Atheism Quotes

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atheism quotes
Isaac Newton wrote: "Opposition to godliness is atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors."

Below are some atheism quotes from notable scientists, scholars, and others:

Atheism quotes relating to science

Further: Atheism and the suppression of science
  • "Opposition to godliness is Atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors." - Sir Isaac Newton[1]
  • "Some atheists are quite explicit that their atheism comes first. One of the most famous is Richard Lewontin, a professor of genetics, who said it wasn't science that compelled him to accept a materialistic explanation of the universe. It was an a priori materialism." - John Lennox[2]
  • "Worldwide, the march of religion can probably only be reversed by a renewed, self-aware secularism. Today, it appears exhausted and lacking in confidence... Secularism's greatest triumphs owe less to science than to popular social movements like nationalism, socialism and 1960s anarchist-liberalism. Ironically, secularism's demographic deficit means that it will probably only succeed in the twenty-first century if it can create a secular form of 'religious' enthusiasm."[3] - Professor Eric Kaufmann, Birbeck College, University of London, UK
  • A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. - Sir Francis Bacon [4]
  • God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. - Sir Francis Bacon [4]
  • "The Scripture saith, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; it is not said, The fool hath thought in his heart; so as he rather saith it, by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it, or be persuaded of it....It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man." - Sir Francis Bacon, his essay Of Atheism[5]
  • "I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being." - Albert Einstein[6]
  • "An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence." - Carl Sagan[7]
  • "As far as science goes, science is dependent on the uniformity of nature, or no scientific prediction could be made. Problem is, no atheistic worldview can account for the uniformity of nature, the very foundation of science." - Christian apologist Sye Ten Bruggencate [9]
  • “It’s important to understand that an atheist is someone who believes the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything. Some fundamental atheists will deny this by trying to redefine ‘nothing’ as being ‘something,’ because such a thought makes them look like a fool, which is precisely what the Bible says that they are (see Psalm 14:1) - Ray Comfort [10]

Atheism quote and related quote from science journal and science magazine

See also: Denials that atheists exist

“Atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think... They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.” - Graham Lawton in the New Scientist science magazine [10]

“A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith.” - Pascal Boyer, in the British science journal Nature [10]

Additional atheism quotes

  • "Maybe the atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman." - Laurence J. Peter[11]
  • "In a power hungry, power worshipping society, men label themselves atheist." - Ernest Hemingway
  • "If God does not exist, then everything is permissible." - Ivan Karamazov in the novel The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky[12]
  • "Atheism is indeed the most daring of all dogmas,...[f]or it is the assertion of a universal negative...." - G.K. Chesterton[13]
  • "Look at Satan's reason for rebelling against God. It's not that he doesn't recognize that God is greater than he is. He does. It's just that he doesn't want to play by anybody else's rules. This idea that it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven is Satan's motto, and it turns out that this is also the motto of contemporary atheists such as Christopher Hitchens." - Dinesh D'Souza [15] See also: LaVeyan Satanism
  • "The real attitude of sin in the heart towards God is that of being without God; it is pride, the worship of myself, that is the great atheistic fact in human life." – Oswald Chambers[17]
  • “Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning...” ― C.S. Lewis [18]
  • "The freethinkers have yet to produce any objections that have not long been refuted most thoroughly. But since they are not motivated by the love of truth, and since they have an entirely different point of view, we should not be surprised that the best refutations count for nothing and that the weakest and most ridiculous reasoning, which has so often been shown to be baseless, is continuously repeated. If these people maintained the slightest rigor, the slightest taste for the truth, it would be quite easy to steer them away from their errors; but their tendency towards stubbornness makes this completely impossible." - Leonhard Euler[19]
  • "The most notable spread of atheism was achieved through the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which brought the Marxist-Leninists to power. For the first time in history, atheism thus became the official ideology of a state.” - "Investigating atheism: Marxism". University of Cambridge (2008)[20]
The ex-atheist C. S. Lewis, photographed in 1947.
  • "'[N]o one can be an unbeliever nowadays. The Christian Apologists have left one nothing to disbelieve.'" - Hector Hugh Munro (better known by the pen name Saki)[21]
  • "Atheism is a bleak worthless ideology. It robs the brain of reason, the conscience of moral guidance, the mind of tranquility and the soul of hope." - Nana Yiadom, March 11, 2011[22]
  • "Atheism, the Result of Ignorance and Pride; of strong Senses, and feeble Reason; of Good Eating and Ill Living! Atheism, the Plague of Society, the Corrupter of Manners, and the Underminer of Property!" - Jeremy Collier[23]
  • "The irony of intolerant atheists is remarkable. They proudly declare their open-mindedness, and in the same breath they work feverishly to extinguish by force any mention of God, any support to theism, in civic life. Are you puzzled by this? Don't be. Censorship is in atheism's marrow... Moreover, atheism cannot withstand reasoned examination. The assertion that everything came from nothing, without reason and without moral law, isn't defensible in rational discourse, so silent assent is necessary to hold sway over culture." - Michael Egnor [24]
  • "I will make a prediction, right here and now.... The number of people identifying as atheists will stagnate or even shrink, because organized atheism is happily in the process of destroying itself with regressive social attitudes, scandals, and their bizarre focus on irrelevant metaphysical differences that don’t help people...Unless we change. I don’t know that we can.[25] - Atheist PZ Myers, On September 27, 2014 in a blog post entitled The Atheist Disillusionment
  • "If we're going to expand our base...we need to appeal to more than just that geek and nerd subset of the population. We need to have a wider base. ...I seriously believe that we're on the cusp of a crisis. We're not there yet but it's looming in front of us. Will we adapt and thrive and change the world? Or will we remain an avocation for a prosperous and largely irrelevant subset of the population? Will we become something more than a scattered society of internet nerds? That's what we have to do.[26] - the atheist PZ Myers in 2013
  • "A crisis looms, in Myers's view, because he looks around himself and sees a not very promising basis for a mass movement. He's right. There is indeed a quality of geeky isolation from reality, common sense, and the fullness of life that I see as a motif in atheist and Darwin activism alike."[26] - Evolution News and Views on atheist nerds
PZ Myers declared, "...I don’t object to bestiality in a very limited set of specific conditions..."[27] See: Atheism and bestiality

