Another reason why I don't believe.

Then, when you see one of your children born and you love them and would give your life for them in a heartbeat, does that convince you there's no such thing as evil?

I thought you said you were voting for Obama?

"I just know that the bad seems to have no limits".

There's no shortage of evidence of that, I'll grant you. Actually, bad people who do bad things for bad reasons aren't the ones that concern me as much. Good people who do bad things that they justify with good intentions are the ones who bother me more - because nobody is going to read that CNN story and decide to microwave a baby, but somebody might see that our government might torture information out of a suspect in Guantanamo Bay and assume that means the police should be able to beat a confession out of a suspect, or they should be able to imprison someone for the rest of their lives without so much as a trial. And once it is an accepted practice, the forms of torture can get more and more brutal. And if that goes on long enough and gets wide-spread enough, it affects lots more people.

But I digress - yes, cases like that are certainly proof of pure, unadulterated evil in the world. Whether pure evil implies the existance of pure good or not is another question. And whether that purely good entity has the power to do purely good things is another one - and whether, if that power exists, whether that purely good entity would choose to use it to override evil actions of people.

I guess that's why they call it "faith" - because it's not "certainty".

If there is a God should he have imposed instant justice on the beast that baked this innocent baby - like have her die a similar death as soon as the timer ran out on the baby?

Would he have been better off restricting our choices to only 'good' ones?

Maybe the idea of humans as free moral agents was flawed from the start. We should have been pre-programmed to do only what he deemed good ....

But where's the fun in that? Robots are no fun.

101 Atheist quotes
thanks to The Atheist Blogger:

1. The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality. - George Bernard Shaw
2. Faith means not wanting to know what is true. - Friedrich Nietzsche
3. I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. - Frank Lloyd Wright
4. 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
5. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. - Isaac Asimov
6. A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. - Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
7. Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca the Younger
8. Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. - Anonymous
9. Not only is there no god, but try getting a plumber on weekends. - Woody Allen
10. If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul. - Isaac Asimov

11. Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination. - Edward Abbey
12. With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg
13. I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. - Doug McLeod
14. The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence. - Abu’l‐Ala al Ma’arri
15. Since the Bible and the church are obviously mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going? - Anonymous
16. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. - Susan B. Anthony
17. The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike. - Delos B. McKown
18. Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. - Anonymous
19. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. - Francis Bacon
20. The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - Richard Dawkins
21. A God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God who interfered with human freedom and creativity was tyrant. If God is seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect. he becomes a being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all‐knowing tyrant is not so different from earthly dictators who make everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism that rejects such a God is amply justified. - Karen Armstrong
22. It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image. - Ludwig Feuerbach
23. People ask me what I think about that woman priest thing. What, a woman priest? Women priests. Great, great. Now there’s priests of both sexes I don’t listen to. - Bill Hicks
24. All the biblical miracles will at last disappear with the progress of science. - Matthew Arnold
25. Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence. - Anonymous
26. Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. - Richard Dawkins
27. What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. - Christopher Hitchens
28. In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point. - Friedrich Nietzsche
29. It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. - George W. Foote
30. On the first day, man created God. - Anonymous
31. I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. - Stephen Roberts
32. You do not need the Bible to justify love, but no better tool has been invented to justify hate. - Richard A. Weatherwax
33. What’s “God”? Well, you know, when you want something really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God’s the guy that ignores you. - Steve Buscemi (From the movie “The Island”)
34. As far as I can tell from studying the scriptures, all you do in heaven is pretty much just sit around all day and praise the Lord. I don’t know about you, but I think that after the first, oh, I don’t know, 50,000,000 years of that I’d start to get a little bored. - Rick Reynolds
35. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish. - Anonymous
36. Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color. - Don Hirschberg
37. God should be executed for crimes against humanity. - Bryan Emmanuel Gutierrez
38. To say that atheism requires faith is as dim-witted as saying that disbelief in pixies or leprechauns takes faith. Even if Einstein himself told me there was an elf on my shoulder, I would still ask for proof and I wouldn’t be wrong to ask. - Geoff Mather
39. I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. - Mark Twain
40. Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men. - Voltaire
41. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence. - Bertrand Russell
42. 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
43. I’m a polyatheist - there are many gods I don’t believe in. - Dan Fouts
44. If it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he’s an underachiever. - Woody Allen
45. A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it. - David Stevens
46. Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a God superior to themselves. Most Gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. - Robert A Heinlein
47. I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing. - Douglas Adams
48. 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
49. He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave. - William Drummond
50. Remember, Jesus would rather constantly shame gays than let orphans have a family. - Steven Colbert
51. Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s? - Friedrich Nietzsche
52. Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people. - Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney
53. Religion has caused more misery to all of mankind in every stage of human history than any other single idea. - Anonymous
54. When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life. - Sigmund Freud
55. 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
56. Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains. - Robert G. Ingersoll
57. History teaches us that no other cause has brought more death than the word of god. - Giulian Buzila
58. Atheism is a non-prophet organization. - George Carlin
59. 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
60. A believer states everything must have a creator but fail to say how he was created. - Anonymous
61. “There are no atheists in foxholes” isn’t an argument against atheism, it’s an argument against foxholes. - James Morrow
62. People will then often say, ‘But surely it’s better to remain an Agnostic just in case?’ This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I’ve been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.) - Douglas Adams
63. Properly read, the bible is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived. - Isaac Asimov
64. If all the Christians who have called other Christians “not really a Christian” were to vanish, there’d be no Christians left. - Anonymous
65. An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. - John Buchan
66. Gods dont kill people. People with Gods kill people. - David Viaene
67. If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which He has inflicted upon men, He would kill Himself. - Alexandre Dumas
68. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma. - Sam Harris
69. I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose - Clarence Darrow
70. No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism. - Annie Wood Besant
71. I refuse to believe in a god who is the primary cause of conflict in the world, preaches racism, sexism, homophobia, and ignorance, and then sends me to hell if I’m ‘bad’. - Mike Fuhrman
72. Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. - Frater Ravus
73. Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o, and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have. - Penn Jillette
74. Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power but absolute power is corrupt only in the hands of the absolutely faithful. - Anonymous
75. Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense. - Chapman Cohen
76. The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it. - Robert G. Ingersoll
77. When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called religion. - Robert Pirsig
78. I wonder who got the shit job of scouring the planet for the 15000 species of butterfly or the 8800 species of ant they eventually took on board Noah’s Ark. But at least we got that magical rainbow for all their trouble. - Azura Skye
79. I have no need for religion, I have a conscience. - Anonymous
80. Man has always required an explanation for all of those things in the world he did not understand. If an explanation was not available, he created one. - Jim Crawford
81. I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins
82. What has been Christianity’s fruits? Superstition, Bigotry and Persecution. - James Madison
83. The characters and events depicted in the damn bible are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. - Penn and Teller
84. If god is the alpha and the omega. The begining and the end, knows what has passed and what is to come, like it states in the bible, why do people pray and think it will make any difference. - Mark Fairclough
85. The finality of death is the coldest truth one must face. Religion makes the perfect distraction. - Anonymous
86. Religion is the opiate of the masses. - Karl Marx
87. If God created the world, then who created god? and who created whoever created god? So somewhere along the line something had to just be there. So why can’t we just skip the idea of god and go straight to earth? - Ryan Hanson
88. If we expect God to subscribe to one religion at the exclusion of all the others, then we should expect damnation as a matter of chance. This should give Christians pause when expounding their religious beliefs, but it does not. - Sam Harris
89. Atheists will celebrate life, while you’re in church celebrating death. - Anonymous
90. Animals do not have gods, they are smarter than that. - Ronnie Snow
91. I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever. - Daniel Boorstin
92. 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. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake… Religion is all bunk. - Thomas Edison
93. Fundamentalism, of any type, due to its prerequisite lack of intelligent thought, could prove to be the worst weapon of mass destruction, of all. - David J. Constable
94. To really be free, You need to be free in the mind. - Alexander Loutsis
95. Most religions prophecy the end of the world and then consistently work together to ensure that these prophecies come true. - Anonymous
96. Jesus hardly made the greatest sacrifice. He knew he would be resurrected anyway. - Anonymous
97. Religion is like a virus that affects the behaviour of its host in such a way as to propagate itself further. - Jack Pritchard
98. Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing. - Thomas Hobbs
99. Today’s religion will be the future’s mythology. Both believed at one time by many; but proved wrong by the clever. - Steven Crocker
100. The Bible - A Fairytale book of rules brainwashing millions. Obliviously used to help create war, kill, hate, judge and discriminate. - Anonymous
101. Why can’t we see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? - Douglas Adams

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." - Seneca the Younger

Smart dude.

why is it that you people that cry bible bashing from those that give their religious beliefs bash the shit out of them for it, and constantly whine for your diapers to be changed because you think their views are being forced on you, and then you turn around and constantly create anti-religion threads?

i have yet to see any one thread started that is in any way related to preaching any kind of faith or religion to anyone on here. yet...almost daily, there is this is shit!

who gives a shit if you believe or not? no religious person on here is trying to convert the non-believers, so quit trying to convert the believers...it is just as old as the RC vs James shit...

Believe in god, or don't believe in god..........I don't care. Long as you keep it to yourself and out of the government.

You're right to religious freedom ends at my doorstep.

I guess you've forgotten the "faith based" presidency of George Bush the lesser. A presidency that allowed evangelicals unprecedented say in policy.

Just watch and listen carefully
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyNqw6umRq8

That guy looks like he may be a Muslim. What's up with that accent anyway?

It makes them feel better about their choice.

it will change, right now good and evil are sorting them selves out. soon enough evil will go by by. to just make everyone good we'd be robots. since the start of man no matter when that was dosn't compare to for ever.

Because we are trying to pull you out of the matrix and wake your ass up.


If you believe in the Bible or any religion based on a book it is because it was ingrained on you and passed down. To me you need to learn to think for yourself. If you have your own personal relationship with God or own belief then that is fine. It's just the books, fairy tales, churches, and all the bullshit that makes us mad that you believe in that because we want you to look back and realize how silly some of it sounds.

Oh, and use your Cap Locks. It should be on the left side of your keyboard.

Its not Gods fault some whack job nukes her kid. God is real and can touch your life’s I never had any bible teaching no church nothing. When God touched me. (Go ahead all the atheists out their and have a field day with this) it must be the atheists own demons their dealing with to even start a thread like this. And I am not trying to cram God down your throats. But I am probably suppose to start all this Jesus love stuff but I will spare you with it for now and tell you that God does not cause bad things to happen he gave us free will. And sense the world is rejecting God that can not be good. I would have never brought up the God thing but with all the anti God stuff on vital it looks like you want to. You must be searching for the truth. I will prey for all on vital that God will move in all our lives. When your on your death bed and the imps are coming let me know how its going.( man I know that’s harsh LOL) now let me have it I need at least one STFUN this is great stuff I feel better now.

"Oh, and use your Cap Locks. It should be on the left side of your keyboard."
Quit trying to force your belief in Grammer on me.

I don't dismiss the idea of a God or afterlife. Far from it. I just don't think it's like what is written in religions around the world. So for me, I like the idea of some type of God and afterlife but I don't pretend to know or refer to a fairy tale book to tell me. I just have to be satisfied that I have no idea what is going to happen when I die and that nobody really knows.


I think we are in a stage of evolution where people are starting to realize that the Bible really doesn't make much sense and we are questioning it. Remember the Greek mythology where they had Zeus and all those other Gods and now that just sounds ridiculous.

What God are you talking about and which God are you going to pray to for the members here? Christian God? Jesus? Allah? Buddha? Can I request one?


God is very personal and I think there may be a real possibility of a God or something greater that watches over us but I don't know that for sure. I think many of us have that sense inside of us that there is something greater going on and that we are connected to something greater-it's just when people try and explain it by making shit up and putting it in writing such as the Bible/Koran, etc.


