Reasonable Doubt

SPIRITUAL VIEW

“There is no god out there. There is no god external to life. We must thus begin to look for god within ourselves.”
-Bishop John Shelby Spong

“Some values are truly transcendent, rising above religious walls. Human love, kindness, and intelligence are better than belief, and superior to superstition.”
-Dan Barker

There is no Eden

or Heavenly Gates.

“I believe in two things above all: Nature and love. Nature is all-powerful. Love is how I understand the good. It might have been nice to believe in god, often defined as all-powerful and good, but combining the two like that has always posed too much of a contradiction for my poor mind to believe in. Life is enough. It has to be. It’s all there is. But then what’s the meaning of life? The meaning of life is in the living of it. Our lives are such small things. Sometimes we think we need something grand to make them worthwhile, like eternal life in paradise, or great success, or intense experiences. Or we feel we need a grand philosophy or religion to give our lives meaning. But that’s just not true.”
-C. George Boeree

“Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us. I don't know of any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me.”
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson

“You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you. None can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher than your own soul.”
-Swami Vivekananda

“All intelligent faith in god has behind it a background of humble agnosticism.”
-Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick

Atheism Defined
American Atheists
Non-Believers on the Meaning of Life

Pew Research Center: Facts About Atheists
Top Atheists in the World Today
Freedom From Religion
Patheos: The Free Thinker
Infidels: The Secular Web
American Humanist Association
Richard Dawkins Foundation

You Gotta Believe in Something

“I believe in the cosmic consciousness. I live in gratitude. I am moved to tears by the beauty that is nature. I feel the intensity of great love. I believe in the invisible and the intangible. I have absolute faith in the universe, in nature and in the balance of energy. My faith is unshakeable. I believe in the concept of endless energy, all being projected and retracted on a nonstop basis, forever and ever, inwards and outwards, in every angle. I'm grateful to be alive and that my loved ones are happy. I witness the manifestation of energy, and I love every minute of it. And I feel love. I've felt it all my life. Not a day has gone by when I've had any loss for love or its many manifestations. So, yes, atheists can feel love, gratitude, faith, even spirituality.”
-Dori Hartley

"Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible god and destroys a visible nature. And unaware that this nature he's destroying is the god he is worshipping."

-Hubert Reeves

I’ve studied the Bible.
That’s why I am an Atheist.

“There is no Eden or Heavenly gates
That you're gonna make it to one day.
But all of the answers you seek can be found
In the dreams that you dream on the way.”
-Dan Fogelberg

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Atheism Defined
American Atheists
Non-Believers on the Meaning of Life

You Gotta Believe in Something

NO TEMPLES REQUIRED

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to end war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
-Charles Bukowski

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than

closed by belief.

"When men stop believing in god, it isn't that they then believe in nothing. They believe in everything."

-Umberto Eco

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics. You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded. Because the elements, the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars. And the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode. So forget Jesus. The stars died so you could be here today.”
-Dr. Lawrence Krauss

"It's amazing to discover that you're wrong. In fact, it's liberating. It's not a threat. It opens your mind."

-Lawrence Krauss

"The scientific world view is so much more exciting, more poetic, more filled with sheer wonder, than anything in the poverty-stricken arsenals of the religious imagination."

-Richard Dawkins

"Truth and reality stand on their own merit. Only lies need the support of belief. Religion deserves our fearless disrespect."

-Meme

Atheism Defined
American Atheists
Non-Believers on the Meaning of Life

You Gotta Believe in Something

INTERCONNECTEDNESS

“You can be spiritual and not believe in the supernatural. And this isn’t a new phenomenon. Spiritually minded nontheists were organizing themselves in ancient Greece and Rome under the Stoics and Epicureans, and in Ancient China and India as pupils of Lao Tse or Mimansa. These were disparate belief systems but they rejected the supernatural and recognized the interconnectedness of all things.

Modern thinkers have used the word spiritual to express the feelings of transcendence and deep experiences of awe. There are other terms which can be used to replace spirituality- numinous, mystical, transcendental, contemplative - but they do not capture the depth or the scope of the word.

We are seeing a renewed definition of spirituality centered on connectedness and awe. Connectedness is the understanding that everything in the world is interrelated. Quantum physics proves that the world is deeply connected. The recent breakthrough experiments in quantum entanglement has shown that particles are intimately connected and changing one particle results in changes in the other particle, even over large distances.”

-Rajiv Argarwal

"We are often told that it is wrong to attack religion, because it makes men very virtuous. So I am told. I have not noticed it."

-Bertrand Russell

"I feel no need for any other faith than the faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels."

-Pearl S. Buck

TEN COMMITMENTS

1. Critical Thinking

2. Ethical Development

3. Peace and Social Justice

4. Service and Participation

5. Altruism

6. Humility

7. Environmentalism

8. Global Awareness

9. Responsibility

10. Empathy

-American Humanist Association

LIFE FORCE

While agnostics doubt the existence of god and typically don’t subscribe to organized religions, many say that they embrace some kind of spirituality.

Although not all agnostics are spiritual, being agnostic does not require one to be anti-spiritual. Agnostics may not exactly pray to a specific god, but many agnostics believe in energy and even the human soul. Some even spend a considerable amount of time in meditation.