(photo obtained from Flickr, see license agreement)
  • "God is dead not because He doesn’t exist, but because we live, play, procreate, govern, and die as though He doesn’t." - Chuck Colson[28]
  • "An irreligious man, a speculative or practical atheist, is as a sovereign who voluntarily takes off his crown and declares himself unworthy to reign. - John Stuart Blackie[29]
  • “If mainstream freethought and humanism continue to reflect the narrow cultural interests of white elites who have disposable income to go to conferences then the secular movement is destined to remain marginal and insular.” - Atheist Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson[30]
  • The truth of God's existence is the benchmark from which all landmarks are located. The truth of God's existence is the foundation on which all truth rests. God existed before evil existed, and God will exist after evil is confined in outer darkness.... To deny the existence of God is an act of insanity so severe that God says that person is a fool (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). - Dr. Joseph Thomas Kennedy[31]
  • "Claiming that God does not exist, or that He is dead, is the expression, not of truth, but of hope, for nothing would please the unregenerate heart more than to be rid of God." - Dr. Joseph Thomas Kennedy[31]
  • "The rate of secularisation has flattened to zero in most of Protestant Europe and France." - agnostic British academic Eric Kaufmann, April 6, 2010[32]
  • "Most societies or communities that have espoused atheistic beliefs have not survived more than a century...What I found was the complete lack of a single case of a secular population, community or movement that would just manage to retain replacement level." - Michael Blume, a researcher at the University of Jena in Germany on the fertility rate of atheistic societies [33]
  • "Readers familiar with Reddit’s atheism community, r/atheism, may not be surprised to learn that I think it exemplifies many negative aspects of modern atheism — hatred, prejudice, and belief by cultural conformation rather than rational inquiry." [34] - Vlad Chituc at Nonprophet Status blog.
  • "I find that contemporary atheists take great umbrage at the biblical claim that God holds people to be morally culpable for their unbelief. They want to maintain their unbelief in God without accepting the responsibility for it. ...unbelief is a choice. It is a choice to resist the force of the evidence and the drawing of God’s Holy Spirit. The unbeliever is like someone dying of a fatal disease who refuses to believe the medical evidence concerning the efficacy of a proffered cure and who rejects the testimony of his doctor to it and who, as a result, suffers the consequence of his own stubbornness. He has no one to blame but himself." - William Lane Craig[35]
  • "And who can deny that Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic? Who can dispute that they did their bloody deeds by claiming to be establishing a “new man” and a religion-free utopia? These were mass murders performed with atheism as a central part of their ideological inspiration, they were not mass murders done by people who simply happened to be atheist." - Dinesh D’Souza[36]
  • "The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars who reason badly who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis the eternity of things and of inevitability." - Voltaire[37]
  • "A man that is endued with the powers of reason, by which he is capable of knowing, serving, glorifying, and enjoying his Maker, and yet lives without God in the world, is certainly the most despicable and the most miserable animal under the sun." - Matthew Henry [38]
  • "No man will say, There is no God till he is so hardened in sin that it has become his interest that there should be none to call him to account." - Matthew Henry [39]
  • "Atheists put on false courage and alacrity in the midst of their darkness and apprehensions, like children who, when they fear to go in the dark, will sing for fear." - Alexander Pope[40]
  • "An atheist’s most embarrassing moment is when he feels profoundly thankful for something, but can’t think of anybody to thank for it" - Mary Anne Vincent [41]
  • "Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist there is no God." Heywood Broun[43]
  • “He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.” - George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London[44]
  • "God exist whether or not men may choose to believe in Him. The reason why many people do not believe in God is not so much that it is intellectually impossible to believe in God, but because belief in God forces that thoughtful person to face the fact that he is accountable to such a God." - Robert A. Laidlaw[45]
  • "'It's an interesting view of atheism, as a sort of crutch for those who can't bear the reality of God.'" - Tom Stoppard[46]
  • "I was at this time of living, like so many Atheists or Anti-theists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world." - C.S. Lewis[48]
  • "The atheist risk everything for the present and the future, on the basis of a belief that we are uncaused by any intelligent being. We just happen to be here. That one is willing to live and die in that belief is a very high price to pay for conjecture." - Ravi Zacharias[50]
