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101 Atheist Quotes

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 14, 2008

in atheism and quotes

. 3 Comments

From The Atheist Blogger. I knew less than half of them, and there are many gems in there.

Some of my favorites:

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul. - Isaac Asimov

I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. - Doug McLeod

Since the Bible and the church are obviously mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going? - Anonymous

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. - Susan B. Anthony

What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. - Christopher Hitchens

It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. - George W. Foote

And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence. - Bertrand Russell

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a God superior to themselves. Most Gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. - Robert A Heinlein

He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave. - William Drummond

Properly read, the bible is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived. - Isaac Asimov

Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma. - Sam Harris

I refuse to believe in a god who is the primary cause of conflict in the world, preaches racism, sexism, homophobia, and ignorance, and then sends me to hell if I’m ‘bad’. - Mike Fuhrman

Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. - Frater Ravus

Man has always required an explanation for all of those things in the world he did not understand. If an explanation was not available, he created one. - Jim Crawford

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

If we expect God to subscribe to one religion at the exclusion of all the others, then we should expect damnation as a matter of chance. This should give Christians pause when expounding their religious beliefs, but it does not. - Sam Harris

Monique Davis’ "apology" - double standards, anyone?

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 11, 2008

in atheism, bigotry and fanaticism

. 0 Comments

Alonzo Fyfe is completely right.

Rep. Monique Davis apologized to Rob Sherman, the atheist she told to “get out of that seat” because he “believes in destroying”, which she equates with being an atheist, who has no right to go to court in “the land of Lincoln where people believe in God”. She apologized to him, personally, for insulting him — personally. As if she had just insulted him, instead of atheists in general. As if no bigotry was involved.

Alonzo compares it with Mel Gibson’s outburst against a Jewish policeman.

Did Gibson apologize just to the cop for insulting him personally? No, nor could he have done just that. He apologized to the Jewish people in general. He wasn’t just insulting that cop, he was accusing Jews of causing wars and being responsible for a number of evils in the world. That was not just rudeness, that was bigotry.

Why should Davis’ outburst be treated differently? Why should people be satisfied with a personal apology for rudeness? She showed as much bigotry to all atheists as Mel Gibson did to all Jews. Do atheists have less rights? Have we bought into their propaganda so much that we’re willing to be reviled and demonized, and not do a damn thing about it? In which way are atheists morally inferior to Jews, or to any other group? Why should this kind of bigotry be excused, when it wouldn’t be if the target was any other?

Not to mention that Davis is not an actor, but an elected official. She has a much bigger responsibility for her actions than Gibson.

Read the comments on Alonzo’s post as well, where he gives suggestions on whom to contact in order to demand a real apology (or resignation) from Davis. As Alonzo says, and I said before, complaining to Davis is useless: the fact that the people she sees as the most obscenely evil in the world criticize her actions only confirms their “righteousness” in her mind.

Acupuncture: $25; Sham acupuncture: $30

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 11, 2008

in humor and mysticism

. 1 Comment

Source: Cectic

Heh.

Religion and the Moral Zeitgeist

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 11, 2008

in morality, religion and society

. 4 Comments

The first time I was faced with the term “Moral Zeitgeist” was when reading Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and, according to Wikipedia, the term was indeed coined by him. “Zeitgeist” is a German word that means “the spirit of the times”, and, therefore, the Moral Zeitgeist refers to the evolution of society’ views on morality.

Dawkins himself provides a perfect example of how the Moral Zeitgeist has changed throughout history (which I’ve again stolen from Wikipedia):

Slavery, which was taken for granted in the Bible and throughout most of history, was abolished in civilized countries in the nineteenth century. All civilized nations now accept what was widely denied up to the 1920s, that a woman’s vote, in an election or on a jury, is the equal of a man’s. In today’s enlightened societies (a category that manifestly does not include, for example, Saudi Arabia), women are no longer regarded as property, as they clearly were in biblical times. Any modern legal system would have prosecuted Abraham for child abuse.

In TGD, Dawkins also provides quotes from people who were, in their time, seen as progressive liberals, such as Thomas Huxley or Abraham Lincoln, but which nowadays make one cringe and gasp in shock because of their racism or sexism. This all shows one thing: our perceptions have changed. What was accepted, even seen as highly moral, many years ago, is now seen as abusive and immoral. This does not happen instantly (though it’s more quick than it may appear, especially in recent years, with mass communication and, now, the Internet), nor to the same degree in all places, of course. And changes are not always for the better (e.g. political correctness, which often prevents people from calling things what they are). But, in general, they are. Things do become better. Societies are far from perfect, but people today have more empathy than they used to have, centuries or even decades ago. Racism and sexism are condemned, have been erased from law books, and those who are still racists or sexists are seen as the bigots they are by educated people. We understand, more than we used to in the past, that life is precious, and that the suffering of other people is as real as ours, even if they look different or have different customs.

