Philosophy of Religion Quotes

I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books.

I am not an atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds.

An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism.

I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt.

It was the schoolboy who said, ""Faith is believing what you know ain't so.""

Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors. Can it be by accident that all birds beasts and men have their right side and left side alike shaped (except in their bowels) and just two eyes and no more on either side the face and just two ears on either side the head and a nose with two holes and no more between the eyes and one mouth under the nose and either two fore leggs or two wings or two arms on the sholders and two leggs on the hipps one on either side and no more? Whence arises this uniformity in all their outward shapes but from the counsel and contrivance of an Author? Whence is it that the eyes of all sorts of living creatures are transparent to the very bottom and the only transparent members in the body, having on the outside an hard transparent skin, and within transparent juyces with a crystalline Lens in the middle and a pupil before the Lens all of them so truly shaped and fitted for vision, that no Artist can mend them? Did blind chance know that there was light and what was its refraction and fit the eyes of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These and such like considerations always have and ever will prevail with man kind to believe that there is a being who made all things and has all things in his power and who is therefore to be feared.

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. ... Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

Is there a God? There is, but we don't know where. Or who. And, indeed, why.

I certainly don’t believe in religion, although I find it fascinating that it’s become so powerful in the world and it’s kind of dictated morals down through societies for thousands of years, but I don’t see the hand of God at work in the world anywhere.

If we grant freedom to man, there is an end to the omniscience of God.

I do know that there are some things that exist in this world that you just can't prove. That could be the case with God or whoever might be up there, but I don't follow any one religion.

You know, on the spectrum of religious belief, there is atheism - these are people that don't believe. There's theism - these are the believers and agnostics say it's beyond comprehension that the whole issue of God us unknowable. You might be interested to know that perhaps the greatest mind of the 20th century Einstein, the one time that he actually used one of these appellations was in a letter about five years before he died and he referred to himself as an agnostic.

Sometimes I doubt and sometimes I believe. And I like not making myself believe when I am doubting, and not making myself doubt when I am believing. Surely neither God nor Accident need my consistency.

Sir Arthur Eddington deduces religion from the fact that atoms do not obey the laws of mathematics. Sir James Jeans deduces it from the fact that they do.

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

I read a book lately by Nietzsche and he says religion is just to dull the senses of the people. I agree.

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word "love."

Theology is an attempt to explain a subject by men who do not understand it. The intent is not to tell the truth but to satisfy the questioner.

It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.

Question boldly even the existence of God.

He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God.

It was good of Friedrich Nietzsche to declare God dead - I declare that he has never been born. It is a created fiction, an invention, not a discovery. Do you understand the difference between invention and discovery? A discovery is about truth, an invention is manufactured by you. It is man-manufactured fiction.

we know God is dead, they've told us, but listening to you I wasn't sure.

I find every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly: and where it fails them, they cry out, It is a matter of faith, and above reason.