#theism

Religion doesn't just cloud our minds. It asks us to deliberately deceive ourselves-- to replace reason with its opposite, faith. And when men operate on faith, they can no longer be reasoned with, which makes them more dangerous than any sane man, good or evil. ↗

— James L. Sutter

#faith #reason #religion #death

If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#atheism #atheist #christianity #death #god

I always got a bit pissed off with those broadsheet sceptics who make their living being passionately angry about homeopathy, God, synchronicity or whatever, because it's as if they can't get past their emotions, and in their rage they become as faith-driven as the beliefs they criticise. I always said they give scientists a bad name. After all, science has to be about asking unthinkable questions, not closing down debate. ↗

— Scarlett Thomas

#religion #scepticism #sceptics #skepticism #skeptics

It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction of religion. A country which forbids an established church by law is prey to any denomination. The best that can be said is that this is pluralism of a kind. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#christianity #jerry-falwell #jesse-jackson #pluralism #religion

If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion. ↗

— Edmond de Goncourt

#god #him #insult #less #must

In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#christianity #edward-said #humility #london #palestine

There is no being eloquent for atheism. In that exhausted receiver the mind cannot use its wings, - the clearest proof that it is out of its element. ↗

— Augustus Hare

#being #cannot #clearest #element #eloquent

I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To my way of thinking, an omnipotent being who sets up a universe in which thinking beings proliferate, grow old, and die (usually in agony, alone, and in fear) is a cosmic sadist. ↗

— Charles Stross

#cosmic-sadist #death #everything #life #religion

Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life. But now, we are witnessing a transformation, a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged. ↗

— Czesław Miłosz

#karl-marx #opium-of-the-people #religion #death

It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity. ↗

— Abraham Lincoln

#history #lincoln #religion