Note that I am not saying that morality itself is subjective. Slavery didn’t “become” wrong only in the 19th century, it was always a cruel, brutal suppression of basic human rights. What I’m saying is that the general public’s views on morality have changed, and will continue to change — mostly for the better. One consequence of this is that people might be excused for supporting slavery 500 years ago, but nowadays there’s absolutely no excuse, because they ought to know better.

Of course, the very fact that the Moral Zeitgeist changes and evolves with time proves one thing clearly: that most religious believers don’t get their morality from religion. (Those that do, in the western world, usually have “Phelps” somewhere in their name.) The morality in, say, the Christian Bible is nothing special for its time; not more enlightened, not more advanced or progressive (do believers really think that, before the 10 Commandments, everyone thought that murder was a pretty neat idea?), not “radical” in any way. Jesus himself might sound different, but what he was preaching was mostly an apocalyptic cult whose believers expected the end of the world in their lifetimes; it was Paul that turned Christianity into a religion, with — much like other contemporary religions such as Judaism — all the sexism and support of slavery that was the norm at the time.

While most believers today don’t get their morality from religion or the Bible at all (which is a good thing, too), many still think that they do. But, in fact, their morality mostly fits in with the current moral Zeitgeist. Beliefs such as “God is love”, “God loves everyone” and “God wants us to be happy and free” have no Biblical basis at all; they were made up by believers when society came to appreciate those ideas.

Of course, there are some who do cling, to a degree, to parts of Biblical morality. That is why, for example, churches before the American Civil War opposed emancipation; after all, weren’t people of color the descendents of Ham, condemned to slavery in Genesis? Wasn’t slavery Biblical? Didn’t Paul command slaves to obey their masters?

What about sexism? Well, the Bible clearly states — both in the OT and the NT — that women are the property of men. Who are we to change God’s law? Women should stay at home, not speak in church, and never have authority over men. Guess who opposed equal rights the most.

And don’t get me started on gay marriage.

Of course, eventually even the churches relent, when society has advanced so much that they risk becoming irrelevant. The Mormon church used to forbid black priests; that changed… and, according to them, it was due to a “new revelation”. Christian churches now want to take credit for the end of slavery (because “God loves everyone”, of course), when they were its biggest supporters back then. Churches these days don’t prevent black people from entering, or women from speaking. But all that happened later than with the rest of society. Religion based on scripture, revelation and authority is by nature conservative, and only evolves when forced to, when they are so displaced from society that they face possible obsoleteness or even extinction. One could say that religion, in general, is always behind the Moral Zeitgeist, because it is religion that is always the last to change. And that’s in the west; note how Islam resists change and clings to 13th century morality. They do it through force, fear, and isolation; the more people know, the more they question. The imams know perfectly well how Christianity lost many of its privileges in the west, and want to avoid a similar fate at all costs.

Now, if religion has to follow the rest of society or become irrelevant, if more and more of its original morality is nowadays obsolete and ignored… if society’s views on morality are always in front of religion in terms of progress, and religion has to play catch up… if you realize that in 10 or 20 years the Moral Zeitgeist will have shifted even more, and will be even more different from religion’s original tenets, forcing it to keep adapting… why not dismiss religion as a source of morality altogether?

Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 10, 2008

in atheism, christianity and religion

. 0 Comments

It’s brilliant. Really. Christopher Hitchens is in much greater form here than in, say, the Four Horsemen talk, and Peter is not bad either.

I, of course, agree with Christopher on virtually everything he says, except for his support of the Iraq war — although he presents his case for it very well here, I still think it was the wrong thing to do, was done for all the wrong reasons (oil for Halliburton, and getting the US in a war frenzy so it’s “unpatriotic” to criticize the administration), and was done as badly as it could.

But, on the subject of religion, listening to Christopher’s wit is an intellectual delicacy, not to mention very, very funny.

Get the torrent here. Or look for it on YouTube.

"Atheism being promoted in science class"

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 9, 2008

in creationism, evolution, honesty, religion and science

. 3 Comments

Source: Cectic

This shows perfectly what the theists’ beef is, IMO. No matter how much they deny it, their goal is to insert religion in science classes, nothing more… and they won’t be satisfied with a truly neutral position, where science classes only teach science. To them, not saying “goddidit” is “promoting atheism”… and they can’t have that.

