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Happy Atheist Quote Collection

Started by Whitney, June 01, 2009, 02:03:08 AM

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Whitney

I'd  like to start a collection of positive atheist/free thought quotes for use on the website.  You can come up with your own quotes if you like (which would be even better!).  If posting a quote by someone else, provide a source link.  The following are quotes I already have found:

Quote from: "Madalyn O'Hairurl=http://www.religioustolerance.org/atheist1.htm]http://www.religioustolerance.org/atheist1.htm[/url]"]An Atheist loves himself and his fellow man instead of a god. An Atheist knows that heaven is something for which we should work now - here on earth - for all men together to enjoy. An Atheist thinks that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue, and enjoy it. An Atheist thinks that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment. Therefore, he seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to know a god. An Atheist knows that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An Atheist knows that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man. He wants an ethical way of life. He knows that we cannot rely on a god nor channel action into prayer nor hope for an end to troubles in the hereafter. He knows that we are our brother's keeper and keepers of our lives; that we are responsible persons, that the job is here and the time is now.

Quote from: "Chapman Cohenurl=http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/happy.html]http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/happy.html[/url]"]
But the happiness of an atheist is neither the vacuous enjoyment of a fool, nor the short-lived pleasure of a rogue. It is rather the expression of a disposition that has ceased to torture itself with foolish fancies, or perplex itself with useless beliefs.

Quote from: "Judith Hayesurl=http://home.comcast.net/~pobrien48/Happy%20Atheist.htm]http://home.comcast.net/~pobrien48/Happy%20Atheist.htm[/url]"]When I finally came out of the closet and allowed myself the freedom of being an atheist, it was like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. I could read anything I wanted. Ask any questions I wanted. Challenge anything that didn't make sense to me. And after being the equivalent of a worker ant for so long, this was heady stuff indeed! I am still exhilarated by it. A chained intellect, as demanded by religion, is a pitiful thing. A free intellect is a thing to be treasured.

Quote from: "Rev. Janurl=http://www.sleepingbaby.net/jan/Essays/Frmo29.html]http://www.sleepingbaby.net/jan/Essays/Frmo29.html[/url]"] What about the universe itself? Doesn't the very fact that the universe exists, and that we are here to wonder at it, suggest the existence of some higher power? In short -- no. There is much that we still do not understand about the universe, but this does not necessitate the invocation of a deity to get everything started. The argument that a god must exist because the universe is so perfectly ordered for our existence is known as the anthropomorphic principle. However, this argument is faulty in that it fails to take into account that without the previous history of the universe, we *could not* exist: were the basic properties of the universe different at its inception, we would not be here to ask the question. I have not yet encountered a scientific question so confounding that it demands the existence of a deity -- certainly, there are things that cannot yet be explained, but is it not more sacrilegious to make God merely a God of that which we do not understand, and take observable fact for the rest?

Quote from: "SecularPaganurl=http://www.beliefnet.com/milestones/commemoration.asp?milestoneTypeID=4&milestoneID=10653]http://www.beliefnet.com/milestones/com ... neID=10653[/url]"]Celebrating My New Birth into Freethought!  The turning point in my life, an insight: Listen to your heart. Think what you really think.  This is to celebrate and publicly declare the life-changing power I have experienced in converting away from fundamentalist Christianity and into thinking for myself and recognizing that all gods, angels, devils, and demons are fictional creations, idealizations of human hopes and projections of human fears. I hereby celebrate seven years of Freethought and a spirituality rooted in human happiness and planetary welfare rather than unfounded, myth-based authoritarian dogma. A secular life has given me what years of evangelical religion could not: true peace, living wholly and sanely in the real world, day by day. This world, this life is blessed. We need look no further. Blessed Be!

Quote from: "Rik Myslewskiurl=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/archive/2005/03/01/findrelig.DTL]http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... drelig.DTL[/url]"]What's to be gained by adding doubt? It's not a leap of faith that I'm making -- I'm not leaping anywhere. I'm just here. There's no construct that I'm trying to believe in. To me, God is this thing you have to put in your brain. You have to reach out and get it. Existence is just here. It's not a case of having to believe anything. You add God to your life. I'm not adding anything. So there's no leaping, no faith.

Heretical Rants

I think the first one is perfect for the home page.

Whitney

Quote from: "John Ruskin @AtheistQOTD"What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.

Quote from: "Brad Pitt @AthiestQOTD"When I got untethered from the comfort of religion, it wasn't a loss of faith for me, it was a discovery of self.

Quote from: "Anon. @AthiestQOTD"Religion has nothing to do with morality, and is all about power fuelled by superstition.

Quote from: "Arthur C. Clarke @AthiestQOTD"One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.

Tom62

I love Robert Heinlein's quotes on religion

QuoteSin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other sins are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful--just stupid.)

