Category: Quotes

Atheism Quotes

Atheism, Quotes, Secular Humanism

“Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion.”

~ Steven Weinberg, Theoretical Physicist, Nobel Prize Winner

“We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”

~ Richard Dawkins, Evolutionary Biologist

“The president of the United States [George Bush] has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.”

~ Sam Harris, Neuroscientist

“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”

~ Christopher Hitchens, Journalist and Critic

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

~ Epicurus (341-270 BC), Philosopher

“Don’t pray in my school, and I won’t think in your church.”

~ Unknown

“We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.”

~ Gene Roddenberry, TV Screenwriter and Producer

“Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions”

~ Blaise Pascal, Mathematician, Physicist, Philosopher

“Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man — living in the sky — who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do.. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! ..But He loves you… and HE NEEDS MONEY!”

~ George Carlin

“I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence.”

~ Doug McLeod, Writer

“Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, ‘atheism’ is a term that should not even exist. No one needs to identify himself as a ‘non-astrologer’ or a ‘non-alchemist.’ We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.”

~ Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”

~ George Bernard Shaw

“Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.”

~ Unknown

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

~ Carl Sagan

Understanding Stigma

Mental Health, Quotes, Stigma

There are so many books on this topic and those who dealt with issues: composers, artists, even whole books that put Shakespeare’s plays and characters in the context of mental health.

But despite that interest, people with mental health issues didn’t always receive the care they needed. We mistreated people, we misunderstood people and we didn’t have good treatment options.

One of the big things people can do is talk about it. Sharing that mental health is common, that it’s treatable and that there are resources helps people understand. Organizations like the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association are good resources for support, information and treatment.

People need to know that there’s hope and help because it ties into the past, why people didn’t talk about it. There weren’t good options like there are now.

~ Psychiatrist Douglas McLaughlin, Cleveland Clinic

Sam Harris on Atheism

Quotes, Secular Humanism

“Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, ‘atheism’ is a term that should not even exist. No one needs to identify himself as a ‘non-astrologer’ or a ‘non-alchemist.’ We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.”
~ Sam Harris, from “Letter to a Christian Nation”

H. L. Mencken

Politics, Quotes

Politics 1920’s edition:

“The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
~ H. L. Mencken (Baltimore Evening Sun: “Bayard vs. Lionheart” 26 July 1920)

#Quotes #Elections #Politics