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Quote Of The Day
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A place to post favorite quotes about atheism and other significant topics
Website: https://
Members: 13
Latest Activity: 3 hours ago
I have been a quote collector and quote monger for at least as long as I have been an atheist, and likely much longer. There is a fascination in me of those who are sufficiently skilled in language that they structure words into concepts and ideas and proposed actions which grab my attention and interest, whether it is John F. Kennedy's unabashed statement: "We choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard," Robert A. Heinlein's blunt expression: "If you've got the truth, you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it. SHOW people," or Captain Kirk's subtle yet important tactical observation, having encountered and been challenged by the dauntingly huge First Federation vessel: "Not chess, Mr. Spock ... Poker!"
Certainly, atheism has had its share of skilled spokespeople, whose words have inspired and driven us, whether it was Madalyn Murray O'Hair, saying: "An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church," or Sam Harris, who noted that: "The only problem with Islamic fundamentalism are the fundamentals of Islam," or Aron Ra's far more succinct: "If you can't SHOW it, you don't KNOW it."
Consciously or unconsciously, I suspect all of us have learned and grown from such words and many others, becoming stronger and more mature, not just in our atheism but in ourselves, having heard such words as these, and that is the point of this group: not to just deal in quotes which praise and promote atheism but which advance the cause of knowledge, self-understanding and self-ownership. Each of us have likely heard someone say something and think, "Wow!" and resonated to the significance of what they heard.
That's what I want to do here: share, learn, and grow, not just from THEIR words, but our own.
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One suggestion for the main comment area of the group: Please keep your quotes to under 20 lines or 200 words. That way, one entry won't dominate a given page of the comment area. If you have a longer quote or speech which you think is significant, create a separate post in the group.
Please enjoy!
Discussion Forum
You've created God in your own image when...
Started by Grinning Cat. Last reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner Sep 28. 19 Replies 3 Likes
This one, with its context, is too long for the group comments, but in my opinion the context deserves to be more widely known. You'll probably enjoy it, whether or not you're a writer."Now,…Continue
Tags: Shitty First Drafts, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, writing
H. L. Mencken on the Scopes "Monkey Trial"
Started by Loren Miller. Last reply by Joan Denoo Sep 4. 6 Replies 4 Likes
Hanging around Hemant Mehta's Friendly Atheist website has been enormously beneficial to my quote-mongering predilections. Every so often, someone posts something brilliant, and, good little…Continue
Tags: Monkey trial, Scopes, H. L. Mencken
Aron Ra on Belief and Bull ... Well, You Know!
Started by Loren Miller. Last reply by Loren Miller Jul 25. 2 Replies 3 Likes
From the first time I became aware of him, I have been unabashedly enamored of Aron Ra's unrelenting assault on belief and bullshit. The following is among my very favorite of his statements…Continue
Comment Wall
Nice Comment
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Comment was by Loren Miller 3 hours ago
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Sadly, Onyango, "banish[ing] all these vain and superstitious offices of priests and sacrificers" is far more easily said than done, as doubtless you well know.
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Comment was by Onyango Makagutu 4 hours ago
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I would like to be able to make my voice heard from one end of the kingdom to the other, or rather from one extremity of the earth to the other. I would cry out with all my force; O men, you are crazy! You are crazy to let yourselves be led in this way and to believe so blindly in so many stupidities.
[ ] religion and politics are united in cooperation to hold you always captive under their tyrannical laws.
Banish from your minds this crazy and blind belief in its false mysteries, put no faith in it, mock everything your self interested priests tell you.
Set your minds and hearts completely at ease in this matter and banish all these vain and superstitious offices of priests and sacrificers, and reduce them all to living and working usefully like you, or at least to being busy in something good and useful.Jean Messlier
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Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!
-- Kurt Vonnegut
And I agree. The willingness to believe without rational basis and without proof is both disturbing and dangerous in the human animal and is currently all too evident.
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That power needs cutting.
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Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.
-- Christopher Hitchens, god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
I've heard it from more than one source:
When religions are in the minority, they focus on minority rights.
When they are in the majority, There ARE no minority rights!
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Horrid things done in religion's name.
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For some reason, some of my posts are repeating.
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Very true and beautiful!
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Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.
-- H. L. Mencken
Having seen what some of the more extreme evangelical Christians are willing to do for their faith lately, I would say that Mencken's statement is utterly unarguable.
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How can it be a bad thing for a worldview to argue (a) that our experience of reality, not myth or superstition, should form the basis of our actions and laws, (b) that we need to accept the world for what it is and not what we wish it were, and finally (c) that we need to encourage constant questioning, about oneself and one’s actions, and accepts that as we learn new things about the world our opinion of what is right can and will change?
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