contradiction in terms is not a thing at all. It is nothing. God Himself could not make a four-sided triangle or a weight that Almighty power could not lift. They are inconceivable, they are nothing; and nothing--to give a slightly different emphasis to Scripture--is impossible to God.”
― Theology and Sanity
― Theology and Sanity
“The fact that things never end well for the rest of the creatures in this world does not seem to bother the least those who think that there is a divine plan. - On the Divine Plan”
―
―
![A.K. Kuykendall](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1575910046i/1964987._UX200_CR0,35,200,200_.jpg)
“I am an atheist on a mission to fulfill the commandment of Jesus Christ in Matthew 18: 2-6. If you believe Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior you are aware that repenting for the sin of 'IGNORING' the world's 'CHILDREN' is fatuous.”
― The Confessional
― The Confessional
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