Thread: Post (anti) Religious quotes here

I took it a completely differently. I know for sure Stephen Hawking is not in agreement with me and my views, nevertheless, he did make this statement. However, unlike most atheist on this forum approach to facts and evidence, Mr. Hawking on the other hand apparently has no problem with utilizing Occam's razor whenever he feels it's applicable instead of engaging in endless pseudo-science to explain the obvious. It's very apparent that Mr. Hawking does indeed engage into speculation, however, there is a distinction that one must ad-hear to and he doesn't call that speculation scientific fact.

But that's just how I took it.

While humans, like all animals, have traits that set them apart- otherwise, how could we distinguish one species from another? -human uniqueness has been exaggerated, sometimes grossly so. Chimps reason, are self-conscious, make tools, show devotion, and so on.

We have not been given the lead in the cosmic drama. Perhaps someone else has. Perhaps no one else has. In either case, we have good reason for humility.

You might imagine an uncharitable extraterrestrial observer looking down on our species...- with us excitedly chattering "The Universe is created for us! We're at the center! Everything pays homage to us!" -and concluding that our pretensions are amusing, our aspirations pathetic, that this must be the planet of the idiots.

We emerged from microbes and muck. Apes are our cousins. Our thoughts and feelings are not fully under our own control. There may be much smarter and very different beings elsewhere. And on top of all this, we're making a mess of our planet and becoming a danger to ourselves. The trapdoor beneath our feet swings open. We find ourselves in bottomless free fall. We are lost in a great darkness, and there's no one to send out a search party. Given so harsh a reality, of course we're tempted to shut our eyes and pretend that we're safe and snug at home, that the fall is only a bad dream.

Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs — in time, in space, and in potential — the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors.

We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable.nIf we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.

All by Carl Sagan.

Stephen Hawking

What could define God, [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God. They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible.
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There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.
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I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
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The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence. It is a bit like a rich person living in a wealthy neighborhood not seeing any poverty
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Newton believed that our strangely habitable solar system did not "arise out of chaos by the mere laws of nature." Instead, he maintained that the order in the universe was "created by God at first and conserved by him to this Day in the same state and condition." The discovery recently of the extreme fine-tuning of so many laws of nature could lead some back to the idea that this grand design is the work of some grand Designer. Yet the latest advances in cosmology explain why the laws of the universe seem tailor-made for humans, without the need for a benevolent creator.
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The emergence of the complex structures capable of supporting intelligent observers seems to be very fragile. The laws of nature form a system that is extremely fine-tuned. What can we make of these coincidences? Luck in the precise form and nature of fundamental physical law is a different kind of luck from the luck we find in environmental factors. It raises the natural question of why it is that way.

Many people would like us to use these coincidences as evidence of the work of God. The idea that the universe was designed to accommodate mankind appears in theologies and mythologies dating from thousands of years ago. In Western culture the Old Testament contains the idea of providential design, but the traditional Christian viewpoint was also greatly influenced by Aristotle, who believed 'in an intelligent natural world that functions according to some deliberate design.'

That is not the answer of modern science. As recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.
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Originally Posted by Ne-yo

"An atheist is like a fish in the ocean saying that there’s no evidence that there’s an ocean."

If that were the case, there wouldn't be any atheists.

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

However, unlike most atheist on this forum approach to facts and evidence, Mr. Hawking on the other hand apparently has no problem with utilizing Occam's razor whenever he feels it's applicable instead of engaging in endless pseudo-science to explain the obvious.

What are you talking about?

Originally Posted by Xei

What are you talking about?

Pseudoscience like evolution.


More Sagan!


"The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity."

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."

"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism."

Originally Posted by Spartiate

Pseudoscience like evolution abiogenesis.

Fixed!

Thanks for trying.


"We have some men who call themselves scientists, when they should have instead got a job with Disney as "imagineers."

"If God didn't exist, the atheist wouldn't have something to not believe in".

Applying Occam's razor to abiogenesis?

As usual it appears you don't know what one or all of these terms means.

And you need to get off my back, I didn't take away your little stars, Your idiocy set that demise up for you.

"You don't need to delude yourself with Iron Ages fairytales." - Sam Harris

"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature."- Frank Lloyd Wright

"Prayer as a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action."- Ralf Waldo Emerson

"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, manifesting itself as the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty- it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and this alone, I am a deeply religious man." "My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality."- Albert Einstein

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

Fixed!

Abiogenesis is not pseudoscience, it is what Occam's razor beckons us to prove, is a creator not adding a step?

Probably the harshest quote yet from an extremely peaceful man.

Your belief in God is merely an escape from your monotonous, stupid and cruel life.

-J Krishnamurti

Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.

-George Carlin

We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.

Thomas Jefferson

"Atheism is asking us to believe
1. Matter is eternal
2. Matter without life created life
3. Matter without mind created mind
4. Matter without intelligence created intelligence
5. Matter without morals created morals
6. Matter without conscience created conscience
7. Matter without purpose created purpose and order
Atheism is a universal negative and rationally impossible, to be an atheist
1. You must prove there is no God
2. Refute all the evidence for the existence of God
3. Explain away the reality of Christ
4. Remove the evidence for the resurrection of Christ
5. Disprove all the prophecies in the Bible
6. Demonstrate the Bible is a fraud
7. Establish the credibility of atheism". -- Steve Kumar

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

And you need to get off my back, I didn't take away your little stars, Your idiocy set that demise up for you.

What a lovely person Christianity has made you.

Hate to break it to you bro but I gave my stars away; my life doesn't revolve around you. I just enjoy pointing out to you whenever you're doublethinking. Which you are right now, by the way; a simple request to explain what you meant has been enough to make you act like a petulant child. Why?

"My only problem is death. Fuck heaven, I ain't showing no religion respect." - Tyler, the Creator.

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

"If God didn't exist, the atheist wouldn't have something to not believe in".

Ok, now, I'm not quite positive, but I think, I think...Atheists disbelieve in the concept of god...which exists regardless...

Completely unrelated, but the other bit you mentioned reminds me of something...I find it hilarious when people attack evolution with arguments against abiogenesis.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Tyler, the Creator.

That guy fucking creeps me out

Originally Posted by Xei

Hate to break it to you bro but I gave my stars away; my life doesn't revolve around you.

Whatever reject, you could've fooled me, since you study every little detail I type here with such intensity.

Originally Posted by Xei

I just enjoy pointing out to you whenever you're doublethinking. Which you are right now, by the way; a simple request to explain what you meant has been enough to make you act like a petulant child. Why?

If following basic instructions is acting like a petulant child then so be it. You want to debate this and it was specifically requested that we do not debate, why do you constantly do just the opposite of what people ask of you? What's so hard about posting a few quotes and moving on? Why is it that you always let your silly emotions get the best of you? The past is the past get over it and move on.

Originally Posted by Supernova

I find it hilarious when people attack evolution with arguments against abiogenesis.

I share this view.

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

Atheism is a universal negative and rationally impossible, to be an atheist
1. You must prove there is no God
2. Refute all the evidence for the existence of God
3. Explain away the reality of Christ
4. Remove the evidence for the resurrection of Christ
5. Disprove all the prophecies in the Bible
6. Demonstrate the Bible is a fraud
7. Establish the credibility of atheism". -- Steve Kumar

2 through 7 is taken care of. 1 is not necessary.

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."

Originally Posted by Supernova

That guy fucking creeps me out

How come? He's easily one of my favorite rappers. Also, most of OFWG are atheists. Hence, they are cool by default lol.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

How come? He's easily one of my favorite rappers. Also, most of OFWG are atheists. Hence, they are cool by default lol.

Shit like this:

Originally Posted by Spartiate

2 through 7 is taken care of. 1 is not necessary.

Keep dreaming...lol

"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." ~Richard Dawkins.

"Atheism can benefit no class of people, --neither the unfortunate, whom it bereaves of hope, nor the prosperous, whose joys it renders insipid." ~CHATEAUBRIAND.