“I believe in the separation of church and state. We all have our own religious beliefs. There are people out there who are atheists, who don't believe at all. They are all citizens of Minnesota and I have to respect that.”— Jesse Ventura (1999), Explaining his refusal to sign a ‘National Day of Prayer’ proclamation, May 6 (Ѻ)
“Organized religion is a sham and crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people’s business.”— Jesse Ventura (1999), “Interview in Playboy” (Ѻ), Nov; in FSM app
“Atheism is the shadow of the sacerdotalism.”— Thomas Kirkman (c.1870) [6]
“When you’re inside the religious bubble everything makes sense.”— Michael Shermer (2013), “Foreword” to Peter Boghossian’s A Manuel for Creating Atheists (pg. i2)
“Nature’s operations, as far as we have yet observed them, proceed by inexorable atheistical laws, and every new discovery of natural laws is a new blow to the tottering dogma of a ‘moral governor’ and mechanical contriver, the offspring of dark and ignorant ages.”— E.B. (1851), commentary on John Mackintosh’s “The Logic of Atheism”
“Doubt is the greatest torment that a man suffers on earth.”— Andre Ampere (c.1820), on religious beliefs; “Letter to Friend” (Ѻ)“It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry.”— Henry Mencken (c.1930)
“Waking up in the ‘real world’ — by proving to oneself that god is imaginary [does not exist] — impacts our ethics, meaning, and significance.”— Marshall Brain (2015), How God Works (Ѻ)
“Cosmology is a kind of religion for intelligent atheists.”— Stephen Hawking (c.1962), description (Ѻ) to his wife, when they first met, about himself
“I’m an atheist because at age 15 was told that my rapist gets heaven if he repents and chooses god, but I get hell even if I’m good but don’t believe.”— aTashoo (2012), Storify.com tweet (Ѻ), Nov 24
“A wonder it must be that there should be any man found so stupid as to persuade himself that this most beautiful world could be produced by the fortuitous concourse of atoms.”— John Ray (c.1700) (Ѻ)
“People who do not believe in the immortality of the soul are abnormal, if not pathological.”— William H. Thomson (1910), on Thomas Edison’s New York Times atheism-themed interview
“The universe, that is the all, is made neither of gods nor men, but ever has been and ever will be an eternal living fire, kindling and extinguishing in destined measure.”— Heraclitus (c.500BC), quote in Ludwig Buchner’s 1855 Force and Matter [2]
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”— Seneca (c.50AD), found via mAtheist app (Ѻ)
“If, then, you listen to the stories about the gods in this way, accepting them from those who interpret the story reverently and philosophically, and if you always perform and observe the established rites of worship, and believe that no sacrifice that you can offer, no deed that you may do will be more likely to find favor with the gods than your belief in their true nature, you may avoid superstition which is no less evil than atheism.”— Plutarch (c.100AD), On Isis and Osiris (pg. 31)
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”— Marcus Aurelius (c.160AD) (Ѻ)
“The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles command, what rogues teach, and the young children are made to learn by heart.”— Voltaire (c.1750) [5]
“All children are born atheists; they have no idea of god.”— Baron d’Holbach (1772), Freethoughts Opposed to Supernatural Ideas [5]
“Those who will not reason are bigots, those who cannot are fools, and those who dare not are slaves.”— Lord Byron (c.1810)
“Every time we say that God is the author of some phenomenon, that signifies that we are ignorant of how such a phenomenon was able to operate by the aid of forces or causes that we know in nature.”— Percy Shelley (1811), The Necessity of Atheism (Ѻ)
“Gods only excuse is that he does not exist.”— Stendhal (c.1820), cited by Nietzsche, in Ecce Homo, as “best atheist joke”, saying he was jealous of for not having said it first [3]
“Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people how they shall think.”— Arthur Schopenhauer (c.1830) [4]
“Nature’s operations, as far as we have yet observed them, proceed by inexorable atheistical laws, and every new discovery of natural laws is a new blow to the tottering dogma of a ‘moral governor’ and mechanical contriver, the offspring of dark and ignorant ages.”References— E.B. (1851), commentary on John Mackintosh’s “The Logic of Atheism” [1]“And if the inscription on the ancient pyramid of Sais says, ‘I am all that is, that was, and that will be, no mortal man has yet removed the veil’, it might be replied thereto, that modern science has removed the veil and has discovered that force and matter were, are, and will be.”— Franz Pisko (c.1875), front matter quotes to Ludwig Buchner’s Force and Matter [2]
“Where there are three students of nature, there are two atheists.”— Ludwig Buchner (1884), Force and Matter (pg. 1)“In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.”— Friedrich Nietzsche (c.1885), found via mAtheist app (Ѻ)“The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief.”— Sigmund Freud (1927), The Future of an Illusion (Ѻ)“Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.”— Sigmund Freud (1927), The Future of an Illusion (Ѻ); cited by Bo Jinn (loc. 1936)“I don’t believe in God because I don’t’ believe in Mother Goose.”— Clarence Darrow (1930), “Speech in Toronto” (Ѻ), found via mAtheist app (Ѻ)“New motor roads dustless,
The latest steel is rustless,
Our tennis courts are sodless,
Our new religions, godless.”— Arthur Guiterman (1936), Gaily the Troubadour (Ѻ)“God is a name that is a cover for nothing more than a mirage.”— Simone de Beauvoir (c.1950)“Prayer has no place in the public schools, just like facts have no place in organized religion.”— Superintendent Chalmers (c.2005), The Simpsons (Ѻ)“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?”— Anon (c.2008), AtheistBlogger.com list of 101 atheist quotes (Ѻ); found via mAtheist app (Ѻ)“Be religious …. or be smart.”— Bo Jinn (2013), on new atheism