Religious
Quotations That Make Me Shake My Head
Compiled by David M.
Fitzpatrick
Last updated
Sunday, 26 February 2006
 "No, I don't know that Atheists should be
considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one
nation under God."
—George H. W. Bush, to Robert Sherman of American Atheist Press, at Chicago's
O'Hare Airport while announcing federal disaster relief for Illinois, August
27, 1987
For the entire conversation, visit this page.
The crowning disappointment in the
American Presidency. It's bad enough that, for years, we're expected
to sit quietly back and let the Xians muck this country up all the more
with their fairy tales... now, because we're Atheists, we aren't patriotic
and don't deserve to be citizens? And, in direct opposition to the
Constitution of this country, upon which our entire legal system is based,
Bush claims that this is one nation under God—which
it most definitely is not.
 "Among the repulsions
of Atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual
position. Where was the ingenuity, the ambiguity, the humanity (in the
Harvard sense) of saying that the universe just happened to happen and that
when we're dead we're dead?" —John Updike
So because Atheism doesn't subscribe to
sensationalist mythology and spooky campfire stories, it must be wrong? And
because science is not as interesting... the intellectual position of
Atheism is... drastically uninteresting? And that the humanity he
speaks of is in the "Harvard sense?" Sounds elitist! Updike
shows here that while he has a wonderful command of the language, he has
little going on in his head otherwise.
"Atheism has no room for human rights."
—U.S. Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson, addressing 600 people at a prayer
breakfast, March 1992 in Wisconsin
Oh, you've GOT to be kidding me. American Atheists CRUSADE for human rights for all humans! Halverson
is really saying that Atheists get in the way of Xians deciding who gets
what rights governed by Xian doctrines.
"Atheists don't exist. If you ask anyone why they are an
Atheist they will
proceed to explain their religion of non belief."
—Monksarnn
Monksarnn is applying his methods of
"believing" as a
religious individual to that of everyone and everything else. Atheism is not
a religion... however, clearly, Atheists refuting his religion and
explaining their positions has
caused him to think of it as such.
 "The worst moment for the Atheist is when he
is really thankful and has nobody to thank."
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Rossetti proceeds under a false
assumption—one common to Xians. We don't receive things from an
invisible, all-powerful supreme being; we receive them as a result of our
actions or those of others around us. If we have someone to be
thankful to, we can thank that someone—and receive a smile or a "You're
welcome" in return, which is more than you'll get thanking a nonexistent
god. In the event something random happens to make us happy or pleased
or even thankful, it isn't a "worst moment"; rather, it's a great moment.
It's also worth noting the audacity Gabriel
has as he claims to know what the worst moment for an Atheist is... which is
impossible, since he isn't one. It would be like me saying "The worse moment
for a Christian is when he has forgotten to thank God for something and
regrets it." I have no way of knowing how an Xian feels in that case; only
the specific Xian in question could know.
As well, that would be quite an
all-encompassing quote on my part, assuming that this "worst moment"
scenario would apply to ALL Xians... just as Gabriel has not only assumed
his scenario to be a worst moment, but assumed that it would apply to ALL
Atheists.
"No man will say, 'There is no God' 'till he is so hardened in sin that it
has become his interest that there should be none to call him to account."
—Mathew Henry
In other words, Atheists are all
sinners. We're evil, immoral, maybe amoral. (Meaning we aren't
what Henry thinks we ought to be.)
 "What the world needs today is a definite,
spiritual mobilization of the nations who believe in God against this tide
of Red agnosticism. ...And in rejecting an Atheistic other world, I am
confident that the Almighty God will be with us."
—President Herbert Hoover, in proposing the abolition of the United Nations,
in favor of a "cooperation of God-fearing free nations," Address upon the
American Road, 1948-1950, page 66
Yet another thoughtless moment for the
American presidency. Hoover started the "under God" ball rolling
with this one, at the same time giving terrified little Xians everywhere
the idea that Atheists were immoral and Communist—just because they're
Atheists. Typical Xian complaints. Sad that such an
otherwise great nation could be led by narrow-minded people like that.
"The two most evangelical groups in the
world are Atheists and vegetarians, especially the least knowledgeable and
least intelligent individuals within those groups."
