A Manual for Creating Atheists Quotes

“Faith taints or at worst removes our curiosity about the world, what we should value, and what type of life we should lead. Faith replaces wonder with epistemological arrogance disguised as false humility. Faith immutably alters the starting conditions for inquiry by uprooting a hunger to know and sowing a warrantless confidence.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“If one had sufficient evidence to warrant belief in a particular claim, then one wouldn't believe the claim on the basis of faith. 'Faith' is the word one uses when one does not have enough evidence to justify holding a belief, but when one just goes ahead and believes anyway.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Belief in God(s) is not the problem. Belief without evidence is the problem.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Certainty is an enemy of truth: examination and reexamination are allies of truth.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Faith is an unclassified cognitive illness disguised as a moral virtue.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Atheism is a conclusion one comes to after a sincere, honest evaluation of the evidence.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“The only way to avoid eternal punishment for sins we never committed from this all-loving God is to accept his son—who is actually himself—as our savior. So … God sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself. Barking mad!”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Not claiming to know something you don’t know isn’t a character flaw, it is a virtue.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“If a belief is based on insufficient evidence, then any further conclusions drawn from the belief will at best be of questionable value.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“You cannot know the future, so take action. Don't wait for things to happen. Don't pray. Don't have faith. Don't rely upon imagined entities. Act.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Socrates said that a man doesn’t want what he doesn’t think he lacks. That is, if you believe you have the truth then why would you seek another truth?”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“We live in a society where people are uncomfortable with not knowing. Children aren’t taught to say ‘I don’t know,’ and honesty in this form is rarely modeled for them. They too often see adults avoiding questions and fabricating answers, out of either embarrassment or fear, and this comes at a price. To solve the world’s most challenging problems, we need innovative minds that are inspired in the presence of uncertainty. Let’s support parents and educators who are raising the next generation of creative thinkers.” —Annaka Harris (Secular News Daily, 2012)”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Your religious beliefs typically depend on the community in which you were raised or live. The spiritual experiences of people in ancient Greece, medieval Japan or 21st-century Saudi Arabia do not lead to belief in Christianity. It seems, therefore, that religious belief very likely tracks not truth but social conditioning.” —Gary Gutting, “The Stone,” New York Times, September 14, 2011”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Few things are more dangerous than people who think they’re in possession of absolute truth. Honest inquirers with sincere questions and an open mind rarely contribute to the misery of the world.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Faith has fallen. What goes in its place? Wonder.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“We fear clear, honest, blunt dialogue, but what we ought to fear are stupid and dangerous ideas, because while blunt and honest dialogue might be offensive to some, stupid and dangerous ideas can be fatal to all of us.” —Matt Thornton, community activist”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Your new role is that of interventionist. Liberator. Your target is faith. Your pro bono clients are individuals who’ve been infected by faith.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“I was extremely surprised by this comment. He was about to try to convert others and yet he had not even thought of the most basic objection to his worldview?”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“tolerance does not, cannot, and should not mean having to submit to rules of belief systems to which one does not ascribe.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“You do not reason a man out of something he was not reasoned into.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“If you are a person of the same sort as myself, I should be glad to continue questioning you: If not, I can let it drop. Of what sort am I? One of those who would be glad to be refuted if I say anything untrue, and glad to refute anyone else who might speak untruly; but just as glad, mind you, to be refuted as to refute, since I regard the former as the greater benefit.” —Socrates in Gorgias”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Use anxiety to follow your thoughts as a guide to see where it leads you.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Liberalism is a creation of the seventeenth century, fathered by British philosopher John Locke (1632–1704). For Locke, liberalism means limited government, the rule of law, due process, liberty, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, separation of church and state, and separation of government powers into branches that oversee each other’s authority.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Few things are more dangerous than people who think they’re in possession of absolute truth.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“anyone reared by fundamentalist parents deserves credit for the exceptional struggle from indoctrination to enlightenment.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“You will transform a broken world long ruled by unquestioned faith into a society built on reason, evidence, and thought-out positions”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“if you care about the future and you want something to get done—then do it. You cannot know the future, so take action. Don’t wait for things to happen. Don’t pray. Don’t have faith. Don’t rely upon imagined entities. Act.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“What nearly all sophisticated believers do is simultaneously deceive themselves while alternating between two stances: they absolutely don’t believe in that—of course he didn’t walk on water—while voicing unflappable conviction about this—the world was created by a higher power. When defending epistemically, they characterize the belief as not literally requiring the existence of a Special Person (“God loves us” means “Love is important,” “Love prevails in the end,” etc.), but then as soon as they have satisfied the epistemic challenge, they reframe the belief more literally (“God loves us” means “There is a Special Person who loves us”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“Wonder, open-mindedness, the disposition of being comfortable with not knowing, uncertainty, a skeptical and scientific-minded attitude, and the genuine desire to know what’s true—these are the attributes of a liberated mind.”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists

“When one pretends to know things one doesn’t know in science, one gets laughed at.” —Matt Thornton, community activist”
― Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists