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28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism

[denial of the existence of any gods]

35 ideas
Homer so enjoys the company of the gods that he must have been deeply irreligious [Homer, by Nietzsche]
Mortals believe gods are born, and have voices and clothes just like mortals [Xenophanes]
Ethiopian gods have black hair, and Thracian gods have red hair [Xenophanes]
Anaxagoras was charged with impiety for calling the sun a lump of stone [Anaxagoras, by Plutarch]
Anaxagoras was the first recorded atheist [Anaxagoras, by Watson]
He said he didn't know whether there are gods - but this is the same as atheism [Diogenes of Oen. on Protagoras]
Fear of the gods was invented to discourage secret sin [Critias]
Socrates is accused of denying the gods, saying sun is stone and moon is earth [Socrates, by Plato]
He denied the existence of the gods, saying they are just exaltations of things useful for life [Prodicus]
The gods are just personified human benefits [Prodicus]
If astronomical movements are seen as necessary instead of by divine will, this leads to atheism [Plato]
There isn't a single reason for positing the existence of immortal beings [Plato]
Speusippus said things were governed by some animal force rather than the gods [Speussipus, by Cicero]
Stilpo said if Athena is a daughter of Zeus, then a statue is only the child of a sculptor, and so is not a god [Stilpo, by Diog. Laertius]
Some say Epicurus only pretended to believe in the gods, so as not to offend Athenians [Epicurus, by Cicero]
Why does Jupiter never hurl lightning from a blue sky? [Lucretius]
Why believe in gods if you have never seen them? [Cicero]
Absurd superstitions make people atheist, not disharmony in nature [Plutarch]
Gods were invented as watchers of people's secret actions [Sext.Empiricus]
An incorporeal God could do nothing, and a bodily god would perish, so there is no God [Sext.Empiricus]
Atheism arises from empiricism, because God is intangible [Descartes]
Atheism is an atrocious and intolerable crime in any country [Descartes]
In Spinoza, one could substitute 'nature' or 'substance' for the word 'God' throughout [Spinoza, by Stewart,M]
Leibniz was closer than Spinoza to atheism [Leibniz, by Stewart,M]
If love, goodness and personality are human, the God who is their source is anthropomorphic [Feuerbach]
I am not an atheist because of reasoning or evidence, but because of instinct [Nietzsche]
God is dead, and we have killed him [Nietzsche]
By denying God we deny human accountability, and thus we redeem the world [Nietzsche]
Not being a god is insupportable, so there are no gods! [Nietzsche]
I do not believe in a personal God [Einstein]
If theism is non-sensical, then so is atheism. [Ayer]
Theism is supposed to make the world more intelligible - and should offer results [Harré/Madden]
Atheism is the philosopher's serenity, and philosophy's achievement [Deleuze/Guattari]
Free atheism should start by questioning its faith in humanity [Gray]
Now that the absolute is unthinkable, even atheism is just another religious belief (though nihilist) [Meillassoux]