Many of us can feel "God" or something greater and we try and explain it through religion to make us feel better but why can't we just be satisfied with talking to God or whatever in privacy and just be at peace that there is something greater and that we don't really need to understand it completely?


Also, how do you know you are not any different than the roadkill you rode by this morning or the ant your pest guy killed? All legit questions but most people stick to the book and don't question things like that. Personally, I don't know if there is a God or afterlife but I like to think there is.


There is something inside of me that feels a connection to something greater and there is a sense inside me that we do go to another place when we die. The thing is I don't know and don't pretend to know what that is.

Bad Shit in the World = Proof of No God?

Wow, great logic...

"Oh, and use your Cap Locks. It should be on the left side of your keyboard."
Quit trying to force your belief in Grammer on me.


that there was kind of funny...

You forgot where your damn cap locks button was as well.

The only thing worse than a religious zealot, is an atheist that feels it's his mission in life to go around bashing people's beliefs. I've met far more obnoxious prick atheists than religious types.

If everyone just kept the shit to themselves.........the world would be a much better place.

Really? I think your ratio might be off a tad.

First, atheisim is not a religion so we have nothing to spread. We just get irritated by people that look down on us and live a life based on fairy tale books. It's annoying and frustrating.


I've been on the other side. I've been baptized, took a 3 month ministry class, went to different churches and finally I just started reading and researching and found out there were other people who doubted things like me and realized I was not alone and that it was OK not to believe in Christianity or a God and it was OK to start questioning things that we are taught here in America.


It was tough to let go of that stranglehold. I felt like I was abandoning God and would pay the consequences but I just felt like the whole religion and Christianity thing didn't make sense and that there were many other people that felt the same. Now being on the other side I kind of look down on Christians where 10 years ago I looked down on people that weren't Christians. Kind of a complete flip flop for me. Now I'm just somewhere in the middle where I'm like fuck it-there may be a God-may not be one so why pretend to even know. Just live my life. However, I do still feel like there is something greater-I just don't understand it or look to religion to find it.


Also, I think atheists really do keep to themselves. However, religions don't. You have churches on every corner, missionaries going to other countries to hand out bibles and preach Christianity, Christians praying for non believers and trying to convert people into Christianity, etc. At least with Atheists you get into some thinking and thought and try to get people to start questioning some things they are or were taught.



Also, if you do believe in God I think that true spirituality or a connection with God does not require a church or religion. Like the Sunni Muslims believe is that God is as close as your throat-always right in front of you to talk to at any time and they despise any hierachy, leaders, etc. It's all about a one on one relationship with God and requires no intermediary or leader or anything. The Shiite's and the Catholics have taken it to a whole new level. The Sunni's despise the Shiite's and most the Muslim culture is made up of Sunni's which is good. The Shiite's took the Koran and turned it into a different interpretation and is practiced much differently than the Sunni's.


Believing in God is one thing and I think it's very personal and is more of a one on one relationship. The whole idea of religion, churches, pastors, mosques, etc. to have a relationship with God is just ridiculous.


It really boils down a lot to education. Do you just believe what you were raised to believe in this Christian America with a church on every corner or do you open your mind to other possibilities, other ways people believe and then start to question things?

Wow. That may be one of the most complete and perfect examples of somebody coming out and making the point.

This is why I dislike atheists as much as the religious nuts..........everyone but you can see from your own post how blinded by your own opinion you are. You've actually managed to include more insults and examples of obnoxious prickism in your single post above......then all of the religious posts on here the past month.

Your absence of a belief in god, is a belief nonetheless..........and the insistence of atheists beating down other's with that belief.......is no different than the religious.

This is why you should all STFU. Keep your shit to yourselves.

You're right to religious freedom ends at my doorstep.........I'd "gently" escort you off my property just as fast as the Jehovahs.

I don't eat anymore because I was forced to eat as a youngster.
"Please give me a God that I can hate," is the cry of the unrenewed heart. Keep Him at arm's length...
"Don't want Him Around....."


Oh, and Groanponi, watch your language (in advance).