Reasonable Doubt

ETHICS & MORALITY

“True character arises from a deeper well than religion.”
-E.O. Wilson

“Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain god's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's just sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great surveillance camera in the sky, or the still small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move, even your every base though.”
-Richard Dawkins

“I do not believe I have any immortality. The greatest evil in the world today is the Christian religion.”
-H.G. Wells

You don’t need religion to have morals. If you can’t determine right from wrong, then you lack empathy, not religion.

“Thousands of years ago, god, in his infinite wisdom, chose to speak to us through the writings of savage, genocidal, goat-herding rapists who had the morals of a third world dictator in order to give us lessons on how to live our lives in a modern, civilized society.”
-Nicholas Mazer

"Religion is an advertising campaign for a product that doesn't exist."

-Clive James

"One of the greatest tragedies in mankind's entire history may be that morality was hijacked by religion."

-Arthur C. Clark

“A popular claim among religious theists is that atheists have no basis for morality — that religion and gods are needed for moral values. Usually they mean their religion and god, but sometimes they seem willing to accept any religion and any god. The truth is that neither religions nor gods are necessary for morality, ethics, or values. They can exist in a godless, secular context just fine, as demonstrated by all the godless atheists who lead moral lives every day.”
-Austin Cline

“Statistically speaking, atheists are not only good without god, they are better. Less likely to divorce. Less likely to be a criminal. Less likely to have an abortion. Less likely to become pregnant as a teen. Less likely to beat children or spouses. More likely to engage in community service. More likely to be financially secure. More likely to be well educated.”
-Militant Atheism for the Soul

Atheism Defined
American Atheists
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

WHOSE ETHICS?

“The old testament is filled with horrendous lessons on how to treat people. A god that kills almost everyone on earth in a flood. That’s pretty crazy. A god that commands Joshua to murder all the women and children except for the young girls, who can be taken as sex slaves. That’s horrible. A god that condemns anyone who eats shellfish. What is that all about? And of course, the 10 commandments tell you that working on Saturday or saying god’s name without a good reason makes you a bad person. God eventually goes into great detail about how to deal with cattle thieves, isolating women on their period, and which fabrics to wear. But nowhere in those ten commandments, or in the six hundred and three that come after it, does it say Don’t abuse children, or Don’t enslave people, or Don’t rape.”
-Dr. Darrel Ray

"When I grew up in the South, I was taught that segregation was the will of God, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that women were by nature inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it."
-Bishop John Shelby Spong

DARE TO DOUBT
HERE I STAND
SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE

“I was brought up an atheist and I have always remained so. But at no time was I led to believe that morality was unimportant or that good and bad did not exist. I believe passionately in the need to distinguish between right and wrong. And I am somewhat confounded by being told that I need god, Jesus, or a clergyman to help me do so.”
-Nigella Lawson

“Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.”
-H.L. Menken

“The old testament is filled with horrendous lessons on how to treat people. A god that kills almost everyone on earth in a flood. That’s pretty crazy. A god that commands Joshua to murder all the women and children except for the young girls, who can be taken as sex slaves. That’s horrible. A god that condemns anyone who eats shellfish. What is that all about? And of course, the 10 commandments tell you that working on Saturday or saying god’s name without a good reason makes you a bad person. God eventually goes into great detail about how to build an altar, how to deal with cattle thieves, isolating women on their period, and which fabrics to wear. But nowhere in those 10 commandments, or in the six hundred and three that come after it, does it say Don’t abuse children, or Don’t enslave people, or Don’t rape.”
-Dr. Darrel Ray

“Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.”
-H.L. Menken

BAD GOD

“One of the things fundamentally wrong with any moral system based on religious belief is that it prevents you from developing a truly workable morality or ethic of your own, and prevents you from being able to adapt to unusual challenging moral questions.”
-Richard Packham

“Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in his name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion, and I’ll show you a hundred retrogressions.”
-Frank Sinatra

“If religious faith improved morality, priests wouldn’t rape kids, suicide bombers wouldn’t exist, and women would have equality.”
-Brutal Atheist

"There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven."