  • In his essay rebutting a work of atheist Jeffery Jay Lowder Christian apologist JP Holding wrote the following: "...I find that there is no such thing as "reasonable nonbelief." The litany of excuses, wild speculations, and other absurdities ground out by skeptics and critics doesn't deserve the adjective "reasonable"."[51]
  • "[S]upposing all the great points of atheism, as the casual or eternal formation of the world, the materiality of a thinking substance, the mortality of the soul, the fortuitous organization of the body, the motions and gravitation of matter, with the like particulars, were laid together and formed into a kind of creed, according to the opinions of the most celebrated atheists; I say, supposing such a creed as this were formed and imposed upon any one people in the world, whether it would not require an infinitely greater measure of faith, than any set of articles [of faith] which they so violently oppose?" - Joseph Addison, The Spectator, October 2, 1711.[53]
  • "It is hard to see how a great man can be an atheist. Without the sustaining influence of faith in a divine power we could have little faith in ourselves. We need to feel that behind us is intelligence and love. Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create. Faith is the great motive power, and no man realizes his full possibilities unless he has the deep conviction that life is eternally important, and that his work, well done, is a part of an unending plan." - Calvin Coolidge, speech, Jul. 25, 1924 [54]
  • "Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic un-interestingness as an intellectual position. Where was the ingenuity, the ambiguity, the humanity...of saying that the universe just happened to happen and that when we're dead we're dead?" - John Updike [55]
  • "Now, nothing can be brought from potentiality to actual existence except through something actually existing...." [56] - St. Thomas Aquinas
  • "He complained in no way of the evil reputation under which he lived, indeed, all over the world, and he assured me that he himself was of all living beings the most interested in the destruction of Superstition, and he avowed to me that he had been afraid, relatively as to his proper power, once only, and that was on the day when he had heard a preacher, more subtle than the rest of the human herd, cry in his pulpit: "My dear brethren, do not ever forget, when you hear the progress of lights praised, that the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist!" - Charles Baudelaire's short story, "The Generous Gambler" written in 1864 [57]
  • "Christianity founds hospitals, and atheists are cured in them, never knowing they owe their cure to Christ." - William Temple[58]
  • "Atheism is a disease of the mind caused by eating underdone philosophy" - Austin O'Malley[59]
  • "Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics. This is why, when pressed, the atheist will often attempt to hide his lack of conviction in his own beliefs behind some poorly formulated utilitarianism, or argue that he acts out of altruistic self-interest. But this is only post-facto rationalization, not reason or rational behavior." - Vox Day[60]
  • "These days, barely a week passes without the emergence of yet more evidence that atheists are the most irritating people on Earth." - the atheist Brendan O'Neill, The Telegraph, "How Atheists Became the Most Colossally Smug and Annoying People on the Planet", August 14th, 2013 [61]
  • "One of the things that made me suffer no regret when I was called away from the cramped intellectual jail of atheism into a wider and more wonderful world, was my growing conviction that my fellow atheists were shallow, men without insight into real human nature." - ex-atheist and science fiction writer John C. Wright[62]
  • "Atheism is in decline worldwide, with the number of atheists falling from 4.5% of the world’s population in 1970 to 2.0% in 2010 and projected to drop to 1.8% by 2020, according to a new report by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass." - Michael W. Chapman, CNS News, July 24, 2013[63]
  • "We left the [Alps] glacier, and ascending again to the hospice of Montanvert [the glacier], I sat down upon a block of granite, to take a parting view of the scene. How poor is language as the expression of one's feelings, at such moments. The heart is full with thoughts and emotions, that the tongue cannot utter or the pen record. My mind passed from these sublimest scenes of the material to the immaterial world—I seemed, at once, to feel all the littleness and all the greatness of my nature. How insignificant a creature I appeared amid these gigantic forms—yet I exulted in a conscious being that should survive and surmount them all—that could, even now, commune with Him who bade these billows stiffen, and these summits rise—and say, as the eye embraced the mighty whole, 'My Father made them all'.(* Yet, amid these scenes—surrounded by the sublimest demonstrations of the eternal power and Godhead of the Almighty, a wretch [probably Percy Bysshe Shelley] has had the hardihood to avow and record his atheism, having written over against his name in the album [kept for visitors] at Montanvert, "an atheist." It seems as if emotions of shame touched him at the time, for he has written it in Greek. It caught the eye of a divine who succeeded him, and he very properly wrote underneath it, in the same language, 'If an atheist, a fool(**)—if not, a liar.' (** Psalm xiv 1.))" - Thomas Raffles (1788-1863)[64]

