Favorite Atheism Quotes?

[abaris]

Umm...Descartes wasn't an atheist.

Boru

I know. But I haven't got atheist quotes since I never cared for them. That on the other hand is one I always could subscribe to. Also a fitting one to reply to someone claiming to be against religion, since that's no requirement for wise quotes.

[Catholic_Lady]

...And yet there are so many excellent Catholic schools and colleges all over the world.

Oh, come on. I give you that the Jesuits usually aren't afraid of going against the dogmatic grain, even in the 17th century when they were the only ones being against the witch madness, but they aren't the only ones running schools. There's always the dogmatic clamp in what they teach. A good secular college would be the better choice than any religious institution.

I know you won't like the comparison, but it's valid. Soviet universities also provided knowledge. But they weren't exactly neutral in what they did or didn't teach. And how they taught it.

Contrary to what Dawkins is claiming, my faith never "taught" me to be "satisfied with not understanding the world." 

I didn't go to a Catholic college. But I went to a Catholic school k-8th grade and then a public school 9-12 grade. I can say I received far superior education in the former. To say Catholicism hasn't contributed anything to education or to the sciences is silly. Much less claiming that it teaches not to care about knowledge of the world. 

I just really don't like that Dawkins guy. He makes some very generalized claims.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Umm...Descartes wasn't an atheist.

Boru

I know. But I haven't got atheist quotes since I never cared for them. That on the other hand is one I always could subscribe to. Also a fitting one to reply to someone claiming to be against religion, since that's no requirement for wise quotes.

Ok, fair enough.

Boru

[abaris]

To say Catholicism hasn't contributed anything to education or to the sciences is silly.

There's never a blanket statement to be made on any issue involving humans. Catholicism preserved classical knowledge. But on the other hand only what they considered worthy of preserving. What didn't go against their dogma. I would be hard pressed to say what Catholicism actually contributed to education. They never were big on education and there even was a time when laymen were actually forbidden to read the entirety of the bible. They preserved. Some things. Some things they didn't.

It was the order of the Jesuits moving the church out of the dark ages. But even they did so at a price. The image catholicism presents always was one of fear. Fear of people questioning the dogmas they had set up. Up until the 16th and 17th century they were enemies of education. Forbidding to question the geocentric view of the world, forbidding autopsies even. If it hadn't been for people like Leonardo or Michelangelo, we would still follow the teachings of the roman surgeon Galen, who was the utmost and unquestioned authority all through the middle ages.

[Minimalist]

"I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world." Richard Dawkins

...And yet there are so many excellent Catholic schools and colleges all over the world.

Fewer every year!

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2016/apr/04/san...c-schools/

Report Shows Enrollment Declines Continue At Catholic Schools

The annual report by the association shows the trend of recent decades has continued in the past year. Though 14 new Catholic schools opened in the United States, 86 consolidated or closed.

Good.  No loss.

[Catholic_Lady]

To say Catholicism hasn't contributed anything to education or to the sciences is silly.

There's never a blanket statement to be made on any issue involving humans. Catholicism preserved classical knowledge. But on the other hand only what they considered worthy of preserving. What didn't go against their dogma. I would be hard pressed to say what Catholicism actually contributed to education. They never were big on education and there even was a time when laymen were actually forbidden to read the entirety of the bible. They preserved. Some things. Some things they didn't.

It was the order of the Jesuits moving the church out of the dark ages. But even they did so at a price. The image catholicism presents always was one of fear. Fear of people questioning the dogmas they had set up. Up until the 16th and 17th century they were enemies of education. Forbidding to question the geocentric view of the world, forbidding autopsies even. If it hadn't been for people like Leonardo or Michelangelo, we would still follow the teachings of the roman surgeon Galen, who was the utmost and unquestioned authority all through the middle ages.

I never did understand the rebuttal of taking something that happened almost half a millennia ago to try to make a statement about how the Church is now. It's like making the statement "Americans support slavery" on the basis that many of us owned slaves hundreds of years ago.... despite the fact that it is illegal in the US now.

[abaris]

I never did understand the rebuttal of taking something that happened almost half a millennia ago to try to make a statement about how the Church is now.

In comparison to medieval Islam they contributed nothing to science. And you're right, it's got nothing to do with how the church is now - when science is already established. But that's just a hearbeat compared to centuries of being in denial. I'm well aware that the teachings of the Catholic church and it's schools are less hurtful than those of other denominations, but that doesn't say anything about them actually furthering science. They don't run the big research facilities. At the most, they don't prevent pupils from getting educated, but they don't really contribute anything of real value as compared to secular institutions of renown.

[Napoléon]

"What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

If you don't know who said that then you aren't a real atheist.

[Cyberman]

Ingersoll is my idol:

"The doctrine of eternal punishment is the infamy of infamies. As I have often said, the man who believes in eternal torment, in the justice of endless pain, is suffering from at least two diseases - petrifaction of the heart and putrefaction of the brain."

“The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know.”

"The doctor of theology has lost his power. Theological thunder has lost its lightning -- it is nothing now but noise, pleasing those who make it and amusing those who hear."

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

See my signature.

Boru