Four Atheist Quotes That Hit Home.

reply to post by RoboKy


I agree. I myself am very spiritual but don't follow any religion. If one is truly a spiritual person, he/she should have no problem at all with your beliefs. The whole point is having free will to choose what you want or need for yourself.

In life there is hope,happyness and trust.The Atheist is just only one breath away from god.

You're all far too well read. So to bring things down to my level, that of the great unwashed, I've got one of my favourite movie quotes for you. In Contact (a criminally undervalued film) Jodie Foster's character loses her place on the mission after being asked at the selection hearings whether she believed in god, her response :

"As a scientist I, we rely on empirical evidence, and in this matter I don't believe there is data either way."

I'm currently an agnostic who wants to believe, although I've been an athiest and a believer in my time. When the facts change so does my opinion. The weird thing though is that the more science I've learned, the more I believe in intelligent design.

Originally posted by ButterCookie
reply to post by Alaskan Man

 

As stated in Zeitgeist, "The more you begin to investigate, what we think we understand, where we came from, what we think we're doing, the more you begin to see we've been lied to. "

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that is actually a sample of old Jordan Maxwell, it's been used many times and in fact has another sentence on the end. the full quote finishes with "We've been lied to from the very beginning!"

And I have to agree, the priest class have been lying to us from the beginning, and it goes back way further than the sumerians.

Hi everyone. I'm new to this site and I have to say...so far I love it


These aren't necessarily atheist quote but they are a few of my favorites:


Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours; whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity."


Albert Einstein:
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."


John F. Kennedy:
"The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men."

reply to post by DohBama


Hey it was great to read the quotes that you contributed to the discussion! Oh wait you didn't you just came in to do a religious thread dive bomb and then fly on back to home base.

You Sir/Mam are a THREAD SNIPER!

Hello All,

This thread finally motivated me to sign up! I've been avoiding signing up for this site because it's possible that it was created to attract people like you and me who could be a threat to who knows what. They (whoever that is) would have a neatly organized list of persons they could "contact". I guess this thread was worth the risk!

And actually I really don't have anything too significant to say, just some thoughts on the topic.

So first of all.....I've found that my thoughts can be creative. What I think can become a physical manifestation. I'm not someone who can create a glass of water out of thin air or anything like that (at least not yet) but just simple things that many people have probably experienced like, thinking of someone and then seeing them the next day or they call, having a bad day that only gets worse, being stressed and getting ill, etc

For example, I changed all of my lack thoughts about money to abundant thoughts and within a couple weeks I negotiated a 3 dollar raise and within another 6 weeks I was promoted to a new position with a considerable pay increase.

I should also mention that I spent a lot of the money I earned, worried about it going away, and now I'm making less. I haven't really put the amount of focus and energy into being abundant with money as I did at first because I just don't care enough I guess. I have enough money to do the things I enjoy doing.

A much more solid example would be experiments that have been done with Placebos. (Sugar pills given to people who think they are taking real pills yet still experience the effects they would have experienced if the pill was real) You will find many of them by googling it.

What I'm getting at is, what if the only god that exists is the one we decide exists? What if WE are the god and WE have all the power. If I think there isn't a higher power and that we are all alone in the universe with nothing but my reason to guide my way.......SO BE IT!

If I decide that my life is going to be perfect and I'm grateful that it's going to be perfect and I decide that I will always have an unlimited ability to manifest information, intuitive thoughts, etc beyond reason......SO BE IT!!

I myself am a member of a 12 step program. They are not religious but still teach dependence on a higher power for a solution to problems that come up and I have to say that when I ask for the right thought or action during a moment of discontentment, stress, etc and "let go" I receive perfect answers! But, do I believe that there is some dude in the clouds getting my prayers and answering it a bit later? No I do not. I do believe the answer came because I intended it to. Many answers received could not have been based on previous experience so therefore it was created out of nothing. I created it with my intentions.

Man this is sounding cheesy, I promise I won’t be trying to sell anything at the bottom of this thread!

The reason this thread and people who believe this or that are very interesting topics for me is this.....

To use this very thread as an example, you have decided you are an atheist based on evidence, experience, etc. It's what you have decided is the truth. If what you believe leads to manifestation….you will find evidence and have experiences to support the claim. Is it possible that our experiences and the evidence we find to support our beliefs are being influenced by our beliefs and/or intentions?

My friend was trying to get me into religion when I was around 19 years of age. I attended a few church things and pretty soon I was told what kind of music is sinful to listen to and thinking bad things was sinful, etc. I decided it wasn't for me and told god, "If this is who you are, I want nothing to do with you but if there is a different reality show it to me"

Continued......

