Good Atheist Quotes

#1. A Buddhist or a good atheist is as acceptable to God as a good Catholic.

Pat Buckley

#2. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

Bertrand Russell

#3. I'm an atheist - a good old North Korean-style atheist.

Jim Crace

#4. If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists.

George Washington

#5. The best reply to an atheist is to give him a good dinner and ask him if he believes there is a cook.

Louis Nizer

#6. Everybody that is just is called to form part of the Kingdom of Heaven-whether they be Buddhas, Jews, or Atheists-as long as they are good.

Pope John Paul II

#7. Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?

Arthur C. Clarke

#8. Actually I'm pretty adamant about, you know, the whole God thing and it seems that skeptics are by and large atheists or something approaching that, which I strongly identify with. So it turned out to be a good thing and I have become enthusiastically part of it.

Jamie Hyneman

#9. Men have never fully used [their] powers to advance the good in life, because they have waited upon some power external to themselves and to nature to do the work they are responsible for doing.

John Dewey

#10. I don't think it is a good mental health practice to fantasize that you know the infinite thoughts of imaginary entities.

Stefan Molyneux

#11. She thought there were no Gods; no one was to blame; and so she evolved this atheist's religion of doing good for the sake of goodness.

Virginia Woolf

#12. They felt that science would be corrosive to religious belief and they were worried about it. Damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive to religious belief and it's a good thing.

Steven Weinberg

#13. For wicked people to do evil requires money, and good people superstition. Combining these elements and we get organized religion, but to achieve the worst of all evil conflate politics to the compound and the tragedies are endless.

Sean S. Kamali

#14. It is the black work of an ungodly man or an atheist, that God is not in all his thoughts. What comfort can be had in the being of God without thinking of him with reverence and delight? A God forgotten is as good as no God to us.

Stephen Charnock

#15. I'm not a religious person; I would call myself an atheist. I don't have a good story behind it, I'm just reasonable.

Anthony Jeselnik

#16. We (atheists) act in good conscience because we believe in moral principles, not because we expect a reward in Heaven.

Margherita Hack

#17. I'm an atheist, and I don't have any belief in an afterlife. You could say that I'm resigned to the fact that this wonderful life that we get here is it. And having hit 60, it's a good time to get resigned to these things and not be too nervous or upset - and enjoy what great times one can have.

David Gilmour

#18. In order to obey God, one must receive his commands. How did it happen that I received them in adolescence, while I was professing atheism? To believe that the desire for good is always fulfilled - that is faith, and whoever has it is not an atheist.

Simone Weil

#19. [When asked 'Given the chance, how would you change the world?']
It's a big question. Getting rid of religion would be a good start, wouldn't it? It seems to be causing a lot of havoc.

Bjork

#20. The problem of good as it faces the atheist is this: Nature, which is the nuts-and-bolts reality for the atheist, has no values and thus can offer no grounding for good and evil. Values on the atheist view are subjective and contingent.

William A. Dembski

#21. When I was growing up I was an atheist, then an agnostic, and then I had a good eight or ten years of being quite a serious Christian.

Moby

#22. I am what you call a non-believer. I don't even want to say I'm an atheist because frankly I don't want to join their club either. But the point is, I am a fallen catholic, I'm not religious, and that's all well and good.

Kathy Griffin

#23. Atheists have an excellent longevity record because we have no place to go after we die, so we take good care of ourselves and our world while we are here.

Madalyn Murray O'Hair

#24. Atheists would teach men to be moral now, not because God offers as an inducement reward by and by, but because in the virtuous act itself immediate good is insured to the doer and the circle surrounding him.

Charles Bradlaugh

#25. If you want to turn out an atheist child, unconditional love constantly is a good way to do it.

Penn Jillette

#26. I am an atheist and I consider religions to be a form of collective neurosis. I am not an enemy of the Catholics, as I am not an enemy of the tuberculars, the myopic or the paralytics; you cannot be an enemy of the sick, only their good friend in order to help them cure themselves.

Diego Rivera

#27. I have received many touching letters and emails from people who live in the most religious parts of the country, in places like rural Texas, saying it is so good to see someone be able to say I am an atheist without shame.

Susan Jacoby

#28. Whatever good you would do out of fear of punishment, or hope of reward hereafter, the Atheist would do simply because it is good; and being so, he would receive the far surer and more certain reward, springing from well-doing, which would constitute his pleasure, and promote his happiness.

Ernestine Rose

#29. As an atheist you have to rationalize things ... Then you have to try and make some sort of sense out of your problems. And if you try and find you can't, you have no choice but to be good and scared
but that's okay!

Billy Joel

#30. If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ... Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.

Thomas Jefferson

#31. When I die, I shall be content to vanish into nothingness ... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it.

H.L. Mencken

#32. To hell with you, Buddy. No policeman wants to protect a goddamned atheist. I hope somebody bloodies you up good.

Richard Dawkins

#33. There is no reason why an atheist could not write a good Mass.

Ralph Vaughan Williams

#34. God gives out good gifts of wisdom, talent, beauty, and skill 'graciously'
that is, in a completely unmerited way. He casts them across all humanity, regardless of religious conviction, race, gender, or any other attribute to enrich, brighten, and preserve the world.

Timothy Keller

#35. You don't get to advertise all the good that your religion does without first scrupulously subtracting all the harm it does and considering seriously the question of whether some other religion, or no religion at all, does better.

Daniel Dennett

#36. The real heretic is not the atheist or agnostic (who are often decent people) but those who murmur "it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as it makes you feel good." This turns religion into a subjective matter, like taste in furnishings, and robs theology of its claim to ultimate truth.

Sydney J. Harris

#37. End the eternal battle of beliefs once and for all. If you are a believer, love your fellow non-believer for all the good things he or she has to offer. And if you are an atheist, then love your fellow believer for all the positivity he or she possesses.

Abhijit Naskar

#38. Being engaged in some way for the good of the community, whatever that community, is a factor in a meaningful life. We long to belong, and belonging and caring anchors our sense of place in the universe.

Patricia Churchland

#39. The statement that 'God is dead' comes from Nietzsche and has recently been trumpeted abroad by some German and American theologians. But the good Lord has not died of this; He who dwells in the heaven laughs at them.

Karl Barth

#40. An atheist is but a mad, ridiculous derider of piety, but a hypocrite makes a sober jest of God and religion; he finds it easier to be upon his knees than to rise to a good action.

Alexander Pope

#41. The atheists traditionally hold their conventions from Good Friday to Easter Sunday during the hours Christ spent in the grave.

Bill Murray

#42. I liked making people laugh, and I decided I was an atheist early on. My Dad was all right with that. We argued about it all the time, but it was good-natured. He was the most open-minded human being I've ever known.

Dave Barry

#43. Atheists can be good people; they just have no objective way to judge the conduct of those who are not.

Michael Gerson

#44. Good churches are not built by bad men; at least, there must be probity and enthusiasm somewhere in the society. These minsters were neither built nor filled by atheists.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#45. When a mere girl, my mother offered me a dollar if I would read the Bible through; ... despairing of reconciling many of its absurd statements with even my childish philosophy, ... I became a sceptic, doubter, and unbeliever, long ere the 'Good Book' was ended.

Elmina Drake Slenker

#46. I'm an atheist swimming in a sea of superstition, surrounded by well-meaning, good people with whom I share a culture and similar concerns, and there's only one thing I can do. I have to laugh. Living

P.Z. Myers