"It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists"

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 9, 2008

in atheism, bigotry, christianity, fanaticism, hate and religion

. 2 Comments

(Note: you may want to read the prologue first.)

From Rep. Davis’ bigoted outburst about atheists, one part “jumped at me”, and I knew at the time (a few days ago) that I would have to dissect that point. That part is, of course, this post’s title.

If you follow, logically, from a correct premise, you will likely arrive at correct conclusions. However, if the premise itself is wrong, then the best logic in the world will still end up with a wrong conclusion… but it’s interesting to analyze those occurrences. This is one of them.

Rep. Davis, when she said that sentence, was being bigoted and ignorant, sure, not to mention hateful and full of “righteous anger”. However, there was something else there, something else you can hear in her voice. Fear.

And, from her original premise, she has every reason both to be afraid and to hate atheists. Because something very, very precious is at stake: the fate of eternal souls.

I’ve talked about this before, but most people — believers and otherwise — have never really thought about the concept of hell, or eternal torture. Or are simply unable to grasp it in its entirety, because humans have not evolved — nor have they ever needed to, for their survival, so it makes sense — to deal with concepts such as infinity. The worst part of “eternal torture” isn’t “torture”, but “eternal”. Even mere eternal boredom, without any active torture, is a fate inconceivably horrible, to an extent our minds aren’t capable of imagining. There is no crime on Earth, which is necessarily finite, that warrants such a fate — and this is why I believe the doctrine of hell makes the Christian god supremely evil, more sadistic than the world’s most sadistic sadist, and I wonder why more people don’t see it. Cultural indoctrination, I guess.

But, even without fully grasping the concept of eternal torture, Christians know very well — even if sometimes just instinctually — that it’s something to be avoided at all costs, something worse than anything that can happen to us on Earth.

Now, think about it. You believe that the most important thing in the world — to such an overwhelming degree that, compared to it, nothing else matters — is to avoid going to hell. Both for yourself, and for those people you care about — and, if you’re a “nice”, well-meaning person, for strangers as well. Nothing you can do or achieve or feel here on Earth is worth anything if you still end up in hell. So, to save yourself (and, later, others) form hell, anything goes. No amount of earthly suffering really means anything compared to it. No amount of ignorance, of lying, of manipulating, of causing suffering to yourself and others is significant. Taken to the logical conclusion, to condemn someone to hours, days, months, even a lifetime of suffering, is a moral act… as long as it prevents that someone from going to hell! Indeed, this was the belief of the Inquisition. Better to be tortured for days or weeks and repent, thus having a chance of being saved, than to lead a pleasant life and then be damned for all time. If you really believe that God sends people to hell, then anything that prevents that is moral… no matter the suffering it causes.

But this is not simply a matter of suffering. It’s also a matter of knowledge. Any knowledge or way of thinking that can lead one to doubt God is dangerous — indeed, more dangerous than anything in the world — and must be suppressed. Whether that knowledge is true or false is immaterial. Evolution may indeed be a fact, and it is compatible with liberal theism, but it can also lead to non-belief, and therefore its teaching must be opposed at all costs, regardless of its truth — simply because it may lead thousands, maybe millions of children to hell. And isn’t saving innocent children the most moral act one can perform?

Recall the preface in Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, where he wrote (emphasis mine):

I suspect - well, I am sure - that there are lots of people out there who have been brought up in some religion or other, are unhappy in it, don’t believe it, or are worried about the evils that are done in its name; people who feel vague yearnings to leave their parents’ religion and wish they could, but just don’t realize that leaving is an option. If you are one of them, this book is for you. It is intended to raise consciousness - raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled.

Therefore, to a believer like Davis, the mere existence of atheists — and, not only that, but happy, moral, fulfilled atheists — is a threat, one that may cause many people to question their faith, to realize that, yes, non-belief is an option, and doesn’t make you a monster. It may cause millions of innocent souls to end up in hell. Morally, shouldn’t that be fought with tooth and nail? The mere existence of atheists is already a threat that is filling hell with souls that might not have ended there otherwise. But vocal atheists? Publicly seen atheists? Atheists that don’t act like hedonists, who don’t have “horns”, or frighten people? How many are they condemning to eternal suffering?

If one believes that God sends non-believers to hell, then it only makes sense to do anything in your power — including oppressing, lying, cheating, stealing, and murdering — to stop any possible source of non-belief. Whether that source is a person or group, or a book, or an idea, or a philosophy, or a knowledge. Whether that source is itself moral, or is itself true. None of that matters. Hell is what matters.