A week later I was at a friend’s house and noticed a cooking book on the couch arm rest. I was obsessed with this book which is something I've never experienced before. I just had to pick up this book. I sat and just observed the irrational compulsion I was experiencing over a fricken cook book of all things. I finally picked up the book and discovered that it was a spiritual book.

It had a cooking book dust cover to keep it safe, the owner was borrowing it from a friend. I opened it up to a random page and the first thing I read was “You are holding this book in answer to your call”. The book described basically everything I really wanted to believe spiritually. I literally spent the next couple weeks sobbing with joy over much of the content.
I’ve also read about others who have done this exact same thing and they received answers too but the answers they received were completely different from mine!! I believe we both received exactly what we wanted to. Whether or not it’s the truth….I don’t know. If I created it and I have that power than yes, it exists and it’s the truth and so is the other guys!
I guess what I’m trying to say is…..

There’s enough evidence about the power of our thoughts out there to come to the conclusion that we can’t trust any conclusion in which we have an intention interfering with the results. So basically I can’t trust the conclusion of my post or even this sentence because it’s being influenced by the power I have to manifest and create with my thoughts which leads to the next thought which has been voiced by many brilliant people throughout history……This world is an illusion.

Great Thread, I’ll S & F you as soon as I figure out how to do it!

Edit: Added returns after the paragraphs.

[edit on 14-7-2009 by brianmg5]

reply to post by badmedia


First off, thank you so so SO much for having the patience to explain this to me several times. I don't know why, but I wasn't able to understand what you were saying the first time. I'm very sorry about this.

Religion does not equal God. God does not need religion.

Second off, I completely agree. Any problems that I have had with religion, including possibly why I like the quotes that I posted, have all been a direct result of the experiences I have had in my life with "religious" people. I grew up surrounded by people who "devoted their life to God" and "where just doing God's will" and yada yada yada. I cannot even begin to describe the pain and heartbreak that these people not only caused my family, but myself. My entire family put nearly everything into helping not only the church, but the people we thought were our friends. Seeing how I was a young child at the time, I was completely powerless to do anything about it. I had to sit there and watch as these people stabbed my family in the back time after time, ostracized them, and judged them on the smallest of things - all the while they where the ones who were stealing thousands if not millions of dollars from the church, cheating on their spouse(s), and being just complete hypocrites.

To this day, I struggle with accepting religion of any kind because of these experiences. I know that it is wrong for me to judge all religions, specifically Christianity, and the people involved. I know that not all religious people are like those that I grew up with, and I am slowly learning how to not immediately judge. When I said I would not call myself an Atheist, I meant it. I'm more Agnostic if anything. I do believe in a higher power, but I have an incredibly hard time admitting this to myself out of fear that I will become exactly like those people that hurt me so much when I was younger.

Originally posted by Amagnon

Originally posted by randyvs

atheism

'the belief that there was nothing
and nothing happened to nothing
then nothing magically exploded for no reason creating everything
and then a bunch of everythig magically rearranged itself
for no reason what so ever
into self replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs"


and the Bible is full of fairytales?

i'm pretty sure this calls for some rethinking.

[edit on 13-7-2009 by randyvs]

0

0=0

1-1 = 0

1+(-1) = 0

Start with nothing, then divide it into two opposing forces - then you can create anything.

1,000,000 + (-1,000,000) = 0

Is the sum of the universe equal to zero? Well, it certainly makes sense to me if that were the answer.

Not trying to pee in your cheerios, but 0 doesn't equal nothing at all. 0 is the first number and as such has a value. As it has a value, it's not actually nothing.

Something I come across in programming all the time. Because when you count, 0 is actually the first number/value. First 10 numbers are actually 0-9.

Here's an example. An "array" is a list of words/numbers/variables etc. So lets define a list.

array = (dog, cat, horse, fish, goat, mouse);

so each value in that array has an number identifier. And that actually starts at 0. So if you start at 1, then you will skip the first value.

So, array[0] = dog
array[1] = cat

etc. So in the programming/computer world, 0 isn't actually "nothing".

I get what you are saying though. I learned the above the hard way and it took some time to get use to it. But 0 still has a value, and "creation" and more than nothing must exist before you have 0. So "0" can only come after creation.

Many times I have to physically make the program add +1 to things because of the above. If I don't, then to the laymen(me, and the rest of the world who starts counting at 1) it would seem if things were off by 1 number.