QuoteOne man's religion is another man's belly laugh.

QuoteTheology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there.

QuoteAnyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything... just give him time to rationalize it.

QuoteThe nice thing about citing God as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove.

QuoteI've never understood how God could expect His creatures to pick the one true religion by faith - it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.

QuoteThe Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can prove anything from it.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

HandsandDreams

Here are some of my favorites I have run across.

Quote“My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through earth’s loveliness.” â€" Michelangelo
http://www.quoteland.com/author.asp?AUTHOR_ID=471

Quote“The place is built around it. The statue of a naked woman. If you understand the building, you understand what the fugure must be. The human spirit. The heroic in man. The aspiration and the fulfillment, both. Uplifted in its quest â€" and uplifting by its own essence. Seeking God â€" and finding itself.” â€" Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

Quote"Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one." - Thomas Jefferson
http://www.quotes.net/authors/Thomas+Jefferson

Quote"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson
http://www.quotes.net/authors/Thomas+Jefferson

curiosityandthecat

One of my favorites. I consider this one of my mantras:

Quote from: "Charles Bukowski"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
-Curio

Kylyssa

"Finding life without an afterlife pointless or depressing is as silly as going to an amusement park and becoming so depressed that your visit will end that you sit down just inside the entrance and cry your eyes out. How about running through the gate flushed with excitement and trying to ride all the rides and see all the shows before the amusement park closes for the day? Eat cotton candy until you puke and enjoy your day at the park until the security guard pulls you kicking and screaming out the gates when your day is done." -
Kylyssa Shay

JillSwift

Quote from: "Kylyssa""Finding life without an afterlife pointless or depressing is as silly as going to an amusement park and becoming so depressed that your visit will end that you sit down just inside the entrance and cry your eyes out. How about running through the gate flushed with excitement and trying to ride all the rides and see all the shows before the amusement park closes for the day? Eat cotton candy until you puke and enjoy your day at the park until the security guard pulls you kicking and screaming out the gates when your day is done." -
Kylyssa Shay
Best quote evar! :yay:
[size=50]Teleology]

Whitney

Quote from: "Futureama"ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD

Quote from: "God, 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'"Every time I try to talk to someone it's "sorry this" and "forgive me that" and "I'm not worthy"...

Quote from: "Brian's mother, 'Life of Brian'"There's no Messiah in here. There's a mess all right, but no Messiah. Now go away!

Quote from: "Ex-Leper, 'Life of Brian'"Jesus did, sir. I was hopping along, minding my own business, all of a sudden, up he comes, cures me! One minute I'm a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood's gone. Not so much as a by-your-leave! "You're cured, mate." Bloody do-gooder.

Quote from: "'Life of Brian'"Brian: "I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!"
Girl: "Only the true Messiah denies His divinity."
Brian: "What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!"
Followers: "He is! He is the Messiah!"
Brian: "Now, fuck off!"
[silence]
Arthur: "How shall we fuck off, O Lord?"

Quote from: "Monty Python"There's nothing an agnostic can't do if he doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not

Quote from: "Monty Python"Oh Lord please don't burn us don't kill or toast your flock Don't put us on the barbecue or simmer us in stock, Don't bake or baste or boil us or stir-fry us in a wok

Quote from: "Monty Python"Tonight, instead of discussing the existence or non- existence of God, they have decided to fight for it

Endless Summer

QuoteChristians do good things because it will get them to heaven, Atheists do good things because they are nice.

I wish i could cite this but there was no reference where i heard it....so credit to everyone in the world who could have thought of this =)
"Are any of your pets catholic?"   - we get some strange neighbours in my area.....

GAYtheist

If I may, I'm proud to say I came up with this a few years back.

"The problem with humanity is not that we are all born inherently stupid, that's just common knowledge. No, the problem with humanity is that ninety-five percent of us never grow out of it."
"It is my view that the atomic bomb is only slightly less dangerous than religion." John Paschal, myself.

"The problem with humanity is not that we are all born inherently stupid, that's just common knowledge. No, the problem with humanity is that 95% of us never grow out of it." John Paschal, myself

Thumpalumpacus

Quote from: "Frank Herbert"Those who see only what they wish are doomed to rot in the stink of their own perceptions.

Sorry I don't have a link, but it's from his 1965 classic Dune.
Illegitimi non carborundum.

Guardian85

QuoteIt is more important to build lighthouses then churches
-Benjamin Franklin-

QuoteChristianity is the most perverse system that ever shone upon man.
-Thomas Jefferson-

QuoteIn all ages, in all societies the priest has been an enemy of liberty.
-George Washington-

And people still insist the US was formed as a christian nation.....


"If scientist means 'not the dumbest motherfucker in the room,' I guess I'm a scientist, then."
-Unknown Smartass-