In fact, why stop there? Yes, the Bible says “thou shalt not murder”, so one can assume that a murderer goes to hell. But what greater sacrifice is there than one’s soul? What is giving up your life for others (say, your children), compared with up giving your soul? What could be more moral, more heroic, more noble than sacrificing your afterlife for that of your children… by killing that soul-damning atheist who is making them, for the first time in their lives, doubt what you’ve taught then since birth?

Compared to that, what is disregarding the Constitution (man’s law… pfft.) and taking away the legal rights of an atheist? I’m sure Rep. Davis considers her bigoted actions to be absolutely moral, and probably won’t even understand what all the fuss is about. After all, she was doing it to save innocent souls… in her eyes, she should get a statue, or something.

"It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists" - prologue

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 8, 2008

in atheism, bigotry, fanaticism, hate and religion

. 0 Comments

Readers of Planet Atheism will probably have already been flooded with posts talking about Rep. Monique Davis’ unconstitutional and hate-filled insults against Rob Sherman, who was testifying against Illinois (unconstitutionally) giving 1 million dollars to a Baptist church. Here is Eric Zorn’s original news report in the Chicago Tribune, and here’s PZ Myers’ post on RichardDawkins.net (which I link to instead of the original on Pharyngula, as this one includes contact information for people to do something about it, instead of just posting comments ).

Well, as this post’s title says, this is a prologue for the next one, about that particular quote from Davis. I wanted that one to focus on that quote itself, which is why I’m introducing the story here, in a separate post. The “real thing” comes later today.

Also, I’m not American, so there’s little I can do about it, but if you are, and care for that pesky thing called the Constitution (not to mention the civil rights issue of having non-believers demonized and insulted by politicians without consequence — imagine if Davis’ rant had been against a particular religion or skin color!), please follow the second link above for ways to make a difference. Even if you’re not an atheist, you should still care…

Does Evolution lead to Atheism?

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 4, 2008

in atheism and evolution

. 13 Comments

Many people in the US claim that teaching evolution is a bad thing, because it leads to atheism (and some, like Ben Stein, add that it then leads to Nazism and the Holocaust, but that’s another story). Of course, I don’t think that leading to atheism is a bad thing, because atheism is a “good thing”. However, the question remains: does it?

My answer: in some cases, yes.

The reality of evolution doesn’t preclude the existence of God, much less disprove it. It is certainly compatible with the existence of a supreme being who created the universe, and even with one who also intentionally created life on Earth.

It does, however, affect religious belief in two different ways, either of which can lead one to atheism, and which are why religion often has objections to evolution:

It removes one of the major needs for the existence of God. One can believe that a divine creator exists simply because we don’t see any other explanation for something — in this case, the existence of mankind. Much like in Douglas Adams’s case, it can happen that you come to the conclusion that human religions are logically incoherent and man-made, but you still believe there must be some kind of creator, since you are aware of no other explanation. But evolution provides one, which resolves the “I don’t see any other way it could have been” argument from ignorance.
It reveals the holy books are not inerrant. The major monotheist religions are based on their respective holy books, which include creation stories, usually having something to do with “six days”, with mankind as “special” and intentionally designed, and which totally contradict evolution. To put it bluntly: if evolution is real, Genesis is wrong. While not all sects of each religion teach biblical literalism and inerrancy, many do so, and the fact that evolution shows one part of the Bible to be not literally true leads one to a slippery slope: if this part is wrong or can’t be taken literally, might other parts be wrong or non-literal as well? (One particular resurrection comes to mind…) And how can one then know which parts to trust? This kind of questioning leads some to a more liberal form of religion, but others to one simple, “dangerous” question: what if… it’s all wrong?

And thus evolution is opposed. Because they see what it can do, indeed.

Applying Logic to Creationism / Evolution

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 3, 2008

in creationism, evolution and logic

. 11 Comments

A little while ago, and for no apparent reason (I’m like that ), I thought about an Internet poll I’ve seen some time ago, which asked people what they thought was more likely about the development of life on Earth. If I remember correctly, the options were something like this:

God created the species as they are, less than 10,000 years ago (young earth creationism);
God created the species as they are, millions of years ago (old earth creationism);
God created life and directed evolution, starting millions of years ago (theistic evolution);
Life evolved without action from a god (natural evolution).