[edit on 7/14/2009 by badmedia]

reply to post by Wookiep


Thank You for the kind words my friend. I grew up in a home where if you didn't have an open mind you were thinking right..lol.. Luckily, it is paying off, only through an open mind can one truely see the good in everything. I don't know the truth, so I cannot say "I KNOW THE TRUTH" because I don't. My belief is still a theory, which is why I never say I know the 'truth'. Becuase their is no truth, only opinion and perceptions. Very few 'truths' are known in the world and all religions including my own are not truths (yet joking), they are faith based and therefore built upon opinion and perception. Much like some areas in science and just plain life, we all revolve around our own truths

reply to post by badmedia


How about this then...

NaN = NaN

1 + "1" = NaN
1000 + "1000" = NaN

and so on.

I think his point is that there are positives and negatives that formed from the big bang (or as I prefer, the big bounce). For Example, matter and anti-matter. You can also look to waves, when they cross, there are certain points where the waves will cancel each other out and leave nothing.

Originally posted by mac2010

Originally posted by barksplinter
To clarify Atheism for Atheists:

Agnostics have an ABSENCE of belief..
(Don't know... or don't care.)
Atheists DO NOT have an ABSENCE of belief.
Atheists claim to KNOW THERE IS NO GOD!

This was my fav post, and I totally agree with, cause Im more agnostic, then atheist as well, cause alot of atheist to me were just down right hard headed. Altho I do love alot of Atheist quotes, but true agnostic is better I think.. as is said in the quote.

There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies? Richard Dawkins

I must point out your mistaken use of Richard Dawkins' words. The quote is taken from a speech he gave at the Edinburgh International Science Festival in 1992; The Nullifidian also published it, and the entire speech can be found here. The quote you reference is an example of quote mining, turning Dawkins' real argument on its head. Here is the quote in its proper context:

It is often said, mainly by the "no-contests", that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic.

At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?

The trouble with the agnostic argument is that it can be applied to anything. There is an infinite number of hypothetical beliefs we could hold which we can't positively disprove. On the whole, people don't believe in most of them, such as fairies, unicorns, dragons, Father Christmas, and so on.

This argument is explained in greater detail in his book, The God Delusion, in a chapter titled "The Poverty of Agnosticism" (you may be able to find it transcribed online). These two statements are of particular importance, to clarify the case he makes:

(after explaining his scale of theistic belief, he identifies himself with the following scale number) "6. Very low probability [that 'God' exists], but short of zero. De facto atheist. 'I can not know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.'"

"Atheists do not have faith; and reason alone could not propel one to total conviction that anything definitely does not exist."

Atheism is simply a lack of belief. You do not need to know anything for certain; what is important is that you do or do not believe. Personally, I do not believe in any of the characterisations of god that have ever been presented to me. I do not claim to know whether or not a god or higher power exists, as that would be wholly irrational; I do not know any atheists who do claim such knowledge. I say that I am an atheist: I have examined various conceptions of higher powers and I do not believe any of them, nor do I believe a god figure to be likely. To call myself "agnostic" (meaning "I do not know.") would be to miss the core matter of spiritual discussions (that is, belief), and would require undesirable elaboration (e.g. "What don't you know? And to what degree do you not know? Is every possibility equally likely?")--it simply isn't important to me, and I regard it as a useless term in social discussions about gods.

"I am agnostic only to the extent that I'm agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." That is, he considers himself a de facto atheist.



[edit on 14/7/09 by paperplanes]

Originally posted by Avarus
reply to post by badmedia

 

How about this then...

NaN = NaN

1 + "1" = NaN
1000 + "1000" = NaN

and so on.

I think his point is that there are positives and negatives that formed from the big bang (or as I prefer, the big bounce). For Example, matter and anti-matter. You can also look to waves, when they cross, there are certain points where the waves will cancel each other out and leave nothing.

, well nan = not a number, so I guess in a way that is actually true. Of course, working with nan in programming beyond a check produces errors. So the equations themselves won't work.

I get his point, I wasn't trying to pee in his cheerio's. But what I'm hinting towards is that something first is there to make that logical distinction, and "nan" is pretty fitting, because what that something is, is certainly not a number.

Waves are a step in the right direction, but it's still another perception in itself.

Thanks for the laugh, that was good.



[edit on 7/14/2009 by badmedia]

Trusting God is like trusting a mad man. Only a psychotic man would believe his own contradictions. - Me.

