Religion is a Mental Illness

"Yes, I think I use the term radical rather loosely, just for emphasis. 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... etc., etc. 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." -- Douglas Adams

Nobody can be sure. I think of it as rather like saying, how can we be sure there aren't leprechauns and fairies and unicorns? You have to have something more than just saying, well, there's no evidence against it, and there has to be some kind of positive evidence in favor of it in order for you to take it seriously. So I think that the absence of evidence is the same for leprechauns and fairies. And I think the positive evidence is also equally weak for all of them. In 'The God Delusion,' I made a seven point scale, from zero, meaning I'm absolutely confident that there is a God, to seven, absolutely confident there there isn't. And I think I call myself a 6.9. And one of the things I use that scale for is to get rid of the rather silly idea that if there's no evidence either way, therefore it's 50/50. It isn't 50/50, or it'll be something else. It's there's no reason to say that just because we have no positive evidence either way, therefore it's exactly equally likely. Because you could say that about leprechauns as well.

"The Easter Bunny and your god are equally plausible. Stop being so damn naive."

"God is the only being who does not have to exist in order to reign." -- Charles Baudelaire

Now it's often said—it was said tonight, and Dr. Craig said it in print—that atheists think they can prove the nonexistence of God.

This, in fact, very slightly but crucially misrepresents what we've always said. And there's nothing new about the New Atheists; it's just we're recent. There's nothing particularly new.

Dr. Victor Stenger, a great scientist, has written a book called The Failed Hypothesis, which he says he thinks that science can now license the claim that there definitely is no God. But he is unique in that, and I think very bold and courageous.

Here's what we argue: We argue quite simply that there's no plausible or convincing reason, certainly no evidential one, to believe that there is such an entity.

And that all observable phenomena, including the cosmological one to which I'm coming, are explicable without the hypothesis. You don't need the assumption.

"Religions exist because people would rather have a wrong answer than no answer at all." -- Chuck Palahniuk

"Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths."

-- Denis Diderot

The Six Main Reasons I Don't Believe In The Existence of Gods:

1. It's such an extraordinary claim that I would expect to see some evidence. I don't. 2. There is no reasoning that necessarily leads to the existence of a god. 3. The philosophical contradictions that the typical god-belief leads to like the problem of evil, the problem of silence, the problem of poor design, and the problem of free will. 4. Contradictions within holy books themselves. 5. All the things religions get wrong about reality. 6. The overwhelming evidence of the power of indoctrination: people mostly believing whatever they are taught as children.

“Since all faith claims are equal in their unverifiability, then anyone can say whatever they want about God.

That is not scholarship. That is theology, which is itself a pseudo-scholarly discipline with no referent other than oneself - because all views of God cannot be shown to be anything beyond one's own opinion.

Any statement about God is an act of self-deification.”

-- Hector Avalos

“If there was ever an empirical refutation of the Christian belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God, the problem of evil is it.

It speaks like a megaphone against the existence of this God.”

-- John W. Loftus

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then from whence comes evil?”

“It was very disconcerting the first time I was exposed to the so-called proofs for the existence of God.

I still vividly recall my reaction at the end of that college theology class. All I could think was: "Is that all two-thousand years of theology could come up with?" Frankly, I was greatly dismayed.

Eventually my dismay turned to anger when I realized that I had been duped for so long.”

-- Joseph L. Daleiden

“The universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not. The existence or nonexistence of a creator is independent of our desires. A world without god or purpose may seem harsh or pointless, but that alone doesn't require god to actually exist.”

-- Lawrence Krauss