C. S. Lewis Quotes About Atheism
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If naturalism were true then all thoughts whatever would be wholly the result of irrational causes. It cuts its own throat.
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There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counterclaimed by Satan.
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There are no ordinary people.. it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.
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A great many of those who 'debunk' traditional...values have in the background values of their own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process
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The theory that thought is merely a movement in the brain is, in my opinion, nonsense; for if so, that theory itself would be merely a movement, an event among atoms, which may have speed and direction but of which it would be meaningless to use the words 'true' or 'false'.
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There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion ('man's search for God'!) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?
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I was at this time living, like so many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world.
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A universe whose only claim to be believed in rests on the validity of inference must not start telling us the inference is invalid.
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If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is, 'I am.' To know God is to know that our obedience is due to Him.
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A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
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I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
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Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst.
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A creature revolting against a creator is revolting against the source of his own powers-including even his power to revolt...It is like the scent of a flower trying to destroy the flower.
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Unless thought is valid we have no reason to believe in the real universe.
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Never, never pin your whole faith on any human being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand; but do not try building a house on it.
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Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.
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A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.
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A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.
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A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.
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My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?
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If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
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The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike...Unless we return to the crude and nursery-like belief in objective values, we perish.
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Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
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No philosophical theory which I have yet come across is a radical improvement on the words of Genesis, that 'In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth'.
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Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
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In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere — "Bibles laid open, millions of surprises," as Herbert says, "fine nets and stratagems." God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.
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God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous
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Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist.
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From the moment a creature becomes aware of God as God and of itself as self, the terrible alternative of choosing God or self for the centre is opened to it.
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