Robert Glynn wrote:

 :But who are they, who bound in ten-fold chains,
Stand horribly aghast? This is that Crew
Who strove to pull Jehovah from His throne,
And in the place of Heaven's eternal King
Set up the Phantom Chance. For them, in vain,
Alternate seasons chear'd the rolling year;
In vain the Sun, o'er Herb, Tree, Fruit, and Flow'r
Shed genial influence mild; and the pale moon
Repair'd her waning orb.—Next these is plac'd
The vile Blasphemer, He, whose impious Wit
Profan'd the Sacred Mysteries of Faith,
And 'gainst th'impenetrable walls of Heav'n
Planted his feeble battery. By these stands
The arch-Apostate: he with many a wile
Exhorts them still to foul revolt. Alas!
No hope have they from black Despair, no ray
Shines thro' the gloom to chear their sinking Souls:
In agonies of grief they curse the hour

"When first they left Religion's onward way."[65]


atheism quotes
Jeremy Taylor wrote: "Can any thing in this world be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster?

To see rare effects and no cause; an excellent government and no prince; a motion without an immoveable; a circle without a centre; a time without eternity; a second, without a first...these things are so against philosophy and natural reason, that he must needs be a beast in his understanding that does not assent to them...the thing framed, says that nothing framed it...and that which is made is, [while] that which made it is not. [T]his folly is...infinite."

Thomas More wrote in his work Utopia:

The only exception was a positive and strict law against anyone who should sink so far below the dignity of human nature as to think that the soul perishes with the body, or that the universe is ruled by blind chance, not divine providence.

Thus, they (citizens of Utopia) believe that after this life vices will be punished and virtue rewarded. Anyone who denies this proposition they consider less than a man, since he has degraded the sublimity of his own soul to the base level of a beasts wretched body. Still less will they count him as one of their citizens, since he would openly despise all the laws and customs of society, if not prevented by fear.

Who can doubt that a man who has nothing to fear but the law, and no hope of life beyond the grave, will do anything he can to evade his country's laws by craft or to break them by violence, in order to gratify his own personal greed? Therefore a man who holds such views is offered no honors, entrusted with no offices, and given no public responsibility; he is universally regarded as a low and sordid fellow.

Yet they do not punish him, because they are persuaded that no man can choose to believe by a mere act of the will. They do not compel him by threats to dissemble his views, nor do they tolerate in the matter any deceit or lying, which they detest as next door to deliberate malice. The man may not argue with common people in behalf of his opinion; but in the presence of priests and other important persons, they not only permit but encourage it. For they are confident that in the end his madness will yield to reason." [66]

  • "[T]hose are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of a toleration. As for other practical opinions, though not absolutely free from all error, yet if they do not tend to establish domination over others, or civil impunity to the church in which they are taught, there can be no reason why they should not be tolerated." - John Locke[67]
  • "Can any thing in this world be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster? To see rare effects and no cause; an excellent government and no prince; a motion without an immoveable; a circle without a centre; a time without eternity; a second, without a first...these things are so against philosophy and natural reason, that he must needs be a beast in his understanding that does not assent to them...the thing framed, says that nothing framed it...and that which is made is, [while] that which made it is not. [T]his folly is...infinite." - Jeremy Taylor[68]
  • "All that Lenin learned about business from the tales of his comrades who occasionally sat in business offices was that it required a lot of scribbling, recording, and ciphering. Thus, he declares that accounting and control are the chief things necessary for the organizing and correct functioning of society. . . . Here we have the philosophy of the filing clerk in its full glory." - Ludwig von Mises[69]
The economist Tomáš Sedláček (left) and the atheist philosopher John Gray (right) at ZURICH.MINDS 2012

In a 2014 New Republic article entitled "The Closed Mind of Richard Dawkins: His atheism is its own kind of narrow religion", the atheist philosopher John Gray wrote:

One might wager a decent sum of money that it has never occurred to Dawkins that to many people he appears as a comic figure. His default mode is one of rational indignation—a stance of withering patrician disdain for the untutored mind of a kind one might expect in a schoolmaster in a minor public school sometime in the 1930s. He seems to have no suspicion that any of those he despises could find his stilted pose of indignant rationality merely laughable. “I am not a good observer,” he writes modestly. He is referring to his observations of animals and plants, but his weakness applies more obviously in the case of humans. Transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings—himself and others.[71]
  • "The Golden Age of Secularism has passed." - atheist Jacques Berlinerblau[72]
  • "American atheist movements, though fancying themselves a lion, are more like the gimpy little zebra crossing the river full of crocs. In terms of both political gains and popular appeal, nonbelievers in the United States have little to show. They are encircled by cunning, swarming [religious] Revivalist adversaries who know how to play the atheist card. The gimpy zebra remark was a little goofing on this over-the-top chest-thumping that emerges from Movement Atheists. They wildly overestimate their numbers. They tend to overestimate the efficacy of their activism. They underestimate how disciplined and organized their adversaries in the religious right are, too. They fail to recognize that mocking religious people in public is entirely inimical to the goals they wish to achieve." - atheist Jacques Berlinerblau[73]
  • "Today secular faith is ebbing, and it is the apostles of unbelief who are left stranded on the beach." - atheist philosopher John Gray, The Guardian, March 14, 2008 [74]
  • "As an Atheist for 40 years, I noticed that there is not just a wide variety of Atheist positions, but there exists an actual battle between certain Atheist factions." - An ex-atheist at the website Atheism Analyzed[75]
  • "Elevatorgate..has resulted in three weeks of infighting in the secular community. Some might observe that we indulge in these squabbles fairly frequently." - Jacques Rousseau [76]
  • "Did anyone on Dawkins AMA ask how he feels about singlehandedly destroying the atheist movement with the Dear Muslima yet?" - Atheist activist and blogger Jen McCreight post at Twitter on November 26, 2013[77]
  • "I have never cared about the ‘evidence’ one way or the other, I know God exists, I just refuse to bow down to anyone." - atheist blogger.[78]
  • "And, with birthrates in the world's theistic communities outpacing those in secular ones, it appears that atheism is destined to become a victim of its own doctrine of natural selection." - Regis Nicoll [79]
  • "It's that time of year again. 'T'is the season to be jolly—or, if you're an atheist activist, to throw a wet blanket over the holidays." - Robert Small[80]