Many agnostics subscribe to the theory of quantum realities. The theory basically states that there is a multiverse in which every potential version of you exists, including a perfect version of you, commonly referred to as the “higher self."

While agnostics lack belief in a god or subscribe to religious ideas of the soul and the afterlife, many do believe in “energy.” Eastern philosophy often teaches that every human has a “life force” or “chi” that is made up of electromagnetic potential energy.

The existence of this energy has been proven by science, and although researchers don’t make much of it, some agnostics use this as evidence of a “soul” and believe that it gives them a sense of purpose in the universe. Many of these agnostics may also believe in the idea of "collective consciousness."

-Aaron Jones, Cyber Ateoa

DARE TO DOUBT
HERE I STAND
SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE

GOOD WITHOUT GOD

“I can stand at the beach’s edge with the most devout of religious people and weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity, all the billions of people who have lived before us, who have loved and hurt and suffered. So to me, my definition of god is humanity and is the love of humanity.”
-Diana Nyad

“Many a humble agnostic, worshipping an unknown god, is nearer to the kingdom of god than is a theologian confident in his theology… Many an agnostic has a reverence for the unknown god which puts to shame the pride of a superficial dogmatist.”
-Rev. Frederic Greeves

Atheists believe in good.

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement, to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal. Everything is incredible. Never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
-Abraham Joshua Heschel

“The study of science can be very spiritual. All species on earth were at one time connected, we all share certain common characteristics passed on through eons in our DNA strands, and we are just one link in a chain whose future is uncertain. Think of how mind boggling it is that for about 150,000 years human beings, no different than you and me, walked the earth with other human-like species. Or how incredible it is that we share a common ancestor with both a dragonfly and a grapefruit. To know evolution is to know the story of life on earth, and to know the scientific story of life is to feel connected to the world as you never have before.”
-Ben Atwood

Atheism Defined
American Atheists
Non-Believers on the Meaning of Life

You Gotta Believe in Something

MAY REASON PREVAIL

“May reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
-Freedom From Religion Foundation

“The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not abide through the fear of life, or the fear of death, or blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”
-Albert Einstein

“There is no authority for god’s existence except the inward conviction that is born of mystical experience.”
-Leslie Weatherhead

The LIE that comforts

is dear to us.
The TRUTH that disturbs

is rejected.

“We are all members of just one race, the human race. And we share one home, the planet Earth. We all have the same basic aspirations for life, liberty and happiness. We should not be separated by religion or discriminated against because of skin color, sexual orientation or other prejudices. The universe is governed by one overarching set of laws, the laws of nature and science. To lead a happy, productive, virtuous life does not require the belief in an invisible, all-powerful, supernatural being that is aware of our every thought and action and can intercede in our daily lives. On the contrary, within the bounds of natural laws, we are the masters of our own destinies and are responsible for the actions we take and their consequences. There is no supernatural being or force that will come to our rescue if we as individuals or as a human community fail to make the right choices. We are capable of establishing, on our own, an effective set of guidelines that allow each individual to seek happiness and live harmoniously with each other and with nature.”
-The Secular Community

DARE TO DOUBT
HERE I STAND
SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE

“We are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.”
-Neil de Grasse Tyson

"For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. Blessed are the merciful in a courtroom? Blessed are the peacemakers in the Pentagon? Give me a break."

-Kurt Vonnegut

Atheism isn't a religion.

It is a personal relationship

with reality.

COSMIC CONNECTION

“Science as a whole is a woefully-neglected subject in public schools, and it is a shame, because of all disciplines, it can be the most spiritual, especially the study of biology.

All species on earth were at one time connected, we all share certain common characteristics passed on through eons in our DNA strands, and we are just one link in a chain whose future is uncertain. Think of how mind boggling it is that for about 150,000 years human beings, no different than you and me, walked the Earth with other human-like species. Or how incredible it is that we share a common ancestor with both a dragonfly and a grapefruit.

To know evolution is to know the story of life on earth, and to know the scientific story of life is to feel connected to the world as you never have before.

There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth. That is a stupefying number of stars. The size and scale of the universe are unfathomable, and the age is beyond comprehension. There are stars in the universe whose size is a million times bigger than our sun, which is the size of about a million earths. If the study of biology makes us feel connected to the world, the universe reminds us of our place in it, and our past in the stars.

Everything that exists was forged in the furnace of a star, which is the only place hot enough for atoms to merge and combine to form new elements. All the elements that make up your body came from a supernova, which means you, and everyone you love, and everything you see is connected not only with each other, but with the entire universe as well.”

-Ben Atwood

DARE TO DOUBT
HERE I STAND
SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE

BAD THEOLOGY

"A god who desires to be worshipped, and becomes jealous and wrathful when he is not worshipped, is a god not worthy of being worshipped."

-Meme

“The idea of a divine creator belittles the elegant reality of the universe.”

-Richard Dawkins

"If our religion is based on salvation, our chief emotions will be fear and trembling. If our religion is based on wonder, our chief emotion will be gratitude."

-Carl Jung

"Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature."

-Emmett F. Fields

"If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy through concrete acts of loving-kindness, that would be good theology. But, if your notion of god made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, and self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in god's name, now that would be bad theology."

-Karen Armstrong

"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak of it."

-George Orwell

“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple. The philosophy is kindness.”
-Dalai Lama

“The kingdom of god is within you.”
-Jesus