"I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them."
Atheist quotes
Atheist
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"I am myself a dissenter from all known religions, and I hope that every kind of religious belief will die out."
"As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods."
"If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which He has inflicted upon men, He would kill Himself."
"I had NO interest in being a theologian, especially not a Christian, as I had been raised by progressive atheists. We bowed down every morning to the golden calf of the New York Times, Noam Chomsky, Hannah Arendt. I tried to get my parents to respect and nourish me, let alone delight in me, so even though I secretly loved and believed in the Divine Something - Goodness, Good Orderly Direction, Gift of Desperation, the Cosmic Muffin - I wasn't ready yet to commit myself to the study of a higher power."
"There are two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and at the same time, all-powerful being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be."
"To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition."
"I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul. No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life - our desire to go on living - our dread of coming to an end."
"Atheists say no one can prove the existence of God but I say no one can disprove that God exists I see God in everything I feel his presence everywhere to me I know that he exists."
"I cannot be angry at God, in whom I do not believe."
"For a while, I thought of myself as an atheist until I realized it was a belief, too. It's a shame everything has to have a label."
"Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle."
"Christians and Jews don't believe in Allah or Brahma. Hindus don't believe in Yahweh or Allah. Muslims don't believe in Brahma or Yahweh. Atheists agree with all of them."
"What God lacks is convictions- stability of character. He ought to be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or something- not try to be everything."
"Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of."
"It is easier to suppose that the universe has existed for all eternity than to conceive a being beyond its limits capable of creating it."
"Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination."
"But for you to make this move would reveal the two fundamental tenets of true atheism. One: There is no God. Two: I hate Him."
"Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves."
"If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having, neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. [So] you must wager. Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that he is."