Atheist Quotes

Here is a website I recently found with some atheist quotes: http://atheistblogger.com/2008/02/15/101-atheist-quotes/.

This isn't necessarily for the purpose of finding a quote for the T-shirts, although it can be a useful resource for those who are interested. But here are just a few quotes I picked out that struck me as insightful (it should be noted that the sources and accuracy of these quotes and their speakers are not verified).

91. I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever. - Daniel Boorstin

88. 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

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

80. 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

77. When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. - Robert Pirsig

73. Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o, and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have. - Penn Jillette

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

66. Gods dont kill people. People with Gods kill people. - David Viaene

64. If all the Christians who have called other Christians “not really a Christian” were to vanish, there’d be no Christians left. - Anonymous

59. We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

49. 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

43. I’m a polyatheist - there are many gods I don’t believe in. - Dan Fouts

42. Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? - Epicurus

39. I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. - Mark Twain

38. To say that atheism requires faith is as dim-witted as saying that disbelief in pixies or leprechauns takes faith. Even if Einstein himself told me there was an elf on my shoulder, I would still ask for proof and I wouldn’t be wrong to ask. - Geoff Mather

36. Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color. - Don Hirschberg

31. I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. - Stephen Roberts

19. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. - Francis Bacon

16. 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

7. Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca the Younger

1. The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality. - George Bernard Shaw