—Clark Coleman
Huh? I think he's saying the the dumbest
of Atheists and vegetarians are overly fanatical. But it's hard to say. It
really makes me shake my head how many Xians lose their minds because they
think I'm calling them stupid, yet they revel in lines like this.
"The three great apostles of practical Atheism, that make converts without
persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health, and
power." —C.C. Colton
Is Colton saying that what attracts
Atheists are wealth, health, and power? Need we look any further than
the huge televangelists who get rich and powerful off the money the sucker
out of their followers?
"He who never thirsts for God here, will thirst for Him before he has been
dead a minute."
—B. North
Implying that once we die, and realize
that there is an afterlife and the Xians were right all along, we'll be
willing to do anything to get God to forgive us and make up for our
disbelieving. Well, sure—if we die and discover there really is a
God, hell why not? But since we won't die and discover there's a
God—because there isn't—it doesn't matter. (And personally, I
wouldn't be thirsting for him if I died and discovered he's actually
real... I'd be flipping the narcissistic, megalomaniacal, heartless
bastard off and telling him what I thought. But that's
another
essay.)
"The only Atheism is the denial of Truth."
—Arthur Lynch
Presumably, Lynch means that being an
Atheist means denying the existence of God. Well, yeah. But it
isn't the truth. It's mythology. I'll take logic and reason, thanks.
 "It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to Atheism, but
depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
—Francis Bacon
So if we think just a little bit on a
subject, we think toward Atheism... to expand our minds and think with a
little more mental power means we see the truth of God and Xianity? How backward these meatballs think. For starters, thinking about the
deep mysteries of the universe... contemplating all the unanswered—and
unanswerable—questions we have... musing on things greater than our
understanding... none of this requires a belief in a supreme
being that relies on not using common sense. It IS possible to think about such topics without having to
resort to worshiping gods, you know. Those of us with sufficiently
escalated intellect, and with our logic and reason turned on instead of
shut down and ignored, can muse on such wonders and ideas without having
to surrender our mentality to fairy tales to explain things too complex
for us to easily handle.
"Only in Atheism does the spring rise
higher than the source, the effect exist without the cause, life come from a
stone, blood from a turnip, a silk purse from a sow’s ear, a Beethoven
Symphony or a Bach Fugue from a kitten walking across the keys....."
—James M. Gillis
I have no idea what Gillis is saying
here. No idea at all. But I'd love to hear the kitten's music.
Seriously, he's saying that things can't happen by accident and must be by design. He says religion shows us cause and effect and Atheism
does not; the basic tenets of science are all about cause and effect, so
he's off in left field there. Life comes from a stone? Atheism makes no
such claim, but fundies often claim this. Life came from the formation of
amino acids from simple chemicals. It is Xianity that insists life came
from a stone when God made Adam from what? Dust of the earth! The blood
from a turnip and silk purse from a cow's ear... whatever that means. And
the kitten music? This is along the lines of "an infinite number of
monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually
produce the complete works of Shakespeare." Many naysayers say this is
ridiculous, but it isn't; at
any rate, Gillis's idea seems to be that because Man can produce things by
intention that dumb animals like kittens cannot by accident, there must be
a God. This makes no sense. God is not required for us to do things...
only our minds are required to imagine them, and our bodies to do them. We
evolved to this state on our own... and neither God nor kittens are making
music.
 "The Atheists are for the most part
imprudent and misguided scholars who reason badly who, not being able to
understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have
recourse to the hypothesis the eternity of things and of inevitability....."
—Voltaire
This one kills me. Voltaire
accuses Atheists of being everything Xians are. We're imprudent and
misguided scholars—whereas the Xians are pseudo-scholars believing
blindly in their fables and forcing their minds to accept contradictions
and illogics regardless of how obvious they are. He says we don't
understand Creation—while Xians choose a myth told to them in a book
instead of investigating the scientific precepts of the universe's origin. He says we cannot understand the origin of evil—when Xians mistakenly
assume there is an origin to evil, instead of it being simply something
defined by human beings based on our perceptions and understanding.
"The greatest
single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge
Jesus with their lips then walk out the door and deny him by their
lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."
—Brennan Manning
I agree with the implication of his
observation, but not with his conclusion. Manning is clearly talking about
Xians who preach but don't practice, but that isn't Atheism. It's
hypocrisy. They believe in it, they just don't do it. As Atheists, we
don't do it either... but we don't believe in it.
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