atheist quotes

[WWLD]

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish. - Anonymous

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg

[Edwardo Piet]

I love that Weinberg quote. Its a really good one.

[WWLD]

Yes. and very true

[Edwardo Piet]

Indeed. That's why its so good. That and the fact that its such an important truth and put with so much clarity. Straight to the point.
Great quote. Brilliant quote. I've heard it before but its a master quote.
Evf

[Meatball]

"I am a deceiver and a liar."
-Ted Haggard

[Kyuuketsuki]

I love that Weinberg quote. Its a really good one.

Yes. and very true

Not only religion, ideologies too and it's worth bearing in mind that religions can make bad people behave good (assuming you accept that religious morality is a good thing).

Kyu

[Edwardo Piet]

I've thought about that too Kyu. Although its harder to get it into a punchy (and such a punchy) one liner quote perhaps

[downbeatplumb]

Darwinian seems to be quotable so here's stab number one at a quotable quip.

'I need christianity like I need a hole in the wrist.'

John Ware

[leo-rcc]

"If I am right, then religious fundamentalists will not go to Heaven, because there is no Heaven. If they are right, then they will not go to Heaven, because they are hypocrites." -- Isaac Asimov

---

"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free.
free to think, to express my thoughts
free to live to my own ideal
free to live for myself and those I loved
free to use all my faculties, all my senses
free to spread imagination's wings
free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope
free to judge and determine for myself
free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past
free from popes and priests
free from all the "called" and "set apart"
free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies
free from the fear of eternal pain
free from the winged monsters of night
free from devils, ghosts, and gods
For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of my thought, no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings
no chains for my limbs
no lashes for my back
no fires for my flesh
no master's frown or threat
no following another's steps
no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words.
I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain
for the freedom of labor and thought
to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains
to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs
to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn
to those by fire consumed
to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men.
And I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still."
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

[Free Finker]

I too cannot hate something that does not exsist.
But I am rather peeved by the knock-on effect of the whole myth.