Quotes About Belief

The truth, finally, is who can tell it.

Ours was a typical grief, and yet I say it without believing it. When death becomes personal, then there is nothing typical about it.

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

ATHEIST is really a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term, it admits of no paltering and no evasion, and the need of the world, now as ever, is for clear-cut issues and unambiguous speech.

All my life I have made it a rule never to permit a religious man or woman take for granted that his or her religious beliefs deserved more consideration than non-religious beliefs or anti-religious ones. I never agree with that foolish statement that I ought to respect the views of others when I believe them to be wrong.

If one believes in a god, one is a Theist. If one does not believe in a god, then one is an A-theist — he is without that belief. The distinction between atheism and theism is entirely, exclusively, that of whether one has or has not a belief in God.

Science gives up to religion that which cannot be known, and as it does not know what it is, that cannot be known, it surrenders to religion absolute vacuity as the proper sphere for its operations.

If theism be true man is mocked by a mirage. And the knowledge is made the more depressing by the belief that the plan is not accidental, it is not a product of the working of non-conscious forces, it is the preordained outcome of a plan that was deliberately resolved on by a being with full power to devise some thing wiser and better.

And why urge people to make an effort in this or that direction if everything, including the effort or its absence, is determined?

Finally, it is one aim of this book to press home the point that the logical issue is between Theism and Atheism. That there is no logical halting place between the two, and that any attempt to call a halt is little more than a concession to a desire for mental or social convenience, seems to me as clear as anything can well be.

We who know both sides know that in giving up the belief in deity we have lost nothing of value, nothing that need cause us a single regret. And on that point we certainly can speak with authority; for we have been where the Theist is, he has not been where we are.

All that we can say is that the belief in God is universal—with those who believe in him. And even here universality of belief is only secured by their refraining from discussing precisely what it is they mean by "God," and what it is they believe in. There is agreement in obscurity, each one dreading to see clearly the features of his assumed friend for fear he should recognise the face of an enemy.

There is no exception to the fact that men have everywhere come to the conclusion that the earth was flat, and yet a wider and truer knowledge proved that universal belief to be quite false. The fact of a certain belief being universal only warrants the assumption that the belief itself has a cause, but it tells us nothing whatever concerning its truthfulness.

Each stage of theistic belief grows out of the preceding stage, and if it can be shown that the beginning of this evolution arose in a huge blunder I quite fail to see how any subsequent development can convert this unmistakable blunder into a demonstrable truth.

Lord," Dorothy said aloud, "I know You're with me no matter where I go, whether it's to the familiar or the new…I know it.

Jacob, I know you sometimes wonder about God. But let me tell you something, God never has to wonder about you. He knows, son. He KNOWS!

Lord," Dorothy said aloud, "I know You're with me no matter where I go, whether it's to the familiar or the new…I know it. Just help me remember what I know. Amen.

The twelfth gift is Faith. May you believe

The fifth gift is Hope. Through each passage and season, may you trust the goodness of life.

There are none so superstitious as the educated, for often they see in their own time - as an article of faith unsubstantiated by experience - the final end of human progress.

I would rather be ruled by people who think they're going to fry in Hell forever if they rule me poorly, than by people for whom I'm merely a convenient economic siphon who can be milked like a cow.

Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth, or the only truth.

Is he alone who has courage on his right hand and faith on his left hand?

The religion of the Indian is the last thing about him that the man of another race will ever understand. First, the Indian does not speak of these deep matters so long as he believes in them, and when he has ceased to believe he speaks inaccurately and slightingly. Second,