41 quotes
It requires your constant analyses because all meaning is subjective: the only way you can opt for settled meaning, objective meaning, or received meaning is by giving away your freedom.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there are no gods. We arise from nature—and nature is not a moral entity.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
Want a guarantee? Join another species. Our species just makes decisions.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
We respect science because it tests its hypotheses. We respect ourselves when we do the same.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
To define what we are is to reduce and distort what we are: to say that we are nothing but our desires or nothing but our self-interest is to misrepresent us.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
We do not know why the universe opted to make a creature that can suffer from a toothache one day and rouse his fellow human beings to righteousness the next, but here we are.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
Meaning is a choice, not a lost object.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
All that we have on our side is that inner voice that knows better.
And that is enough.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
Let others find themselves alike,
My will is obstinately I.
My winter blinds are wide to winds
And long, in cold,
My curtains fly.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
To nominate yourself as the hero of your own story is to step outside society, not with the intention of turning your back on it but with the intention of not allowing it to dictate to you.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
That is what is in our hearts when we conclude that the universe is meaningless. We don’t doubt that it has order, but we recognize that it is not our parent, our sponsor, or our caretaker.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
This individual is regularly nominated not only by himself but by others as well: by the ordinary townsfolk who beg him to save their town, their world, or their galaxy because they see that he has the strength and integrity that they lack.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
We may feel blue because we see clearly, and what we see saddens us. We see that the amount of intelligence displayed by most people may not be intelligence enough for the challenges faced by our species.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
We have not answered the free will-determinism question, but we have decided to come down on the side of personal freedom, to assert it whether or not it exists. Just as we make our own meaning, we make our own freedom. If this is a cosmic joke, then let us be the ones laughing.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
This looks to be a moment when atheism is capturing the imagination of many millions of people. At exactly the same time, fundamental religious belief is growing unchecked. These two events are likely intimately related, as rational people are frightened back to their rationality by fundamentalism and believers dig in harder against liberty, justice, and reason.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
Before you can make meaning, an odd kind of election process must occur. You must nominate yourself as the meaning-maker in your life and as the hero of your own story. Then you must consciously elect yourself to that position.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
The god religions, the river religions, and the world of supernatural enthusiasms do not serve you. They force you to rein in your intelligence, they make claims that you do not honestly believe, they smell of illegitimate shortcut, and they hurt your chances of taking a fearless inventory of your beliefs and charting a course that will make you proud.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
As atheists we have the opportunity to be more honest about the blues that we experience...We get to honestly look at the thing itself and not shift the issue to our relationship to some nonexistent god.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
The rose’s fragrance, the garden’s lushness, and the night sky’s grandeur affect us because we are built to appreciate beauty and to experience awe. To leap to a supernatural source for these powerful but ordinary feelings is to indulge in wishful thinking, romantic embellishment, and metaphoric fantasizing.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)
There are no gods (including God). Like all species, ours is a product of nature. This is not something either to celebrate or to mourn. But it can prove a transformational and mind-opening experience to put all gods, religions and supernatural enthusiasms aside and to explore the world from the point of view of a human being who lives, dies, and is as natural as a tiger or a dove.
The Atheist’s Way (2009)