Spirituality links > Quotes > Atheism and agnostic quotes
Atheism & Agnostic & Anti-Christian & Anti-Religious quotes
I've made a lot of pages with religious and spiritual quotes: Christianity, Taoism etc. On each you can submit your favorite quotes yourself. However, some people insist on submitting quotes that have no business there: anti-religious quotes. So I made a page to host them. For now this is not a lot - anti religious sentiments aren't exactly my thing. But then, I wasn't raised religious, so I don't have parents and teachers to fight with on this one (and if I did, it would be the other way around).
The case against religion
Of course there are some who would argue that the scent of religion needs to be totally discarded. God is total nonsense and there is nothing divine in the universe.
I asked readers of a previous version of this page:
Do you believe in God?
Here are their answers:
- 1% Sure, the Bible says so
- 14% Yes, God is the loving creator of all
- 76% No, God is a figment of the human imagination
- 9% Yes and No - can you ask an easier question?
1969 people voted in this poll.
Christianity versus other religions
Personally, I would not give a fig for any man's religion whose horse, cat and dog do not feel its benefits. Life in any form is our perpetual responsibility.
S. Parkes Cadman
Anti-Christian Quotes
"Christianity: The celebration of the irony of nailing a carpenter to a piece of wood."
"There are good parts in the bible but there is perfectly good corn in my shit too, doesn't mean you should have to stomach it."
-John Allen from United Atheists of America
As the human race becomes more knowledgeable, it cares less for preachers and more for teachers.
unknown
Men created God in their own image.
unknown
The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.
Ferdinand Magellan
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
Benjamin Franklin
It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but rather that the Gods are the dreams of men.
Carl Sagan
Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies.
Unknown
An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
John Buchan
It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him.
Arthur C. Clarke
It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
Mark Twain
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
The moment you shift the conversation to God ... you can pretend to know things you absolutely and obviously cannot know.
Sam Harris
A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows
Samuel Clemens
Reader submitted quotes
The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.
Ferdinand Magellan
An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
John Buchan
It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
Mark Twain
The moment you shift the conversation to God ... you can pretend to know things you absolutely and obviously cannot know.
Sam Harris
A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows
Samuel Clemens
"Prayers bring nothing. They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the lazy, but to the enlightened they are the same as asking santa claus to bring a present for you at christmas."
W.C. Fields
"Religion is based mainy on fear; Fear of the mysterious; Fear of Defeat; and Fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is of no wonder that cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand."
Bertrand Russell
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
"The moment you shift the conversation to God ... you can pretend to know things you absolutely and obviously cannot know."
Sam Harris
What IS Atheism?
Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.
Let me say that again: Atheism is the belief that there are no gods.
Atheism is not:
- A deadly addiction
- Criminal
- A projection of hate
- Slander of truth
- Psychopathy
And please, don't threaten an atheist with "you're going to hell", because they don't believe in that either.
It's like threatening an adult that Santa isn't going to bring them any presents for Christmas.
Atheism in the Ancient World
In the ancient world atheism was rarely a clearly formulated position, because it could not be defined against any clearly formulated theism. But there were many atheistic or semi-atheistic expressions in the ancient religions. Confucianism and Taoism are sometimes interpreted as atheistic religions, even though popular religion in China assumed the reality of many gods and spirits. Most scholarly opinion regards the original Buddhism of Gautama as an atheistic discipline of self-mastery and self-reliance, though later (Mahayana) Buddhism affirms divine beings.
In ancient Greece, Socrates was accused of atheism. However, he angered the judges at his trial by telling them, "I shall obey God rather than you." The atomists, Democritus and the Epicureans, allowed for the existence of gods, in interstellar space, but they gave a materialistic explanation of the world in which divine beings had no influence.
The Bible contains no evidence of any absolute atheism. The saying of the fool, "There is no God" (Psalms 14:1 and 53:1) might better be translated as a scoffing declaration, "God is not here." Far more familiar is the painful cry over the absence of God; for example, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1; Mark 15:34). In later centuries Christians were commonly known in the Roman empire as atheists, because they denied the gods of the imperial cult. Arnold Toynbee, in A Study of History, cites a letter of Emperor Julian in which the "atheists" turn out to be the "Galileans".
It is often held that the prophetic tradition of the Bible, continued in Christianity, makes thoroughgoing atheism possible for the first time. Prophecy, in its protest against idols, de-divinizes nature and the state, the two most common objects of worship. The remaining alternatives are radical monotheism, centered on a transcendent deity, or atheism.
Atheism is a term that should not even exist
Some atheists have doubted the very need for the term "atheism". In his book Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris wrote:
In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.
More about Atheism
- Atheist Empire - Great Minds - Collection of quotes pertaining to religion, spirituality, atheism, and disbelief.
- Positive Atheism's Big List of Quotations - Quotations by authors, political and religious leaders, scientists, comedians and philosophers.