And it got me thinking…

We can think of the several hypotheses as a series of switches. God (as in “interfering”, not as in “existing”)? Yes or no. Old Earth? Yes or no. Evolution? Yes or no. With these switches, here are the 8 possible combinations (with 0 for “no” and 1 for “yes” — yes, I’m a computer geek. ):

God?	Old Earth?	Evolution?
0	0	0
0	0	1
0	1	0
0	1	1
1	0	0
1	0	1
1	1	0
1	1	1

This is the initial premise. But we can quickly remove a few contradictory combinations. For instance, no God and no evolution means that nothing accounts for the life we have in the world today. In other words, we can’t have a “0″ for both God and evolution. Evolution but no old earth is also impossible: nobody — scientists or creationists — claims that species could have evolved in just a couple of millennia, and both sides agree that man already existed 6,000 years ago. In binary terms, evolution requires an old earth (not the other way around, though).

So, the cut-down table (now with labels for each combination) amounts to this:

	God?	Old Earth?	Evolution?
A	0	1	1
B	1	0	0
C	1	1	0
D	1	1	1

What more can we say about them? Well, for a start: evidence contradicts B and C, so they cannot be true. There is lots of evidence for both evolution and an old earth, and both are accepted by science — not dogmatically, not on authority, but because that’s where the evidence leads. The only reason people still claim B or C is this: it’s what the holy books claim. If you believe they are inerrant, then any evidence to the contrary must be ignored, like covering your ears with your hands and crying “la la la, I can’t hear you”. Of course, such a position is irrational, dishonest, and stupid. Creationism (old earth or young earth) is the denial of reality; it’s not a scientific hypothesis with any merit, because no evidence supports it, and a lot of evidence contradicts it. I can respect people who are honestly mistaken, but not those who lie to themselves, who deny reality, just because it’s somehow uncomfortable or contradicts dogma.

So, if we care the least bit about reality, we must remove any combination with Old Earth=0 or Evolution=0. Therefore, the only remaining combinations are these (keeping the labels from the previous table):

	God?	Old Earth?	Evolution?
A	0	1	1
D	1	1	1

Now, D is obviously theistic evolution, that is, evolution directed by God. This is undisprovable, because it doesn’t contradict the evidence (but, then again, Last Thursdayism, the theory that the universe was created last Thursday, but with everyone having memories of a fictional time before that, and with the world having been created to appear much older, is also undisprovable). There is, however, no evidence for it, either.

A is not necessarily atheistic naturalism; as I said before, “God” here means intervention by God, not just existence. A can be naturalism, but it can also be Deism. Again, it can’t be disproved, and, again, there is no evidence of “no (intervening) God”. The main difference between A and D is that D adds another agent, which is not required, as A has the exact same evidence for and against it, and explains everything just as well. If both explanations are equally satisfactory and substantiated, but one of them has an extra entity, then Occam’s Razor tells us that the other one — with the least number of entities — is the most likely one. Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity, and the extra entity is unnecessary.

From this, we arrive at A as the most likely hypothesis. All available evidence agrees with it, and it is the simpler (in terms of number of entities) explanation.

FAQ: There must be a God; otherwise, life is pointless / there is no basis for morality / etc.

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 2, 2008

in atheism and atheism faq

. 0 Comments

This FAQ answer doesn’t address the correctness of the consequences (e.g. whether life is pointless without God or not, etc.). You can find answers to some of those in the rest of my Atheism FAQ — or will be able to in the future.

Instead, the purpose of this entry is to show you how the very premise is based on faulty logic, and and is therefore an absolutely invalid argument.

In a nutshell, the statement says the following: if there is no God, <something bad> is true. Therefore, there must be a God.

What’s so wrong with it? Just this: even if the consequences were correct, that is, the result of “no God” was indeed bad, that has no bearing on the truth value of the premise. In other words, the desirability of a possibility has no effect on whether that possibility is true or not. It either is, or is not; its consequences don’t matter here.

Even if it were absolutely 100% true that “no God” meant “life is pointless”, that would have zero effect on the truth of whether God existed or not.

The error of believing something to be true just because “otherwise it would be bad” is a logical fallacy called appeal to consequences, a common example of wishful thinking. Your beliefs should be shaped by honestly attempting to perceive reality to the best of your abilities — not by believing in what you wish was true, in what makes you comfortable.

Again, note that I am not agreeing with the consequences in this FAQ entry’s title at all. Life isn’t pointless without gods, there is a basis for morality, and so on. But even if those consequences were all completely and undeniably true (like some others indeed are, such as “we’re evolved animals, not specially designed” or “there is no life after death”), it would have no bearing at all on the question of the existence of God.

(Note: please keep any comments related to the above question / answer, and not to other subjects, such as whether God exists or not. Thanks.)