And Cain, rhetorically says to God..."Am I my brothers keeper?" I still often wonder why a being who knows everything has the need for questions. - Me

That last one CANNOT be argued. Some may say..."God asked, as a test, to determine if the person would be honest, or if they would lie."

And I say to you...as God did with Job, and Abraham...An all-knowing being would have no reason to be testing anyone.

And they say to me..."It was not a test for God, it was a test for themselves."...

And I say to them..."And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me." - Genesis 22, Verses 11 - 12.

That basically says God tested Abraham because God did not know where Abraham's devotion lies.

All-knowing my ass!

That is all!

[edit on 14-7-2009 by sdrawkcabII]

reply to post by sdrawkcabII


Ah free-will. The God-given thing we all have..In theory, God has limited *himself* of knowing things in order for us to be truly "pure" in his sight. A lot has changed from the old testament that you quoted in comparison with the new testament, however some basic rules still apply today.

[edit on 14-7-2009 by Wookiep]

If I could, I would like to comment on two of these.

“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.”
Richard Dawkins

Umm, not very accurate. Cannot be applied to all religions. Some religions do push for understanding of the world. Believing in a creator in no way means you are an idiot, incapable of understanding all the nooks and crannies of the world.

“An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.”
John Buchan

No, an athiest has a "belief" that supports him; the "belief" that there isn't a god (creator). I assure you this belief is quite "invisible," and honestly unproven. An atheist's "god" is their disbelief in god. When someone physically grabs that "belief" and physically puts it in a bag for all to see, then let me know.

How about a quote from ol' cybertroy.

"I have personal experiences that honestly point toward creation. I have nothing in all my knowledge, and in all that I have read, over the years, that nullifies god/creator. Nothing. There is nothing that has been written in the past, being written now, or that will be written in the future that will nullify a creator. Trying to disprove a creator is pretty much the biggest waste of time and resourses ever undertaken. You are free to try disproving god if you want. But even with an eternity of time, it cannot be accomplished. The biggest hurdle you have is 'how everything first started coming into being.' " - Troy Honaker (cybertoy) - July, 2009

Carry on folks. I'm done.

Troy

Always fun to watch the "Atheists" scramble and write long reasonings of why their belief system is not Faith Based. Could it be that the OPEN MINDS they claim to have are not so open?

I have been an Agnostic, but Atheism was a concept that I could not embrace. Much too arrogant. Growing up, I sat in a lot of churches with a lot of Arrogant Christians.. that is what drove me away from Christianity. I did NOT want to model after the Arrogant Christians in my NON-belief in God.
Atheists remind me so very very much of the Arrogant legalistic asses of the Church; you know, the ones they love to hate!!

There does exist a lot of evidence of a creator. In fact there IS proof. But people believe what they want to believe and most today want nothing to infringe upon their will; thus religion that allows anything .. and Atheists.

Khouse.org is a good place to start if you really are open minded.

reply to post by Histopherness


Not to be splitting hairs here, but Thomas Jefferson was definitely not "Christian" nor a practitioner of any religion. I feel he really did not believe in a god at all:
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820

He also says hes a "Epicurian", which means he felt the same as the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, who definitely did not feel "god" was a suitable answer to the world around him. Sorry to burst your bubble.

nobeliefs.com...

[edit on 15-7-2009 by makinho21]

Here is a quote I like from George Washington's farewell address

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion, and Morality are
indispensable supports.—In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert
these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens.—The mere Politician,
equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.—A volume could not trace all their connexions
with private and public felicity.—Let it simply be asked where is security for property, for reputation, for life,
if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of
Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.
—Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure.—reason and
experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Charles Darwin:

"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars."

"When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled."
-- Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, quoted from John Stear

Sir David Attenborough:
"I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."

- Abraham Lincoln:
"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not that we be not judged."
-- Abraham Lincoln, sarcasm in his Second Innaugural Address (1865)

"I have neither time nor disposition to enter into discussion with the Friend, and end this occasion by suggesting for her consideration the question whether, if it be true that the Lord has appointed me to do the work she has indicated, it is not probable that he would have communicated knowledge of the fact to me as well as to her."
-- Abraham Lincoln, to a Quaker (Friends) clergyman who had given him a message from the Lord, from Allen Thorndyke Rice, ed, Reminiscences of Lincoln, pp. 284-285, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, p. 136

George Washington:

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."
-- George Washington, letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792, quoted from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom, also James A Haught, 2000 Years of Disbelief

"We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition ... In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States."
-- George Washington, letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793, in Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States, Vol 1. p. 497, quoted from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom