Agnosticism Quotes

Refer me to one atheist who denies the existence of God.... Etymologically, as well as philosophically, an atheist is one without God. That is all the 'A' before 'Theist' really means.

George William Foote

The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winter, with your Ealdormen and thanes, while the fire blazes in the midst and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest, but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter to winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.

Bede

We are both preachers. He preached the teaching of Jesus Christ, and I preached my philosophy.He asked me: “Do you pray?”“No.”“Do you beseech God to forgive your trespasses?”“No.”“Do you not thank God for his bounty?”“No.”“Do you not depend on God's support?”“No.”And with this his puzzlement increased until he was assured that my fate lies in hell indeed.

Khalil al-Sakakini

I'm agnostic. By definition, I'm unsure of what to believe in, but I'm also borderline-capable of believing in anything and everything, or nothing at all... and I want to believe in something.

Lauren Lola

The atheist might have no proof for the supernatural, but they also have no proof against it. If we start at a neutral position of not knowing, we can't move away from it until we have proof or evidence either way.

Lewis N. Roe

I wish I had the gift of religious faith. Sometimes I long to believe in a structured universe designed purposefully for mankind.

Adib Khan

For agnosticism is, in a sense, what I am preaching. I do not wish to reduce the sceptical element in your minds. I am only suggesting that it need not be reserved exclusively for the New Testament and the Creeds. Try doubting something else.

C.S. Lewis

The more I learn, the less I know.

Jeffrey Rasley

Theology: (15) Somebody made everything for some reason.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

One of the misconceptions about atheism is that it somehow means someone denies the possibility of a deity. In all actuality, it simply means you don’t believe it to be the case — a point that should not be hard to understand with the complete lack of physical evidence that points to the existence of such a being or beings. Even if you’re 51 percent sure that there is no magical man in the sky, you are an atheist; and admitting that is the first half of the battle.

David G. McAfee

One could say that my view legitimately fuses the end-time messianic expectations of all three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity!

Eli Of Kittim

Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of health; everything absolute belongs to pathology.

Friedrich Nietzsche

No man will say, "There is no God" 'till he is so hardened in sin that it hasbecome his interest that there should be none to call him to account.

Matthew Henry

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

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

Sean Kamali

In any modern society encouraging your child to cut himself is an unthinkable act, but only with religious belief becomes part of the culture, and demands respect.

Sean S. Kamali

A few years ago, a priest working in a slum section of a European city was asked why he was doing it, and replied, 'So that the rumor of God may not completely disappear.

Peter L. Berger

He didn't like religion, hadn't liked it for years, but he adored churches, loved them like old scientific instruments whose time is long past but are nevertheless fascinating and strange.

Bruce Robinson

No, not at all. I’m an atheist. You could say that I’m agnostic, but that’s just a certain kind of atheist (laughs). An atheist is someone who lacks a belief in a supernatural, and that’s me. I can’t say with absolute certainty that there is nothing beyond the material world, but there’s no reason for me to think there is. If I were a gambling man I would put all my money on there not being anything other than this universe.

Steve Albini

If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks.

Mark Twain

If you describe yourself as "Atheist," some people will say, "Don't you mean 'Agnostic'?" I have to reply that I really do mean Atheist. I really do not believe that there is a god - in fact I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one. It's easier to say that I am a radical Atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it's an opinion I hold seriously. It's funny how many people are genuinely surprised to hear a view expressed so strongly. In England we seem to have drifted from vague wishy-washy Anglicanism to vague wishy-washy Agnosticism - both of which I think betoken a desire not to have to think about things too much.

Douglas Adams

The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief—call it what you will—than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.

A.A. Milne

God did not create evolution--evolution created God. The evolution of religion is as follows: animism--polytheism--monotheism--agnosticism--atheism. As history progresses, people worship fewer and fewer gods, and the one God becomes the incredible shrinking god. He shrinks and shrinks until he becomes insignificant. More and more theists go about their business as if God isn't there. Some even become agnostics or atheists.

G.M. Jackson

Intellect, at its best, can make you agnostic. Being theist or atheist is still a matter of choice.

Raheel Farooq

If I am not master of my life, not sultan of my own being, then no man's logic and no man's ecstatic fits may force me to find less silly my impossibly silly position: that of God's slave; no, not his slave even, but just a match which is aimlessly struck and then blown out by some inquisitive child, the terror of his toys.

Vladimir Nabokov

The idea of God was invented in the small hours of history by a scam who had genius; it somehow reeks too much of humanity, that idea, to make its azure origin plausible...

Vladimir Nabokov

There is yet another reason why I cannot, nor wish to, believe in God: the fairy tale about him is not really mine, it belongs to strangers, to all men; it is soaked through by the evil-smelling effluvia of millions of other souls that have spun about a little under the sun and then burst…

Vladimir Nabokov

Every agnostic has a minister, Mike. Otherwise, they's be atheists.

Jared C. Wilson

Atheism is the default position in any scientific inquiry, just as a-quarkism or a-neutrinoism was. That is, any entity has to earn its admission into a scientific account either via direct evidence for its existence or because it plays some fundamental explanatory role. Before the theoretical need for neutrinos was appreciated (to preserve the conservation of energy) and then later experimental detection was made, they were not part of the accepted physical account of the world. To say physicists in 1900 were 'agnostic' about neutrinos sounds wrong: they just did not believe there were such things.As yet, there is no direct experimental evidence of a deity, and in order for the postulation of a deity to play an explanatory role there would have to be a lot of detail about how it would act. If, as you have suggested, we are not “good judges of how the deity would behave,” then such an unknown and unpredictable deity cannot provide good explanatory grounds for any phenomenon. The problem with the 'minimal view' is that in trying to be as vague as possible about the nature and motivation of the deity, the hypothesis loses any explanatory force, and so cannot be admitted on scientific grounds. Of course, as the example of quarks and neutrinos shows, scientific accounts change in response to new data and new theory. The default position can be overcome.

Tim Maudlin

Atheists are spiritual slackers, right? We are the stoners of the cosmos. We think we’re all over-intelligent, free-thinking, free-spirited, uber-cool, hippy-dippy, science-minded, leaning-to-the-left, hedonistic, children of Theodorus the Atheist. We’re all like “Dude, I don’t need no stinkin’ deity” and if we came face-to-face with the Grim Reaper himself we’d say, “No worries, Bro, let’s do this! Game over!

T. K. Decker

.....I believe in you and me. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. ...

Francis Albert Sinatra

The intellectual support for UNBELIEF is about as stable as the stock market.

John Eldredge

But she was finding it increasingly easy to believe that God, if there was a God, and if it was remotely possible that any godlike being who could order the disposition of particles at the creation of the Universe would also be interested in directing traffic on the M4, did not want her to fly to Norway either.

Douglas Adams

Free-thinking” atheists is an oxymoron. They chide Christians for being narrow-minded. No one is more narrow and closed-minded than someone who claims absolutes based on what they “know” as if there is nothing more to learn. I applaud agnostics who have the intellect, humility and openness to say, “I don’t know!” or “I can’t know!” At least they admit there may be more to know!

William Branks

There is nothing new under the sun but that of the Son. Man's rebellion against God has always been because he would rather fall in pride than rise in humility.

Criss Jami

...what about the stone, Mr Lovegood? The thing you call the Resurrection Stone?""What of it?""Well, how can that be real?""Prove that it is not," said Xenophilius.Hermione looked out

J.K. Rowling

I am, perhaps, too intellectual, too modern, for my own comfort! How lovely it would be to sink into the warm comfort of established religion.

Lisa Tuttle

I am not much given to profanity, but when I am sorely aggravated and vexed in spirit I declare to you that it comes as such a relief to me, such a solace to my troubled soul, and brings me such Heavenly peace to every now and then allow a word of phrase to escape my lips which can serve me no other earthly purpose, seemingly, other than to render emphatic my otherwise mildly expressed ideas.

Col. Robert G. Ingersoll

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. Tosay that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is tosay they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels,no soul. I cannot reason otherwise .. . without plunginginto the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I amsatisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things whichare, without tormenting or troubling myself aboutthose which may indeed be, but of which I have noevidence.

Thomas Jefferson

Question with boldness even the existence of aGod; because, if there be one, he must more approve ofthe homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

Thomas Jefferson

An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to uptime causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the Universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and you be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.

Carl Sagan

You don’t have to be brave or a saint, a martyr, or even very smart to be an atheist. All you have to be able to say is “I don’t know”.

Penn Jillette

Every notion that any man, dead, living, or unborn, might form as to the universe will necessarily prove wrong

James Branch Cabell

The question concerning Jesus: do you want to know the real story, or just the allegory?

Eli Of Kittim

Faith is believing beyond the power of reason, when they're all against you. To one who has faith, no explanation is possible. To one without faith, evidence is necessary.

Esteban Urayoán

The disruption of science is one which abandons the method and seeks to conquer grounds outside its territory. It is not at all religion but this pseudo-science that is the enemy of science.

Criss Jami

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis argues that human beings cannot be truly good or moral without faith in God and without submis- sion to the will of Christ. Unfortunately, Lewis does not provide any actual data for his assertions. They are nothing more than the mild musings of a wealthy British man, pondering the state of humanity’s soul between his sips of tea. Had Lewis actually famil- iarized himself with real human beings of the secular sort, per- haps sat and talked with them, he would have had to reconsider this notion. As so many apostates explained to me, morality is most certainly possible beyond the confines of faith. Can people be good without God? Can a moral orientation be sustained and developed outside of a religious context? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes.

Phil Zuckerman

I was brought up Christian, then I was agnostic and then I realized I was atheist... This movie [Agora] is about fundamentalism and hate.

Alejandro Amenábar

If God's love encompasses the whole world and if everyone who does not believe in him will perish, then surely this question needs to be asked: When, after two thousand years, does God's plan kick in for the billion people he 'so loves' in China? Or for the 840 million in India? Or the millions in Japan, Afghanistan, Siberia, Egypt, Burma ·.. and on and on?Why would a God who 'so loved the world' reveal his message only to a tiny minority of the people on earth, leaving the majority in ignorance? Is it possible to believe that the Father of all Mankind would select as his Chosen People a small Middle Eastern nation, Israel, reveal His will exclusively to them, fight alongside them in their battles to survive, and only after their failure to reach out to any other group, update His plan for the world's salvation by sending His 'only begotten son,' not to the world but, once again, exclusively to Israel?

Charles Templeton

I am also atheist or agnostic (I don't even know the difference). I've never been to church and prefer to think for myself.

Steve Wozniak

We are all born agnostics. Atheism and theism is sold to us.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The agnostic does not simply say, "l do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know, -- he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact -- he drives you from the realm of reason -- he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture -- into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact.

Robert G. Ingersoll

I am an Agnostic because I am not afraid to think. I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil.

Clarence Darrow

My coming brought no profit to the sky,Nor does my going swell its glory;My two ears have never heard anyone that could say,Why I came here and why I will go away.

Omar Khayyám

What we fail to realize is we often become like Pharisees in our ruthless attempts to identify Pharisees (and impostors). While indeed some people use the old laws of religious pride to tear down men of God, others use the new laws of anti-religious anger to tear down men of God.

Criss Jami

Science is agnostic when it comes to God - not atheistic, as some people prefer to read that laden word wrongly - just agnostic.

Eric Chaisson

I am an agnostic on most matters of faith, but on the subject of maps I have always been a true believer. It is on the map, therefore it is, and I am.

Tony Horwitz

Education levels are highly and negatively correlated to religious belief. In other words, ignorance is bliss.

Cesar Nascimento

...properly a theory about knowledge, not about religion. A theist and a Christian may be an agnostic; an atheist may not be an agnostic. An atheist may deny that there is God, and in this case his atheism is dogmatic and not agnostic. Or he may refuse to acknowledge that there is a God simply on the ground that he perceives no evidence for his existence and finds the arguments which have been advanced in proof of it invalid. In this case his atheism is critical, not agnostic. The atheist may be, and not infrequently is, an agnostic.

Robert Flint

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, 'Try all things, hold fast by that which is good'; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him, it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. 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. That I take to be the agnostic position, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.The results of the working out of the agnostic principle will vary according to individual knowledge and capacity, and according to the general condition of science. That which is unproved today may be proved, by the help of new discoveries, tomorrow. The only negative fixed points will be those negations which flow from the demonstrable limitation of our faculties. And the only obligation accepted is to have the mind always open to conviction.That it is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can provide evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts and in my opinion, is all that is essential to agnosticism.

Thomas Henry Huxley

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Agnosticism Quotes

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