Sometimes Americans say, So you don’t believe in God. Then they say, Do you believe in anything? Jonathan Miller, The Atheism Tapes, Colin McGinn
Russell: There’s no more reason to believe in the Christian God than the Greek gods. ibid. Colin McGinn
This series is about the disappearance of something: religious faith. It’s the story of what is often referred to as atheism. The history of the growing conviction that God doesn’t exist. Dr Jonathan Miller: A Rough History of Disbelief I: Shadows of Doubt *****
9/11: It’s inconceivable that it could have been done without religion. For it’s only in the name of some sort of absolute assurance of a permanent life after death that someone would be willing to undertake such an act. ibid.
The spectacle of September 11th is a forceful reminder of the potentially destructive power of the three great monotheistic religions that have dominated the world in one way or another for nearly two thousand years. ibid.
Atheism itself has acquired almost sectarian connotations. ibid.
Christianity was constantly redesigning its own dogma. ibid.
One can’t be in a state of belief all the time. ibid.
Belief is not a continuously experienced mental state. ibid.
Religious belief became almost inevitably associated with authority and power. ibid.
Two loony notions: Judaism and Christianity. ibid.
God for many of the Anglicans is nothing more than a sort of awkward geriatric relative. ibid.
It would be a very thin form of life that didn’t have these images. ibid.
The widespread suspicion of disbelief is becoming a real threat to free thought. ibid.
The Christian imagination was more or less surrounded by an impenetrable cyclorama of sacred imagery. Dr Jonathan Miller: A Rough History of Disbelief II: Noughts and Crosses
Increased worldwide travel ... [and] various forms of Greco-Roman pagan scepticism and materialism. A sort of Artesian Well. ibid.
Having closed down the philosophical schools in Athens, the newly converted Christian and Roman Empire made strenuous efforts to Christianise some of the earlier pagan philosophies. ibid.
The advent of new science and technology in the Renaissance would also have a role to play. ibid.
Christianity starts to come apart. ibid.
The deists were a largely upper class group, and as the name suggests they certainly did believe in a deity. But they were dissatisfied with the state of Christianity. ibid.
[Baron Paul Henri] d’Holbach was the first to write an unarguably atheist book ... The Baron d’Holbach was the first person since classical times at least to insist without any hesitation that there was no God and no supernatural dimension to the universe. His book The System of Nature became known as the Atheists’ bible. ibid.
[Thomas] Paine’s sceptical and revolutionary ideas were now taking root in England. Dr Jonathan Miller: A Rough History of Disbelief III: The Final Hour
Darwin’s work would call into question God’s role as creator of Nature. ibid.
By the middle of the nineteenth century there were more than forty secular societies in Britain. ibid.
Why should faith survive? ibid.
He [Sigmund Freud] saw religion as an illusion. ibid.
There’s something in every atheist, itching to believe, and something in every believer, itching to doubt. Mignon McLaughlin
Being seven means you’ve reached the of reason and you’re now capable of committing any and all sins against God and man ... God will start keeping notes on you and begin your permanent record. Julia Sweeney, Letting Go of God, Julia’s dad
Two Mormon missionaries came to my door ... From Jerusalem to America by boat in 600 B.C.? ibid.
After Jesus died on the Cross for our sins on his way up to heaven he stopped by America and visited the Nephites. ibid.
What kind of sadistic test of loyalty is that to ask someone to kill his or her own child! ibid.
Jesus was much angrier than I expected him to be. ibid.
The Bible gives advice on how you should keep your slaves. ibid.
That’s right: Jesus condemns a fig tree to death. ibid.
I left the church thinking, Is this one practical joke? ibid.
My mother said, Julie, I just ignore what I don’t like. ibid.
To suffer and die for our sins – why? ibid.
Why would God create people so imperfect than blame them for their own imperfections? ibid.
So God gave us the gifts of intelligence and curiosity and rationality and then we’re not supposed to use them? ibid.
I just didn’t believe in any of it. ibid.
Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those who perish;
In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unebelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should now dawn on them. II Corinthians 4:3-4
5And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers. Koran 3:54
Lo! those who disbelieve after their (profession of) belief, and afterward grow violent in disbelief: their repentance will not be accepted. And such are those who are astray.
Lo! those who disbelieve, and die in disbelief, the (whole) earth full of gold would not be accepted from such an one if it were offered as a ransom (for his soul). Theirs will be a painful doom and they will have no helpers.
Say: O People of the Scripture! Why disbelieve ye in the revelations of Allah, when Allah (Himself) is Witness of what ye do?
Say: O People of the Scripture! Why drive ye back believers from the way of Allah, seeking to make it crooked, when ye are witnesses (to Allah’s guidance)? Allah is not unaware of what ye do.
O ye who believe! If ye obey a party of those who have received the Scripture they will make you disbelievers after your belief.
How can ye disbelieve, when it is ye unto whom Allah’s revelations are recited, and His messenger is in your midst? He who holdeth fast to Allah, he indeed is guided unto a right path.
O ye who believe! Observe your duty to Allah with right observance, and die not save as those who have surrendered (unto Him)
On the Day when (some) faces will be whitened and (some) faces will be blackened; and as for those whose faces have been blackened, it will be said unto them: Disbelieved ye after your (profession of) belief? Then taste the punishment for that ye disbelieved.
O ye who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk, who would spare no pains to ruin you; they love to hamper you. Hatred is revealed by (the utterance of) their mouths, but that which their breasts hide is greater. We have made plain for you the revelations if ye will understand.
Their cry was only that they said: Our Lord! forgive us for our sins and wasted efforts, make our foothold sure, and give us victory over the disbelieving folk.
O ye who believe! if ye obey those who disbelieve, they will make you turn back on your heels, and ye turn back as losers.
We shall cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve because they ascribe unto Allah partners, for which no warrant hath been revealed. Their habitation is the Fire, and hapless the abode of the wrong-doers.
O ye who believe! Be not as those who disbelieved and said of their brethren who went abroad in the land or were fighting in the field: If they had been (here) with us they would not have died or been killed: that Allah may make it anguish in their hearts. Allah giveth life and causeth death; and Allah is Seer of what ye do. Koran 3:90&91&98-102&106&118&147&149&151&156
O ye who believe! Choose not your fathers nor your brethren for friends if they take pleasure in disbelief rather than faith. Whoso of you taketh them for friends, such are wrong-doers.
Say: If your fathers, and your sons, and your brethren, and your wives, and your tribe, and the wealth ye have acquired, and merchandise for which ye fear that there will no sale, and dwellings ye desire are dearer to you than Allah and His messenger and striving in His way: then wait till Allah bringeth His command to pass. Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.
Then Allah sent His peace of reassurance down upon His messenger and upon the believers, and sent down hosts ye could not see, and punished those who disbelieved. Such is the reward of disbelievers.
And never (O Muhammad) pray for one of them who dieth, nor stand by his grave. Lo! they disbelieved in Allah and His messenger, and they died while they were evil-doers. Koran 9:23&24&26&84
I cannot believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. I would rather that every god would destroy himself; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony. Robert Ingersoll, What Must We Do to be Saved? 1880 section X The Evangelical Alliance