Voltaire Quotes

The fewer dogmas, the fewer disputes; the fewer disputes, the fewer miseries

One idea I explore in my stand-up show is whether, if you try looking at the universe rationally and avoid coping mechanisms like mysticism or religion, you can still be happy knowing you are going to die after a brief time on this spinning ball.

I do not believe in God because I do not believe in Mother Goose.

Man is not born to atheism. He is born to believe.

There are atheists and Christians, and there are people in both groups who are a little too heavy-handed.

A deist is someone who has not lived long enough to be an atheist.

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

If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.

It is hard to imagine, considering the inherent silliness, cruelty and superstition of the human race, how it has contrived to last as long as it has. The witch-hunting, the torturing, the gullibility, the massacres, the intolerance, the wild futility of human behaviour over the centuries is hardly credible. And the laws, as they stand today, are almost inconceivably stupid. With all this brilliant scientific knowledge of atom splitting and nuclear physics, etc., we are still worshipping at different shrines, imprisoning homosexuals, imposing unnecessary and completely irrelevant restrictions on each other. Hearts can be withdrawn from human beasts, dead hearts, and, after a little neat manipulation, popped back again as good as new. The skies can be conquered. Sputniks can whiz round and round the globe and be controlled and guided. People are still genuflecting before crucifixes and Virgin Marys, still persecuting other people for being coloured or Jewish or in some way different from what they apparently should be. There are wars being waged at this very moment in Indonesia, Algeria, the Middle East, Cyprus, etc. The Pope still makes pronouncements against birth control. The Ku-Klux-Klan is still, if permitted, ready to dash out and do some light lynching. God, for millions of people, is still secure in his heaven, and My Fair Lady opened in London last night.

But that a camel-merchant should stir up insurrection in his village; that in league with some miserable followers he persuades them that he talks with the angel Gabriel; that he boasts of having been carried to heaven, where he received in part this unintelligible book, each page of which makes common sense shudder; that, to pay homage to this book, he delivers his country to iron and flame; that he cuts the throats of fathers and kidnaps daughters; that he gives to the defeated the choice of his religion or death: this is assuredly nothing any man can excuse, at least if he was not born a Turk, or if superstition has not extinguished all natural light in him.

Gods are fragile things, they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.

I am not the opposite of theism. I am right in the middle of those non-believers and believers. It's not even about being agnostic or nastik. Why would I take a name given to me by my opposition? I am just a rationalist.

I don't pray. I'm not a deeply religious person.

Ignorance worships mystery; reason explains it; the one grovels, the other soars.

I don't believe in prayer, I'm a pretty hardcore agnostic.

I appreciate how central religion is in the lives other people, but it has never resonated with me. I imagine this is how lots of people feel about things I love, like rap music or, it turns out, sports.

I never believed in God, and I will never believe in it.

I do have a sense of spirituality.

I knew at a very young age that I didn't really buy the whole God gamut.

I see myself as a spiritual person, but I don't think anyone should claim proof of a god. No one can prove it. That's why I don't claim to know whether there are one, many or no gods.

I am an absolute atheist.

I respect people of faith, but I'm not one.

The idea of spirituality is difficult to discuss.

In no way am I a spiritual person. I'm not some guru geek.

I consider myself a religious person, but when it comes to God and faith, I don't know. I guess that means I'm agnostic.