Religiosity developed because successful religions made groups more efficient at turning resources into offspring.” (including art, cathedrals, cities, earthworks, etc?)

If the creation of the Universe was left up to a atheist, we would still have nothing.

Given the level of understanding and the fact that they believed already in a set of myths and superstitions, it was the easiest and fastest way to proceed.

Whether you say that a god does exist, or that none do, it is a claimto know (or at least believe in) something. Once you claim to knowsomething, you can’t call that a lack of...

Either god exists or it doesn’t exist. If a god does exist, it either interacts with the universe in some detectable way or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, that god is indistinguishable from a non-existent...

In God We Trust?” How can I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God? Answer: I can’t. It’s a real problem. Don’t get me wrong – I’d like to believe...

It is time we admitted, from kings and presidents on down, that there is no evidence that any of our books was authored by the Creator of the universe. The Bible, it seems certain, was...

Science and religion both make claims about the fundamental workings of the universe. Although these claims are not a priori incompatible (we could imagine being brought to religious belief through scientific investigation), I will argue...

Every song has a composer, every book has an author, every car has a maker, every painting has a painter, and every building has a builder. So it isn’t irrational to take this simple logic...

the Christian majority’s” private liking.

A long time ago I learned that an atheist and a believer trying to have a discussion about God and religion is like shooting the breeze and having it shoot back.

A God made by man undoubtedly has need of man to make himself known to man.

Reasonableness is a matter of degree. Beliefs can be very reasonable (Japan exists), fairly reasonable (quarks exist), not unreasonable (there’s intelligent life on other planets) or downright unreasonable (fairies exist).There’s a scale of reasonableness, if...

Suns are extinguished or become corrupted, planets perish and scatter across the wastes of the sky; other suns are kindled, new planets formed to make their revolutions or describe new orbits, and man, an infinitely...

Remembering that only a few years ago men, women, and even children, were imprisoned, tortured and burned, for having expressed in an exceedingly mild and gentle way, the ideas entertained by me, I congratulate myself...

That name was a kind of joke, and not a very good one. An author, Leon Lederman, wanted to call it ‘that goddamn particle’ because it was clear it was going to be a tough...

I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.

A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.

When it is recalled that until the Christian era the underworld was never regardded as a hostile area, that all gods were useful and essentially friendly to man despite occasional lapsesl when we see the...

Prior to Flew, major apologies for atheism were those of Enlightenment thinkers (David Hume, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Friedrich Nietzsche).Major philosophers of Flew’s generation who were atheists: W. V. O. Quine and Gilbert Ryle....

Eskimo: “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?” Priest: “No, not if you did not know.” Eskimo: “Then why did you tell me?

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument...

Different authors have different points of view. You can’t just say, ‘I believe in the Bible.

We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more...

Religions and states and classes and tribes and nations do not have to work or argue for their adherents and subjects. They more or less inherit them. Against this unearned patrimony there have always been...

May all beings be free of pretended happiness.May all beings find their deepest lie.May all beings see the nature of their inner turmoil.May all beings realize what they are not.And through this, may all beings...

Even though I don’t personally believe in the Lord, I try to behave as though He was watching.

There was a time when skepticism was an act of rebellion. Since to a degree I both believe in evolution and have faith, I can only conclude that, as prophesied, to have faith will someday...

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...

Religion… has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever… If someone votes for a party that you don’t agree with, you’re free to argue about it as...

It is my firm conviction that man has nothing to gain, emotionally or otherwise, by adhering to a falsehood, regardless of how comfortable or sacred that falsehood may appear. Anyone who claims, on the one...

Virtue is under certain circumstances merely an honorable form of stupidity: who could be ill-disposed toward it on that account? And this kind of virtue has not been outlived even today. A kind of sturdy...

I think only an idiot can be an atheist. We must admit that there exists an incomprehensible power or force with limitless foresight and knowledge that started the whole universe going in the first place.

please not condemn me to eternal suffering in the interminable fires of Perdition for my transgressions.

On the church vaulting above was the clock-face of eternity, void of number and serving as its own hand, only one black finger was pointing and the dead wanted to tell the time by it.

He freed man from outer religiosity because he made religiosity the inner man. He freed the body from chains because he enchained the heart.

One of the main reasons and excuses behind every religious failure is a” FALSE PROMISE”.

People thank God when God no longer sits on the throne. The angels descend down to deliver miracles because they are trying to maintain the face of God. In the end, you must place your...

Why do more than 40 percent of Americans think that the Universe began after the domestication of the dog?

Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought.

The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there’s any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all.

Napoleon, when hearing about Laplace’s latest book, said, ‘M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its creator.’Laplace responds, ‘Je n’avais...

I agree with Pierre Bayle and with Unamuno that when cold reason contemplates the world it finds not only an absence of God, but good reasons for supposing that there is no God at all....

Science discovered long ago that carbon is a source of life. The ashes of my faith have prepared the ground for the planting of seeds that have produced new forms of truth, morality and meaning...

There is no higher authority.

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

It is possible to conceive, Anselm said, of a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Even an atheist can conceive of such a superlative being, though he would deny its existence in the...

For those in love with an illusion often refuse to accept reality

God must have a weird sense of values, and if there’s a Judgment Day, as some folks think, He’s going to have a lot to answer for.

It’s a strange myth that atheists have nothing to live for. It’s the opposite. We have nothing to die for. We have everything to live for.