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My favorite atheist is God.

He doesn't have faith, because he already knows everything. And he doesn't believe in a higher power, because he already is the highest power. Therefore God is an atheist.

^_^

QuoteMy favorite atheist is God.

He doesn't have faith, because he already knows everything. And he doesn't believe in a higher power, because he already is the highest power. Therefore God is an atheist.

Interesting outlook on the whole debate. I've had brief thoughts on that, but decided that choosing that argument would force me to acknowledge there was a god. I believe you are being cynical, so I will just stick to praising you    for putting my thoughts into, err, type.

As far as my favorite atheist, what a tough choice. So, so many great minds. I would have to call a draw between John Stuart Mill, Richard Dawkins, and Albert Einstein. That's right all you religious nuts, I'm staking claim to Einstein.

Quote from: "oldschooldoc"Interesting outlook on the whole debate. I've had brief thoughts on that, but decided that choosing that argument would force me to acknowledge there was a god. I believe you are being cynical, so I will just stick to praising you    for putting my thoughts into, err, type.

As far as my favorite atheist, what a tough choice. So, so many great minds. I would have to call a draw between John Stuart Mill, Richard Dawkins, and Albert Einstein. That's right all you religious nuts, I'm staking claim to Einstein.

heh, thanks. I have been feeling cynical lately.

actually, my favorite atheist would have to be Kathy Griffith. She's awesomely funny. Oh and what part of south texas are you from?

Quoteheh, thanks. I have been feeling cynical lately.

my favorite atheist would have to be Kathy Griffith. She's awesome

It's funny you say that because I feel like I have had the equivalent of what could be called the cynical flu. I think it started when I joined this forum. Reading posts from Titan and Karakara, well...

Kidding Titan and Kara...I actually enjoy the daily dosage of religious nonsense. (Seriously, that wasn't personal either, I have to inject humility and sarcasm, it's my thing.)

Kathy Griffith is pretty awesome, mainly in an obnoxious way. Her personal attacks on Clay Aiken...to die for. Of course talking about comedic atheist, we can't forget the late, great Carlin!

I'm going to have to take the obvious route, and say... me, of course.  

Quote from: "Stoicheion"My favorite atheist is God.

He doesn't have faith, because he already knows everything. And he doesn't believe in a higher power, because he already is the highest power. Therefore God is an atheist.

^_^

So you don't believe Stoicheion exists because you are Stoicheon therefore you don't exist......nice.

Knowing you exist isn't the same as believing in something. God knows he is God, he doesn't believe he is God. Faith is about the unknown, since God knows everything he has no need for faith.

Neil Peart!

Oh and... Erich Fromm, Douglas Adams, Samuel Clemens, Robert Green Ingersoll, Stephen Hawking, Edgar Allan Poe and Richard Dawkins. Also, although he was a deist, I like Voltaire.

God would be an atheist not in the sense that he doesn't believe in himself but that he doesn't believe in any other gods higher than him. Which he would have no way of knowing for certain.

Harry Harrison, Robert A.Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Douglas Adams. Harry Harrison wrote for example in 1962 the marvelous short story "The Streets of Ashkelon", which is one of the best atheistic stories about the evilness of religion that I know of. He could not publish it the USA and it was banned there for many years.

Michel Onfray, definitely. Mainly for his imaginative introduction to Traité d'athéologie: Physique de la métaphysique, where had been said the words: "Monotheism took its origins from sands". Dawkins is also interesting figure. If consider Nietzsche to be an atheist, he is at equivalent position to Onfray

Among the once already named here, there are one I like to point out. Christopher Hitchens.

The way he takes apart the arguments from religious adversaries are masterly done.

Quote from: "Titan"

Quote from: "Stoicheion"My favorite atheist is God.

He doesn't have faith, because he already knows everything. And he doesn't believe in a higher power, because he already is the highest power. Therefore God is an atheist.

^_^

So you don't believe Stoicheion exists because you are Stoicheon therefore you don't exist......nice.

Knowing you exist isn't the same as believing in something. God knows he is God, he doesn't believe he is God. Faith is about the unknown, since God knows everything he has no need for faith.

hah, i didn't actually come up with that. I copied and pasted it from one of my facebook groups.

I like your replies, everyone. OH and on the note of Clay Aiken. I was SO unsurprised to find out that he is in fact gay. Take that middle-aged women who said he's not!

My mum is my favourite atheist.

I donno many but I like dawkins and the dude from "bullshit"
I like the way he spills out everything

Douglas Adams, Woody Allen, Daniel Dennett, Bertrand Russell, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, Aristotle, Albert Einstein, Ricky Gervais, Dawkins, Sam Harris.
And those whom, I think were atheists at heart:
Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Kopernikus, Tycho Brahe and Kierkegaard.

Quote from: "Zarathustra"Douglas Adams,

ouch how could I have forgotten about him! I love his books

I'm quite fond of Penn Jillette.  He says the "F" word a lot, gives us plenty of frontal nudity upon which to gaze, and we see eye-to-eye on a number of subjects.

I also like Neil Peart... his words speak to me via Geddy Lee and I shiver.   ;)

I could read Robert Green Ingersoll all day long and never get bored.  I do like to read George Carlin, but after a dozen pages or so, I need to take a break.  

*Casts a meaningful glance at the member status below the avatar*  

Dawkins has to be my favourite ...
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

"I see the scientific view of the world as incompatible with religion, but that is not what is interesting about it. It is also incompatible with magic, but that also is not worth stressing. What is interesting about the scientific world view is that it is true, inspiring, remarkable and that it unites a whole lot of phenomena under a single heading."

"If you have a faith, it is statistically overwhelmingly likely that it is the same faith as your parents and grandparents had. No doubt soaring cathedrals, stirring music, moving stories and parables, help a bit. But by far the most important variable determining your religion is the accident of birth. The convictions that you so passionately believe would have been a completely different, and largely contradictory, set of convictions, if only you had happened to be born in a different place. Epidemiology, not evidence."

... though I really liked the late Dr. Asimov.
"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly"

I also like Sam Harris, ...
"Jesus Christ -- who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death and rose bodily into the heavens -- can now be eaten in the form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favourite Burgundy, and you can drink his blood as well. Is there any doubt that a lone subscriber to these beliefs would be considered mad?"

... Daniel Dennett, ...
"The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight - that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in."

... Steven Weinberg, ...
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."

... and E.T. Babinski, ...
"Only a Designer would have had the infinite wisdom and compassion to create a chacma baboon like the one that was seen catching a pigeon, plucking out its feathers, letting it go, recapturing it, pulling out its legs, and then decapitating it."

Kyu

Mark Twain is probably my favorite atheist because of his colorful take on life. I really wish I could have met him.

Oh, and the atheists around here are good people, too.

My favorite is Pat Condell hands down... If you've seen his YouTube videos you'll see why.

Steven Badrich

Right now it would have to be Ricky Gervais.  However, it's subject to change frequently.

George Clooney is my fave Atheist. He rocks on so many levels and i'm not even gay!

Quote from: "karadan"George Clooney is my fave Atheist. He rocks on so many levels and i'm not even gay!

I just read about that old interview where Clooney stated he doesn't believe. Awesome.

Quote from: "rlrose328"I also like Neil Peart... his words speak to me via Geddy Lee and I shiver.  

His lyrics are remarkable. Have you read any of his books? They are usually pretty slow paced but he has some interesting thoughts and a few atheistic comments in them.

Quote from: "Willravel"Mark Twain is probably my favorite atheist because of his colorful take on life.

I heard recently that he was actually a deist.

Oh I guess Hitchens is my favorite. Maybe Carl Sagan as well. My least favorite is any atheist that doesn't speak up when they should.

Old thread, but oh well. As for my favorite atheists, here they are:

Fictional: Dr. House

Alive: Richard Dawkins or Penn Jillette

Not-Alive: Carl Sagan

I had no idea Clooney was an atheist, I knew I liked him!!  I'm sad to say I don't know about many poplar or famous atheists.  Am I the only one that doesn't pay attention to this?  I guess I'd say Gene Roddenbury since I like Star Trek.

Matthew Sweet is my favorite atheist:

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogspot.com%2F_smnDcduibfQ%2FSR8uBnjNd7I%2FAAAAAAAAEm0%2FJADW8kVxgEs%2Fs400%2Fmatsweet1.jpg&hash=a17e11b3e1b2d5c77db4c9c51d56b413d7facbc2)

Quote from: "oldschooldoc"Albert Einstein. That's right all you religious nuts, I'm staking claim to Einstein.

Haha!

