Ten Atheist Quotes

The excellent blog The Atheist Missionary printed a list of 10 very good atheist quotes. I thought they were very good, so I have shamelessly stolen them and reprint them here for your pleasure (or indignation):

1. A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes. James Feibleman.


2. Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. Seneca the Younger.


3. I don't think we're here for anything, we're just products of evolution. You can say “Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don't think there's a purpose” but I'm anticipating a good lunch. Dr. James Watson (co-discoverer of DNA).


4.The idea, therefore, that religious faith is somehow a sacred human convention—distinguished, as it is, both by the extravagance of its claims and by the paucity of its evidence—is really too great a monstrosity to be appreciated in all its glory. Religious faith represents so uncompromising a misuse of the power of our minds that it forms a kind of perver se, cultural singularity—a vanishing point beyond which rational discourse proves impossible. Sam Harris.


5. Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen! If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it. Dan Barker.


6. Out of all of the sects in the world, we notice an uncanny coincidence: the overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one that their parents belong to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained glass, the best music: when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to the matter of heredity. This is an unmistakable fact; nobody could seriously deny it. Yet people with full knowledge of the arbitrary nature of this heredity, somehow manage to go on believing in their religion, often with such fanaticism that they are prepared to murder people who follow a different one. Richard Dawkins.


7. What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. Christopher Hitchens.


8. When we don’t know something, the conclusion is not ‘Therefore, we know it is magic’ (from Zeus or from Jesus). When we don’t know something, the conclusion is ‘We don’t know.’ Luke Muehlhauser.


9. I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. Stephen Roberts.


10. We might enhance the respect others accord us if we are kind, considerate, peace-loving, courageous, truthful, loyal to friends, affectionate to our families, aspirants to knowledge, lovers of art and nature, seekers after the good of humankind, and the like; or we might forfeit that respect by being unkind, ungenerous, greedy, selfish, wilfully stupid or ignorant, small-minded, narrowly moralistic, superstitious, violent, and the like. Neither set of characteristics has any essential connection with the presence or absence of any specific belief systems, given that there are nice and nasty Christians, nicer and nasty Muslims, nice and nasty atheists. A.C. Grayling