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Dan Barker Quotes
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To think that the ruler of the universe will run to my assistance and bend the laws of nature for me is the height of arrogance.
Dan Barker
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Basic atheism is not a belief. It is the lack of belief. There is a difference between believing there is no god and not believing there is a god - both are atheistic, though popular usage has ignored the latter.
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Even if it is true that all cultures share a common morality, why does this prove a supreme intelligence? After all, don't we humanists sometimes claim that there is a common thread of humanistic values running through history across cultural and religious lines?
Dan Barker
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Freethought is respectable. Freethought is crucial. Freethought needs to be publicized.
Dan Barker
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I have an Easter challenge for Christians. My challenge is simply this: tell me what happened on Easter. I am not asking for proof. My straightforward request is merely that Christians tell me exactly what happened on the day that their most important doctrine was born.
Dan Barker
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It turns out that the word atheism means much less than I had thought. It is merely the lack of theism.
Dan Barker
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For my money, I'll bet on reason and humanistic kindness. Even if I am wrong I will have enjoyed my life, the existence of which is under little dispute.
Dan Barker
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We were blood brothers, pals forever. He was my very best friend. Nobody else could see him. I now know he was just pretend.
Dan Barker
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One of the primary questions in a state-church arrangement is, 'which controls which?'... In Norway, for example, the liberal labor government has regularly angered Church officials by making controversial ministerial appointments against the wishes of the clergy.... These and other actions have strained the church-state relationship almost to the breaking point. As a result, some of the bishops have advocated disestablishment.
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Either in or out of time, the decision of a personal agency to commit an action happens antecedent to the action itself. Even if the deciding and the acting happened simultaneously, it would still not be true that the acting was antecedent to the deciding. Imagine God saying, "Oh, look! I just created a universe. Now I'd better decide to do it.
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Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being....
Dan Barker
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It is a fact of history and of current events that human beings exaggerate, misinterpret, or wrongly remember events. They have also fabricated pious fraud. Most believers in a religion understand this when examining the claims of other religions.
Dan Barker
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Asking, 'If there is no God, what is the purpose of life?' is like asking, 'If there is no master, whose slave will I be?' If your purpose of life is to submit as a slave, then your meaning comes from flattering the ego of a person whom you should detest.
Dan Barker
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Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits. It is intellectual bankruptcy.
Dan Barker
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Some theists, observing that all 'effects' need a cause, assert that God is a cause but not an effect. But no one has ever observed an uncaused cause and simply inventing one merely assumes what the argument wishes to prove.
Dan Barker
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There is joy in rationality, happiness in clarity of mind. Freethought is thrilling and fulfilling - absolutely essential to mental health and happiness.
Dan Barker
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In any open question, we should argue from what we do know to what we do not know. We do know that fervent legends and stubborn myths arise easily and naturally. We do not know that dead people rise from the grave.
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Scientists do not join hands every Sunday and sing "Yes gravity is real! I know gravity is real! I will have faith! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about the concept.
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I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never say anything positive: You are an intelligent human being. Your life is valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently evil—you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself.
Dan Barker
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I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God. That should be all that needs to be said about it: no evidence, no belief.
Dan Barker
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You can cite a hundred references to show that the biblical God is a bloodthirsty tyrant, but if they can dig up two or three verses that say "God is love" they will claim that you are taking things out of context!
Dan Barker
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How happy can you be when you think every action and thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost ?
Dan Barker
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There is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, during his entire lifetime. This does not disprove his existence, but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity of a man who was supposedly widely known to have made a great impact on the world. Someone should have noticed.
Dan Barker
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You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time, but I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime.
Dan Barker
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The very concept of sin comes from the Bible. Christianity offers to solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?
Dan Barker
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Quote of the day
No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
Carrie Chapman Catt
Dan Barker
Creative Commons
Born:
June 25, 1949
(age 75)
Bio:
Daniel Edwin "Dan" Barker is an American atheist activist who served as a Christian preacher and musician for 19 years but left Christianity in 1984.
Known for:
Losing Faith in Faith (1992)
Maybe right, maybe wrong (1992)
Most used words:
faith
god
human
love
life
purpose
Dan Barker on Wikipedia
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