I'll drink to that.  

im torn between Terry Pratchett, Ricky Gervais and Douglass Adams

All great comedians (if you haven't read Terry Pratchet's books then you're missing out on a lot!)

Only one?
I doubt between
Peter Atkins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Atkins) ("el puto amo"!!!)
John Allen Paulos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Paulos) (GREAT divulgator)
These three are more famous:
Bertrand Russell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell)
Linus Pauling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling)
Isaac Asimov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov)
They are all so brilliant that I can't name an "absolute favorite"
(yes of course Dawkins and Feynman and a lot more are great too, but more typical)

I've now also added Eric Idle on my list.  I'm just reading his book "The Greedy Bastard Diary" and it is hilarious. Some quotes:

QuoteAll religions seem to dislike breasts, but it is just the opposite with me

QuoteRecently I met the lady who discovered the G-spot. She said she'd show me how to find it. She curled my fingers into an O, inserted two fingers  into the fist, and from inside pushed very hard on the fleshy part of my palm.

"That", she said, is the G-spot.
And  I was surprised, because  I'd always thought that it was in the vagina.

So be very careful ladies, next time you shake hands with me.

QuoteInternet spam is weird, isn't it? First they bombard you with with offers to enlarge your penis. Then they offer you Viagra, presumably to fill up the monstrous engine, and then they offer you another mortgage.

Well, if there is one thing guaranteed to shrink your dick, it's the thought of another mortgage.

QuoteI'm very much in favor of gay marriage. It's about time they suffered, too.

Best girls: Julia Sweeney, Nigella Lawson, Emma Goldman.
Best boys: Tom Paine, Robert Ingersoll, Mark Twain.
The non-Sunday funnies: Lewis Black, George Carlin, Doug Adams
Best doubters: Voltaire, Sholom Auslander
Thanks for the tips in the previous posts--I'll have to check out  some of the ones that are news to me.

Joss Whedon (creator of Firefly/Serenity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and now Dollhouse) is one of my favorites, simply because he takes the high philosophical ideas and turns them into an art that's accessible to a wider audience.  Here's his blurb on CelebAtheists:  http://www.celebatheists.com/index.php?title=Joss_Whedon  (Lots of good stuff there, so check it out.)

QuoteIn a Q&A-session while promoting his movie Serenity, Whedon was asked: "What do you have against being a Christian?" He answered:

I don't actually have anything against anybody, unless their belief precludes everybody elses. I am an atheist and an absurdist and have been for many, many years. I've actually taken a huge amount of flak for that. People who have faith tend to think that people who don't don't have a belief system and they don't care if they make fun of them. It's actually very difficult: Atheists are as a group not really recognised by the American public as people to be taken seriously. This does not mean that I rail against religion, however the meaning of life and the meaning of what we do with our lives is something that is extremely important to me. I have included characters from many different religions particularly in [Firefly], but also in the other shows as well, because I'm interested in the concept. I think faith is an extraordinary thing. I'd like to have some, but I don't and that's just how that works. [...] There's one other thing I would mention, which is from Angel actually: One of the few times I really got to sort of say exactly what I think about the world was in the second season of Angel, episode 16 ["Epiphany"] when he'd gone all dark, because he does that, and hat he was getting better, and he basicly decided -- he'd been told: "The world is meaningless, nothing matters." And he said: "Well then, this is my statement: Nothing matters, so the only thing that matters is what we do." Which is what I believe: I believe the only reality is how we treat each other. The morality comes from the absense of any grander scheme, not from the presense of any grander scheme. [...] So the answer is: "Nothing, unless you've got something against me."

And if you haven't seen Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, take a moment to check it out:

http://www.drhorrible.com

A great Atheist that has not been mentioned, Fred Hollows.

QuoteHollows brought sight to, ultimately, millions of people in Australia and across the world.

And accordingly he has been almost deified since his death 15 years ago yesterday. Indeed, his name is substituted for God's in his own foundation's slogan "For Fred's sake".

It's the sort of joke he would appreciate. Fred Hollows, who once studied for the priesthood, died an atheist. In the end he cared too much about humans to devote his life to God.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/n ... 1115519873 (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw-act/a-vision-well-remembered/story-e6freuzi-1111115519873)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hollows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hollows)

The Buddha!  He's a religious figure (and he very well may not have existed) so I don't know whether or not he counts...

After that I'd probably say...

