Famous Atheists

[skywalker]

Seems there has been talk about how atheists can not have moral conviction because they have no higher power to keep them honest and can't be trusted. This a list of some famous atheists who I think are as moral and good as anyone (on the surface anyway):

Famous Atheists

Who are some famous atheiests from years past? Read and find out!

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
-- James Madison (1751-1836)

"If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced."
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

"For myself, I do not believe in any revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities."
-- Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them."
-- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"God is a mean-spirited, pugnacious bully bent on revenge against His children for failing to live up to his impossible standards."
-- Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."
-- "Mark Twain" (1835-1910)

"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God."
-- Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

"It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be."
-- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

"It runs through the entire Christian story, and our case against the Catholic Church is that, albeit it originated in a passionate assertion of the conception of brotherly equality, it relapsed steadily from the broad nobility of its beginnings and passed over at last almost completely to the side of persecution and the pleasures of cruelty."
-- H.G. Wells (1866-1946)

"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature."
-- Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
-- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time."
-- Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)

"I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will--and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain."
-- Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991)

This article is from: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art3701.asp

Mark

[Ar-Cunin]

Originally posted by skywalker: "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

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- I wonder how long it will take someone to respond with some quotea from infamous atheists

[skywalker]

Originally posted by Ar-Cunin: - - I wonder how long it will take someone to respond with some quotea from infamous atheists

Soon I hope! That's the fun of an open forum!

Mark

[Bardan the Slayer]

If anyone says I can't have a moral code because I think God is a fairy-tale, then i beat their head in with a rock! they deserve it!

On a more serious note - I've heard people say this before. Man, but when I move to the bible belt, people are gonna think i am the devil incarnate come to steal their children . I'm a moral person, but my motives are pure - I don't do good things out of fear of divine retribution, but because I believe that i should help my fellow man.

Of course, I really don't care what people think - if someone thinks I can't be trusted because I don't believe in God, then that's their problem, not mine. They can judge me all they want by the label they place on me, but I judge myself by my actions, and my own judgement is everything to me, and theirs is nothing [img]smile.gif[/img]

What a cheery post, eh?

Mark why do you keep saying those things? I saw no one bashing the Atheists. All I saw was ME asking questions about Atheists. By your reasoning, If I asked an Asian how he liked to do his laundry that would make me a racist. Sheesh. But thanks for the info on the Great Atheist quotes.

[AzRaeL StoRmBlaDe]

I think somone forgot the one in my sig

Einstein was an atheist? I thnk not, he had another quote to his credit that you may have missed. "God Does not play dice with the Universe" Uttered in a discussion about Quantum physics. Are there other possible paradoxes in your quotes? thats just one that I saw right off.

[ 10-24-2002, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Originally posted by AzRaeL StoRmBlaDe: I think somone forgot the one in my sig

There’s Nothing wrong with Karl Marx,
However Here’s A quote from An Infamous atheist, through arguably it could be said that He did believe in the Church of Lenin ;o)

One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.
-Joseph Stalin

(However I reckon that whether you are an atheist has nothing to do with your morality etc, Since There Is an “is- Ought” gap, and one should note that people have done evil things in the name of religion & In the name of atheism, And also that Atheists have done good deeds, and So have religious people, morality Tends to have little to do with The Relgion you follow, and much to do with the person themself and How they interpret their relgion (if they belive in one)

[ 10-24-2002, 01:45 PM: Message edited by: Eisenschwarz ]

[Ronn_Bman]

Originally posted by skywalker: Seems there has been talk about how atheists can not have moral conviction because they have no higher power to keep them honest and can't be trusted. Mark

I've certainly never felt this way.

I wouldn't admit it if I did though for fear someone may beat my head with a rock. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

J/K

I think there are lots of decent and moral atheists. Some "Christians" I know don't act very decent or moral. One I work with comes to mind especially. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Choosing not to believe in God, doesn't mean you are automatically "satan spawn", and I don't think most Christians feel that way.

It does means you're not going to Heaven though.

[ 10-24-2002, 04:29 PM: Message edited by: Ronn_Bman ]

[Sazerac]

A curiosity: how much of this is not about athiesm, but about whether a person adheres to organized religion?

I happen to be a highly spiritual person. I also have disdained organized religion as being unnecessary for my spiritual practices. Would I be considered "athiest" for that?

To my mind, organized religion is like organized crime or organized labor. The reason that those institutions are organized are not for the benefit of the individual, or at the very least, rarely so.

-Sazerac