"If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. If this is true then the difference between your thoughts and mine correspond to the difference between shaking up a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. You simply fizz atheistically and I fizz theistically. This means that you do not hold to atheism because it is true , but rather because of a series of chemical reactions... Morality, tragedy, and sorrow are equally evanescent. They are all empty sensations created by the chemical reactions of the brain, in turn created by too much pizza the night before. If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena, like swamp gas over fetid water. This means that we have no reason for assigning truth and falsity to the chemical fizz we call reasoning or right and wrong to the irrational reaction we call morality. If no God, mankind is a set of bi-pedal carbon units of mostly water. And nothing else." - Douglas Wilson [81]

  • "The theory that thought is merely a movement in the brain is, in my opinion, nonsense; for if so, that theory itself would be merely a movement, an event among atoms, which may have speed and direction but of which it would be meaningless to use the words 'true' or 'false'." - C.S. Lewis [82]

Quotes of the New Atheist Richard Dawkins

See also: Atheism and leadership

Since his Elevatorgate scandal. various embarrassing posts to Twitter and other embarrassing public statements, atheists are divided on whether the new atheist Richard Dawkins is an asset or a liability to the atheist movement.[83]

Collection of Richard Dawkins quotes:

Feminist quotes about Richard Dawkins

Quote about atheistic China where Christianity is rapidly growing

In front of the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

See also: Growth of Christianity in China

Below is a quote relating to China which currently has the world's largest atheist population:

A November 1, 2014 article in The Economist entitled "Cracks in the Atheist Edifice":

Officials are untroubled by the clash between the city’s famously freewheeling capitalism and the Communist Party’s ideology, yet still see religion and its symbols as affronts to the party’s atheism...

Yang Fenggang of Purdue University, in Indiana, says the Christian church in China has grown by an average of 10% a year since 1980. He reckons that on current trends there will be 250m Christians by around 2030, making China’s Christian population the largest in the world. Mr. Yang says this speed of growth is similar to that seen in fourth-century Rome just before the conversion of Constantine, which paved the way for Christianity to become the religion of his empire.[84]

Quote on the collapse of atheism in the former Soviet Union

See: Collapse of atheism in the former Soviet Union

A Soviet propaganda poster disseminated in the Bezbozhnik (Atheist) magazine depicting Jesus being dumped from a wheelbarrow by an industrial worker as well as a smashed church bell; the text advocates Industrialisation Day as an alternative replacement to the Christian Transfiguration Day. see: Militant atheism

In 2003, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard published a paper by Assaf Moghadam entitled A Global Resurgence of Religion? which declared:

As the indications leave little doubt, Russia is showing clear signs of a religious resurgence. In fact, all seven criteria by which change in religious behavior and values are measured here confirmed that Russia is experiencing what could be called a religious revival. Since 1970, the nonreligious/atheist population has been on steady decline, from 52% in 1970 to 33% in 2000. Further, the percentage of this population is projected to decrease even further, possibly reaching the 20% mark in 2025. Between 1990 and 1997, belief in God has risen from 35% to a whopping 60%, while belief in the importance of God has climbed to 43% in 1997, up from 25% in 1990. More people have been raised religious in Russia in 1997 (20%) than at the beginning of the decade (18%), and 8.39% more Russians believed religion to be important toward the end of the 1990s, when compared to 1990. “Comfort in Religion” has also sharply increased within this time period, from less than 27% to over 46%. Finally, more and more Russians attend church services more regularly in 1997 than they did in 1990.

