… [Atheists] should continue to make the case that religious belief is archaic superstition, contains many immoral rules, and has no solutions for the ethical problems humanity faces today… The continuing growth of atheism throughout the world is all the encouragement we need to speak out.
Generally speaking, I have found that theists are quick to lose control of their emotions and tend to argue emotionally while atheists tend to either stay clear of emotions all together or to use emotions to strengthen their argument.
Where is the humility in being a theist? There is none. What would it mean for me to believe in god? It would mean that I know. Not just that I might happen to know about Kerouac, Thailand, liquid nitrogen, and vector calculus identities, but that I know that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent power in the universe that I can’t prove to you, but that I know because I have faith. I know because I say I know. I can feel it.
Non-believers are often more educated, more tolerant and know more about God than the pious […] Secularists make up some 15 percent of the global population, or about 1 billion people. As a group, this puts them third in size behind Christians (2.3 billion) and Muslims (1.6 billion). Churches in the US are losing up to 1 million members every year. In Europe, secularization has advanced even further.
[…] with the mapping of the human genome, it’s clear that modern humans emerged from other primates as a large population – long before the Genesis time frame of a few thousand years ago… Evolution makes it pretty clear that in nature, and in the moral experience of human beings, there never was any such paradise to be lost… To many evangelicals, this is heresy.
Arthur Schopenhauer, Ph.D., German Philosopher, Atheist
Consider, first, the absurdity of the desire for material goods. Fools believe that if they can only achieve wealth, their wills can be completely gratified; a man of means is supposed to be a man with means for the fulfilment of every desire… [A] life devoted to the acquisition of wealth is useless unless we know how to turn it into joy; and this is an art that requires culture and wisdom… Men are a thousand times more intent on becoming rich than on acquiring culture, though it is quite certain that what a man ‘is’ contributes more to his happiness than what he ‘has…’ Not wealth but wisdom is the Way… [O]ur happiness depends on what we have in our heads rather than on what we have in our pockets.
Arthur Schopenhauer, Ph.D., German Philosopher, Atheist
To be happy, one must be as ignorant as youth. Youth thinks that willing and striving are joys; it has not yet discovered the weary insatiableness of desire, and the fruitlessness of fulfilment; it does not yet see the inevitableness of defeat.
Always Question Authority 