-Robert Ingersoll

“One of the greatest tragedies of mankind’s entire history may be that morality was hijacked by religion.”
-Arthur C. Clarke

“Are the pious acts pious because they are loved by the gods, or are the pious acts loved by the gods because they are pious?”
-Socrates

“Why should I allow the same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown his own?”
-Robert Ingersoll

DARE TO DOUBT
HERE I STAND
SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE

GOOD WITHOUT GOD

“The only ones with true morality are us, atheists. We are doing good because it’s good. And we are doing right because it’s right. And not for reward or punishment. We have love for each other. We have community. We have charity.”
-Penn Jillette

“We moralistic atheists do not see right and wrong as artifacts of a divine protection racket. Rather, we find moral value to be immanent in the natural world, arising from the vulnerabilities of sentient beings and from the capacities of rational beings to recognize and to respond to those vulnerabilities and capacities in others… I think that it is a more pious position to hold that morality is independent of the existence of god. If the term good is not just an empty epithet that we attach to the creator, who or whatever that turns out to be, then it must be that the facts about what is good are independent of the other facts about god. If good is to have normative force, it must be something that we can understand independently of what is commanded by a powerful omnipresent being. What I think all this means is that the capacity to be moved by the moral dimension of things has nothing to do with one’s theological beliefs. The most reliable allies in any moral struggle will be those who respond to the ethically significant aspects of life, whether or not they conceive these things in religious terms. You do not lose morality by giving up god. Neither do you necessarily find it by finding him. Some people think that if atheism were true, human choices would be insignificant. I think just the opposite. They would become surpassingly important.”
-Louise Antony

DARE TO DOUBT
HERE I STAND
SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE

“It’s almost as if the Bible was written by racist, sexist, homophobic, violent, sexually frustrated men, instead of a loving god.”
-Ricky Gervais

"Religion is the refuge of the morally weak and intellectually lazy."

-Craig Smith

"If there is a god, he will have

to beg my forgiveness."

...Words carved into a concentration camp

cell wall by a Jewish prisoner

during the Holocaust

"Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead."
-Kurt Vonnegut

“If we received our morality from god or religion, then we would expect to see higher morality among the most religious and godly societies. A simple look at today’s societies shows that is not the case. For example, the US is the most religious western nation, yet we have the highest murder rate, highest rate of imprisonment, highest rape rates along with among the highest poverty rates, teen pregnancies and much more. Compare our religious society to France, Germany, Sweden, Japan or any number of other developed countries, and you see that high rates of atheism or non-religiosity are associated with low rates of all these “moral” problems.”
-Dr. Darrel Ray

MORALLY BANKRUPT

“One common complaint about secularism is that religion and belief in god are prerequisites for morality, justice, and a democratic society. The basic premise here is that the only values which ultimately matter are those which are transcendent, and such values can only be perceived and understood through religious tradition and a connection with the divine. It is strange that such a belief would be as common as it is, because religions and various types of theism have had literally thousands of years during which they could demonstrate that they could provide the basis for a just, moral, and democratic society. For the most part, they haven't done a very good job; on the contrary, religion is too often associated with immorality, injustice, and political repression.”
-Austin Cline

"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then, brother, that person is a piece of shit."
-True Detective

“Morality is more than possible without God. It is entirely independent of him.”
-Julian Baggini

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

-George Orwell

"Religion is so pathetically absurd and infantile that it is humiliating and embarrassing to think that the majority of people will never rise above it."

-Sigmund Freud

“Modern society does not depend on Christianity for morality. We don’t need a god to explain morality, so consequently there is no moral lawgiver, and no argument from morality to the existence of god. If god wrote a moral code within us, he did so in invisible ink.”
-John Loftus

“While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its liabilities. Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us incapable of criticizing ideas that are now patently absurd and increasingly maladaptive.”
-Sam Harris

Atheist mind.
Humanist heart.
Hospitals before churches.
Good deeds before prayer.
Reason before faith.

"They muddy the water to make it seem deep."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

“I’m sorry if my atheism offends you. But guess what? Religious wars, jihads, crusades, inquisitions, censoring of free speech, brainwashing of children, genocide, forcing girls into underage marriages, genital mutilation, stoning, homophobia, and rejection of science and reason offend me.”
-Mike Treder

“Even though I don’t believe in god, I try to behave as though he was watching.”
-Christopher Reeves

“I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored from pirate raids across the globe, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of booty, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies.”
-Mark Twain

DARE TO DOUBT
HERE I STAND
SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE

“Atheists believe morality to be a uniquely human trait. Therefore, we conduct ourselves ethically for its own sake. We seek no reward for ourselves nor punishment for others.”
-Rational Faith