In the three Eastern European countries that were included in the WVS survey on belief in God, a drastic rise could be witnessed of respondents who answered this question in the affirmative. In Hungary, the percentage of believers in God jumped from 44% to 58% from 1981 to 1990, even prior to the collapse of the former Soviet Union. In Belarus, the number of people who believe in God nearly doubled over the course of the 1990s, from 36% to 68%, while in Latvia this figure almost quadrupled, from 18% to 67% in the same time period. Similar trends held true when it came to the importance of God, where there was a sharp rise in all three countries.[85]

Ancient atheism quotes

"The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good." - The psalmist David, Psalms 14:1 (KJV)

The psalmist David also stated that "The heavens declare the glory of God..." - Psalms 19:1

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans that the creation testifies the existence of God, when he wrote the following:

Plato declared atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding.[86]

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse..." - Romans 1:19-20 (NKJV)

  • It is a fine observation of Plato in his Laws—that atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of the understanding. - William Fleming.[86] [see below]
  • "[T]he habit of arguing in support of atheism, whether it be done from conviction or in pretence, is a wicked and an impious practice." - Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.), Roman orator, philosopher, and statesman[87]

Plato wrote in Laws, book X:

And to those who disobey, let the law about impiety be as follows:-If a man is guilty of any impiety in word or deed, any one who happens to present shall give information to the magistrates, in aid of the law; and let the magistrates who. first receive the information bring him before the appointed court according to the law; and if a magistrate, after receiving information, refuses to act, he shall be tried for impiety at the instance of any one who is willing to vindicate the laws; and if any one be cast, the court shall estimate the punishment of each act of impiety; and let all such criminals be imprisoned. There shall be three prisons in the state: the first of them is to be the common prison in the neighborhood of the agora for the safe-keeping of the generality of offenders; another is to be in the neighborhood of the nocturnal council, and is to be called the "House of Reformation"; another, to be situated in some wild and desolate region in the centre of the country, shall be called by some name expressive of retribution.

Now, men fall into impiety from three causes, which have been already mentioned, and from each of these causes arise two sorts of impiety, in all six, which are worth distinguishing, and should not all have the same punishment. For he who does not believe in Gods, and yet has a righteous nature, hates the wicked and dislikes and refuses to do injustice, and avoids unrighteous men, and loves the righteous. But they who besides believing that the world is devoid of Gods are intemperate, and have at the same time good memories and quick wits, are worse; although both of them are unbelievers, much less injury is done by the one than by the other. The one may talk loosely about the Gods and about sacrifices and oaths, and perhaps by laughing at other men he may make them like himself, if he be not punished. But the other who holds the same opinions and is called a clever man, is full of stratagem and deceit-men of this class deal in prophecy and jugglery of all kinds, and out of their ranks sometimes come tyrants and demagogues and generals and hierophants of private mysteries and the Sophists, as they are termed, with their ingenious devices. There are many kinds of unbelievers, but two only for whom legislation is required; one the hypocritical sort, whose crime is deserving of death many times over, while the other needs only bonds and admonition. In like manner also the notion that the Gods take no thought of men produces two other sorts of crimes, and the notion that they may be propitiated produces two more.

Assuming these divisions, let those who have been made what they are only from want of understanding, and not from malice or an evil nature, be placed by the judge in the House of Reformation, and ordered to suffer imprisonment during a period of not less than five years. And in the meantime let them have no intercourse with the other citizens, except with members of the nocturnal council, and with them let them converse with a view to the improvement of their soul's health. And when the time of their imprisonment has expired, if any of them be of sound mind let him be restored to sane company, but if not, and if he be condemned a second time, let him be punished with death. As to that class of monstrous natures who not only believe that there are no Gods, or that they are negligent, or to be propitiated, but in contempt of mankind conjure the souls of the living and say that they can conjure the dead and promise to charm the Gods with sacrifices and prayers, and will utterly overthrow individuals and whole houses and states for the sake of money-let him who is guilty of any of these things be condemned by the court to be bound according to law in the prison which is in the centre of the land, and let no freeman ever approach him, but let him receive the rations of food appointed by the guardians of the law from the hands of the public slaves; and when he is dead let him be cast beyond the borders unburied, and if any freeman assist in burying him, let him pay the penalty of impiety to any one who is willing to bring a suit against him. But if he leaves behind him children who are fit to be citizens, let the guardians of orphans take care of them, just as they would of any other orphans, from the day on which their father is convicted.[88]

Humorous quotes about atheism and evolution

See also: Favorite quotes of atheists and Comedy and satires concerning atheism and evolution and Humorous quotes about atheism and evolution

