Dan Barker Quotes

• Only sinners need saviors.

  Dan Barker

  Needs   Savior   Sinner  

  4555

• Insanity is believing your hallucinations are real. Religion is believing that other peoples' hallucinations are real.

  Dan Barker

  Real   Believe   Insanity  

  3377

• There are many gods which Christians reject. I just believe in one less god then they do. The reasons that you might give for your atheism toward the Roman gods are likely the same reasons I would give for not believing in Jesus.

  Dan Barker

  God   Christian   Jesus  

  886

• It turns out that the word atheism means much less than I had thought. It is merely the lack of theism.

  Dan Barker

  Mean   Atheism   Turns  

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

  3063

• Faith is not the result of fuzy thinking. It is the cause of it.

  Dan Barker

  Faith   Thinking   Causes  

  4763

• It's not easy to change world views. Faith has its own momentum and belief is comfortable. To restructure reality is traumatic and scary. That is why many intelligent people continue to believe: unbelief is an unknown.

  Dan Barker

  Faith   Believe   Intelligent  

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

  1102

• It is a fact of history and of current events that human beings exaggerate, misinterpret, or wrongly remember events. They have also fabricated pious fraud. Most believers in a religion understand this when examining the claims of other religions.

  Dan Barker

  Religion   Atheism   Current Events  

  Dan Barker (2009). “Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists”, p.248, Ulysses Press

  1206

• You can cite a hundred references to show that the biblical God is a bloodthirsty tyrant, but if they can dig up two or three verses that say "God is love" they will claim that you are taking things out of context!

  Dan Barker

  Bible   Biblical   Tyrants  

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

  5160

• Scientists do not join hands every Sunday and sing "Yes gravity is real! I know gravity is real! I will have faith! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about the concept.

  Dan Barker

  Faith   Atheist   Real  

  632

• Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, 'Yes, gravity is real! I will have faith!'

  Dan Barker

  Real   Sunday   Hands  

  4957

• I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never say anything positive: You are an intelligent human being. Your life is valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently evil—you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself.

  Dan Barker

  Atheist   Intelligent   Class  

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

  2425

• Asking, ‘If there is no God, what is the purpose of life?’ is like asking, ‘If there is no master, whose slave will I be?’ If your purpose of life is to submit as a slave, then your meaning comes from flattering the ego of a person whom you should detest.

  Dan Barker

  Ego   Life Is Like   Purpose  

  Dan Barker (2011). “The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-filled Life Without God”, p.29, Ulysses Press

  1435

• Without "The Law of Moses" would we all be wandering around like little gods, stealing, raping, and spilling blood whenever our vanity was offended?

  Dan Barker

  Fear   Vanity   Blood  

  4753

• In any open question, we should argue from what we do know to what we do not know. We do know that fervent legends and stubborn myths arise easily and naturally. We do not know that dead people rise from the grave.

  Dan Barker

  People   Religion   Stubborn  

  Dan Barker, Richard Dawkins (2008). “Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists”, p.299, Ulysses Press

  4904

• Either in or out of time, the decision of a personal agency to commit an action happens antecedent to the action itself. Even if the deciding and the acting happened simultaneously, it would still not be true that the acting was antecedent to the deciding. Imagine God saying, "Oh, look! I just created a universe. Now I'd better decide to do it.

  Dan Barker

  Agency   Decision   Acting  

  Dan Barker (2009). “Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists”, p.137, Ulysses Press

  4402

• All you have to do is walk into any children's hospital and you know there is no God. Prayer doesn't make any difference. Those people pray for their beloved children to live and they die.

  Dan Barker

  Prayer   Children   Differences  

  1403

• I'm proud to be an atheist - it helps me stand for so much more and fall for so much less.

  Dan Barker

  Atheist   Fall   Religion  

  2527

• There is no evidence for a god, no coherent definition of a god, no good argument for a god, good positive arguments against a god, no agreement among believers about the nature or moral principles of a god, and no need for a god. We can live happy, moral, productive lives without such belief, and we can do it better.

  Dan Barker

  Agreement   Productive Life   Religion  

  2621

• I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being.

  Dan Barker

  Love   God   Christian  

  Dan Barker (2009). “Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists”, p.89, Ulysses Press

  4850

• You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time, but I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime.

  Dan Barker

  Accusing Me   Doubt   Atheism  

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

  461

• Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits. It is intellectual bankruptcy.

  Dan Barker

  Atheist   Taken   Religion  

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

  2944

• It is wrong for a secular government to promote prayer. We think the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. What if the president declared a National Day of Cursing God because He failed us on September 11? Americans would say, "You've overstepped your authority." That's how we feel when he promotes prayer.

  Dan Barker

  Prayer   Thinking   Government  

  4809

• Truth does not demand belief.

  Dan Barker

  Doe   Demand   Belief  

  5077

• We were blood brothers, pals forever. He was my very best friend. Nobody else could see him. I now know he was just pretend.

  Dan Barker

  Brother   Blood   Forever  

  4020

• I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God. That should be all that needs to be said about it: no evidence, no belief.

  Dan Barker

  Atheist   Doubt   Religion  

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

  4845

• Look at the posture of prayer. It is the posture of slavery, of bowing before your master. We are a proudly rebellious country. We kicked out the master. Now here comes the government telling us to humbly bow again.

  Dan Barker

  Country   Prayer   Government  

  4721

• Freethinkers reject faith as a valid tool of knowledge. Faith is the opposite of reason because reason imposes very strict limits on what can be true, and faith has no limits at all. A Great Escape into faith is no retreat to safety. It is nothing less than surrender.

  Dan Barker

  Fear   Opposites   Safety  

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

  1291

• I have an Easter challenge for Christians. My challenge is simply this: tell me what happened on Easter. I am not asking for proof. My straightforward request is merely that Christians tell me exactly what happened on the day that their most important doctrine was born.

  Dan Barker

  Christian   Easter   Challenges  

  "Easter Challenge". www.patheos.com. March 27, 2013.

  4507

• If faith is a valid tool of knowledge, then anything can be true 'by faith,' and therefore nothing is true. If the only reason you can accept a claim is by faith, then you are admitting that the claim does not stand on its own merits.

  Dan Barker

  Religion   Atheism   Admitting  

  1058

• Not thinking critically, I assumed that the successful prayers were proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof that there was something wrong with me.

  Dan Barker

  Prayer   Successful   Thinking  

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

  4020

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