Douglas Adams
Aristotle
Issac Asimov
George Boole
George Carlin
Emperor Constantine (The most Ironic Atheist in all History!)
Charles Darwin
Richard Dawkins
Albert Einstein
Benjamin Franklin
Che Guevara
Christopher Hitchens
Robert Ingersoll
Thomas Jefferson
Seth McFarlane
John Stuart Mill
Thomas Paine
Bender B. Rodriguez (Futurama)
Mark Twain
Voltaire

Damn that's a lot... I was trying to come up with a name for every letter of the alphabet, but I don't know any good atheists with last names that begin with K.  You get the point: There have been some pretty good atheists since the dawn of man.

My favorite on that list is probably George Carlin! I have simple tastes.

Quote from: "Sophus" Neil Peart!

Not only a sterling thinker, but a brilliant musician.

I guess I'd have to say the two atheists who raised the bullshit alarm and made me open my eyes Derren Brown and George Carlin ( god rest his soul in HELL!!!)  

If I had to pick one it would be Dan Dennett, he's the granddad everybody should have.

Dennett.  He can tickle me with his beard any time.  

My favourite atheist is me.  

Quote from: "pinkocommie"Dennett.  He can tickle me with his beard any time.   :D

Quote from: "karadan"My favourite atheist is me.  :)

Quote from: "Tank"

Quote from: "karadan"My favourite atheist is me.  :)

Aaaaaaw  

Quote from: "Tank"

Quote from: "karadan"My favourite atheist is me.  :)

Yeah, in this context my non living pick would be my dad.  Living, I would have to go with my friend Casey.  He's blunt and open about being an atheist, and he has a sweet Darwin tattoo.  =D

Quote from: "pinkocommie"

Quote from: "Tank"

Quote from: "karadan"My favourite atheist is me.  :)

Yeah, in this context my non living pick would be my dad.  Living, I would have to go with my friend Casey.  He's blunt and open about being an atheist, and he has a sweet Darwin tattoo.  =D

Actually if one considers the person who would be most responsible for my atheist world view it would have been my father. He died in Dec 77 and I still miss him. One can see the attraction of a religion that says that one will see one's parents again when one died. Trouble is I'd need to go to heaven to see my mum and hell to see my dad. I wonder if there is a religion were you can just be normal and hop between the two as you feel like it  

Quote from: "Tank"Yeah, in this context my non living pick would be my dad.  Living, I would have to go with my friend Casey.  He's blunt and open about being an atheist, and he has a sweet Darwin tattoo.  =D

Actually if one considers the person who would be most responsible for my atheist world view it would have been my father. He died in Dec 77 and I still miss him. One can see the attraction of a religion that says that one will see one's parents again when one died. Trouble is I'd need to go to heaven to see my mum and hell to see my dad. I wonder if there is a religion were you can just be normal and hop between the two as you feel like it  [/quote]
Through various loopholes you could do that with mormonism ... allegedly mormon hell is still meant to be better than life on earth ( according to my missionary friend)

Quote from: "NothingSacred"

Quote from: "Tank"

Quote from: "pinko"Yeah, in this context my non living pick would be my dad.  Living, I would have to go with my friend Casey.  He's blunt and open about being an atheist, and he has a sweet Darwin tattoo.  =D

Actually if one considers the person who would be most responsible for my atheist world view it would have been my father. He died in Dec 77 and I still miss him. One can see the attraction of a religion that says that one will see one's parents again when one died. Trouble is I'd need to go to heaven to see my mum and hell to see my dad. I wonder if there is a religion were you can just be normal and hop between the two as you feel like it  :verysad:

My favorite "live" atheist is Dan Barker, seconded by Richard Dawkins.  My favorite, NOT famous atheist, is my wife, by FAR, and I kind of like myself.

Quote from: "Tank"

Quote from: "NothingSacred"[quote="Tank Actually if one considers the person who would be most responsible for my atheist world view it would have been my father. He died in Dec 77 and I still miss him. One can see the attraction of a religion that says that one will see one's parents again when one died. Trouble is I'd need to go to heaven to see my mum and hell to see my dad. I wonder if there is a religion were you can just be normal and hop between the two as you feel like it  :verysad:

People in the "celestial" kingdom can leave their planet ( the planet they become god over) to visit loved ones in "lower kingdoms".People in the celestial kingdom (super heaven) get sealed to their families which means their familys say with them for eternity. That creates a paradox or two but hey who am i to judge?