See also

External links

Notes

  1. Newton, Isaac. A Short Scheme of the True Religion. Unpublished writing quoted in Brewster, David (1855). Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (Edinburgh, UK: Thomas Constable), vol. 2, p. 347. Retrieved from GoogleBooks archive on February 19, 2015.
  2. "John Lennox - Same evidence, different conclusions" (May 23, 2010). YouTube video, 2:31, posted by ScottyVor. Retrieved on February 19, 2015. "Some atheists are quite explicit that their atheism comes first. One of the most famous is Richard Lewontin, a profesor of genetics, who said it wasn't science that compelled him to accept a materialistic explanation of the universe. It was an a priori materialism. You start with that materialism, and he said that materialism is absolute." See John Lennox.
  3. Kaufmann, Eric (Autumn 2007). "Shall the religious inherit the earth?" The Jewish Quarterly. Retrieved from Sneps.net on October 24, 2014.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Bacon, Francis (1625). The Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral of Francis Bacon. 1884 edition, (London: George Routledge and Sons), p. 106. Retrieved from Internet Archive on February 19, 2015.
  5. Ibid, p. 107.
  6. Isaacson, Walter (2008). Einstein: His Life and Universe (New York: Simon and Schuster), p. 390. Retrieved from GoogleBooks archive on February 19, 2015.
  7. Wakin, Edward (May 1981). "God and Carl Sagan: Is the cosmos big enough for both of them?". U.S. Catholic (Chicago: Claretian Fathers): pp. 19–24. 
  8. Question (August 6, 2011). "The effects of the Question Evolution! Campaign will be devastating to evolutionary belief and atheism". Shockawenow blog. Retrieved from March 14, 2012 archive at Internet Archive on February 21, 2015.
  9. Quote is on the right sidebar of the blog Debunking Atheists
  10. 10.0 10.1 10.2 Unruh, Bob (July 19, 2014). "Scientists: atheists might not exist". WorldNetDaily. Retrieved on February 21, 2015.
  11. Peter, Laurence J. (1977). Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Times (New York: William Morrow), p. 44. Commenting on the Francis Thompson quote: "An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident."
  12. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor (1880). The Brothers Karamazov, Book XI, ch. 4.
  13. Chesterton, Gilbert Keith (1902). Twelve Types (London: Arthur L. Humphreys), p. 95. Retrieved on February 25, 2015 from Internet Archive. Original quote: "Atheism is indeed the most daring of all dogmas, more daring than a vision of a palpable day of judgment. For it is the assertion of a universal negative; for a man to say that there is no God in the universe is like saying that there are no insects in any of the stars."
  14. Ross, Tim (May 14, 2011). "Richard Dawkins accused of cowardice for refusing to debate existence of God". The Daily Telegraph website. Retrieved July 25, 2014. See Daily Telegraph.
  15. Segelstein, Marcia (Winter 2007). "The apologist: an interview with Dinesh D'Souza, author of What's So Great About Christianity". Salvo, vol 7. Retrieved from Salvo Magazine website on February 22, 2015.
  16. Imbert de Saint-Amand, Baron Arthur Léon (1890). The Wife of the First Consul (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons), p. 222; translation of La femme du premier Consul (1884), new 1886 ed. (Paris: E. Dentu) translated by Thomas Sergeant Perry. Retrieved from GoogleBooks archive on February 27, 2015.
  17. Chambers, Oswald (1953). God's Workmanship (London: Oswald Chambers Publications Association and Marshall, Morgan & Scott).
  18. Lewis, C. S. (1952). Mere Christianity (London: Geoffrey Bles), book 2, chapter 1. Located by Goodreads, "Quotes about atheism".
  19. Euler, Leonhard (1747). Rettung der göttlichen Offenbahrung gegen die einwürfe der Freygeister [Defense of the Divine Revelation against the Objections of the Freethinkers] (Berlin, Germany: Haude). Reprinted in Opera Omnia III.12 [E92], pp. 1-265.
  20. "Investigating atheism: Marxism". University of Cambridge (2008). Retrieved on July 17, 2014. “The most notable spread of atheism was achieved through the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which brought the Marxist-Leninists to power. For the first time in history, atheism thus became the official ideology of a state.” See University of Cambridge.
  21. Saki (1913). The Unbearable Bassington (London: John Lane), 6th ed., ch. 13.
  22. Yiadom, Nana (March 11, 2011). "The 'no God' religion". GhanaWeb. Retrieved on February 26, 2015.
  23. Collier, Jeremy (1700). "The office of a chaplain enqir'd into, &c.". Essays upon Several Moral Subjects (London: Richard Sare and H. Hindmarsh), 4th ed., part I, p. 183. Retrieved from GoogleBooks archive on February 26, 2015.
  24. Egnor, Michael (March 29, 2014). "Censorship is atheism's immune system". Evolution News and Views. Retrieved on February 26, 2015.
  25. Myers, P. Z. (September 27, 2014). "The atheist disillusionment". Pharyngula. Retrieved on February 26, 2015.
  26. 26.0 26.1 Klinghoffer, David (April 5, 2013). "In Seattle, PZ Myers reflects candidly on his constituency". Evolution News and Views. Retrieved on July 26, 2014.
  27. 27.0 27.1 Multiple references:
  28. Colson, Charles with Vaughan, Ellen Santili (1987). Kingdoms in Conflict (Grand Rapids: co-published by William Morrow and Zondervan Publishing House), p. 181.
  29. Blackie, John Stuart (1871). Four Phases of Morals: Socrates, Aristotle, Christianity, Utilitarianism (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons), 1892 edition, p. 91. Retrieved from GoogleBooks on February 26, 2015.
  30. Werleman, C. J. (October 4, 2014). "Atheism’s white male problem: A movement needs a moral cause beyond glamorizing disbelief". Salon.com. Retrieved on February 26, 2015.
  31. 31.0 31.1 Kennedy, Dr. Joseph Thomas (November 30, 2008). "God almighty: creator, redeemer". Joseph's Alabaster Box. Retrieved from August 13, 2014 archive at Internet Archive on February 26, 2015.
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  33. Leake, Jonathan (January 2, 2011). "Atheists a dying breed as nature 'favours faithful'". London Times website. Reprinted at Biology of Religion blog (Heidelberg, Germany: SciLogs) on January 6, 2011. Retrieved on January 14, 2015.
  34. Chituc, Vlad (June 7, 2013). "The implosion of r/atheism: What Reddit can tell us about the building community". Patheos website/Nonprophet Status blog. Retrieved on May 24, 2015.
  35. Craig, William Lane (December 13, 2010). "Q&A Question #191: Is unbelief culpable?" Reasonable Faith website. Retrieved on May 24, 2015.
  36. D'Souza, Dinesh (December 6, 2006). "Answering atheist's arguments". tothesource. Retrieved on May 26, 2015. Located by TheChurchinHistory Education Centre website.
  37. Voltaire (1924). "Atheism" [part II]". The Philosophical Dictionary trans. by H. I. Woolf (New York: Knopf). Translation of Voltaire (1769 or bef.), Dictionaire Philosophique. Retrieved from Hanover College History Department website on May 26, 2015.
  38. Henry, Matthew (1706). Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 1, preface. Retrieved from Christian Classics Ethereal Library website on May 26, 2015.
  39. Henry, Matthew (1706). Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 3, Psalms, ch. 15. Retrieved from Christian Classics Ethereal Library website on May 26, 2015.
  40. Pope, Alexander (1727). "Thoughts on various subjects". The Works of Alexander Pope (London: Richard Priestly, 1822), vol. 6, p. 383. Retrieved from GoogleBooks on May 26, 2015
  41. in Central Concepts (poss. Cincinnati, OH: poss. Central Optical Company, 1958 or bef.) quoted by Philosophical Research Society Journal, vol. 18-19, p. 80.
  42. Chesterton, G. K. (1922). "Where all roads lead". Blackfriar's Magazine. Retrieved from CatholicPamphlets.net on May 26, 2015.
  43. Broun, Heywood (1941). Collected Edition of Heywood Broun (New York: Harcourt, Brace), p. 26. Retrieved from GoogleBooks on May 26, 2015.
  44. Orwell, George (1933). Down and Out in Paris and London (London: Victor Gollancz), ch. 30. Caution: Copyrighted in the United States. For fair educational use only.
  45. Laidlaw, Robert A. (1970). The Reason Why (Sword of the Lord Publishers). Retrieved from GoogleBooks on May 26, 2015.
  46. Stoppard, Tom (1972). Jumpers (New York: Grove Press), p. 69. Retrieved from Googlebooks on May 26, 2015.
  47. Lewis, C. S. (1955). Surprised by Joy: The Shape of my Early Life (New York: Harcourt, Brace). Retrieved from GoogleBooks on May 26, 2015.
  48. Favorite quotes
  49. Zacharias, Ravi (2004). The Real Face of Atheism (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books), p. 25. See Ravi Zacharias
  50. Zacharias, p. 154.
  51. Holding, J. P. (June 2009). "Jeff Lowder and the case for Christ". Tekton Apologetics website. Retrieved on May 26, 2015.
  52. Thompson, Francis (1888 or aft.). "Paganism: Old and new [revised]". A Renegade Poet: And Other Essays (Boston, MA: Ball Publishing), p. 47. Retrieved from GoogleBooks on May 26, 2015.
  53. Addison, Joseph (October 2, 1711). "No. 185. Tuesday, October 2". The Spectator, vol. 3, no. 185. Reprinted in Harrison's British Classics (London: Harrison, 1786), vol. IV, pp. 359-60. [Volume IV spans March 1, 1710-March 8, 1711, vol. 1-4, nos. 1-321. For the early part of the 18th century, the year changed on April 1 not January 1]
  54. Calvin Coolidge, (July 25, 1924). "What it means to be a Boy Scout". Foundations of the Republic (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press), p. 68. Retrieved on May 27, 2015 from Internet Archive. Quote found by www.notable-quotes.com
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  56. Aquinas, St. Thomas (1274). "Treatise on God, Q. 2: The existence of God, Art. 3: Whether God Exists?, Ans.". Summa Theologica (Italy). Reprinted in Thatcher, Oliver J., ed. (1907). The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee, WI: University Research Extension Co.), Vol IV., p. 361, translator unknown. Retrieved from GoogleBooks archive on May 28, 2015.
  57. Baudelaire, Charles "The Generous Gambler", translated by Arthur Symons. The English Review (London: Austin Harrison, ed., November 1918), p. 355. Translation of "Le Joueur Généreux" (1864). Petits Poèmes en Prose, no. 29. Faithless translation: 1869 edition of original reads: "quand vous entendre vanter le progrès des lumières que la plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas!"; translation reads "that they don't exist" rather than "he does not exist". In subsequent republications of the translation, the error is corrected.
  58. Temple, William, Archbishop of York (1939). Readings in St. John's Gospel (London: MacMillan) [comment. on John 5:10-18].
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  81. Favorite quotes
  82. Favorite quotes
  83. Wenzhou (November 1, 2014). "Cracks in the atheist edifice". The Economist website. Retrieved on May 28, 2015.
  84. Moghadam, Assaf (August 2003). A Global Resurgence of Religion?, p. 26. Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Retrieved from ResearchGate network on May 29, 2015.
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