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A place to post favorite quotes about atheism and other significant topics
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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!
Started by Loren Miller. Last reply by Stephen Brodie Mar 14. 7 Replies 1 Like
Bill Maher has been, is now, and likely will continue to be a polarizing figure for a while to come. He says shit that angers people, hosts guest who have views that are sometimes WAY past Six…Continue
Tags: China, Real Time, Bill Maher
Started by Loren Miller. Last reply by Mrs.B Feb 3. 4 Replies 3 Likes
The following is OLD, not quite 10 years old, presuming that the video was released not long after the Notre Dame debate between Sam Harris and William Lane Craig. That doesn't change the fact that,…Continue
Tags: rebuttal, debate, christianity, William Lane Craig, Sam Harris
Started by Joan Denoo. Last reply by Loren Miller Jan 16. 1 Reply 0 Likes
Loren, have you seen this article? The Top 30 Worst Places to Live in…Continue
Started by Joan Denoo. Last reply by Onyango Makagutu Jan 6. 5 Replies 1 Like
WAR is a racket. It always has been.By Major General Smedley Butleronline at: https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html"It is…Continue
Tags: skills, interpersonal, &, personal
Nice Comment
Joan I vaguely remember a teacher at my secondary school being horrified that I chose to read Shelly in my English Literature class. It wasn't until many years later that I think I know why. My teacher was really conservative in his views on working-class history.
I also found a poem by Shelley who was a non-violent resister to the government of his time. The paragraph caught my attention:
"Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!"[4]
~ Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1847). Shelley, Mrs. (ed.). The works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. pp. 231–235.
See the entire poem in Wikipedia, "The Masque of Anarchy"
Some really good ones there Joan
Loren, while looking for the source of "If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him?" I ran across this Shelley claim that I thought would have meaning for you:
“When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they're just sitting there thinking up ways to get even.”
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
Oh! and this one:
"If you would know a man, observe how he treats a cat."
~ Robert A. Heinlein
Damn ... what an utter load of meadow muffins! Just one more mechanism the Republicans can use to subvert the will of the people. Question becomes: will Arizonans see through it?
(CNN)Arizona lawmakers are debating a new set of voting bills -- including one that would allow lawmakers to review election results "if needed" and would grant the legislature the power to pick the state's presidential electors -- as Republican lawmakers around the country work to change election laws in the wake of the 2020 election.
Loren, I imagine it would have been much harder for a person to justify being an Atheist pre-Darwin. Shelley on the other hand did it so well. After Darwin, it would have been even harder not to be an Atheist.
If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses? If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them? If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him? If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable? If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees? If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him? If he has spoken, why is the universe not convinced? If the knowledge of a God is the most necessary, why is it not the most evident and the clearest?
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley
A lot of "ifs" there, and I don't really hear a lot of satisfactory answers from those who want to promote this alleged deity ... and to be honest, I don't expect to in the future.
Religion or many ideologies have internal ways of reinforcing themselves that it is hard to get out. One almost always needs external stimuli to drop a belief held from childhood.
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