He says, Dinosaur fossils? God put those here to test our faith ... I think God put you here to test my faith, dude. Bill Hicks, Revelations, Dominion Theatre London
My faith in the expertise of physicists like Richard Feynman, for instance, permits me to endorse – and, if it comes to it, bet heavily on the truth of – a proposition that I don’t understand. So far my faith is not unlike religious faith, but I am not in the slightest bit motivated to go to my death rather than recant the formulas of physics. Watch: E doesn’t equal MC squared, it doesn’t, it doesn’t! I was lying, so there. Daniel C Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
What you’re really selling first is damnation. Dan Barker, lecture 2001, ‘Losing Faith in Faith’
Songs: Can’t Win With Original Sin & Nothing Fails Like Prayer. ibid.
How lucky was I: I was born in the right religion, in the right family, in the right religion, in the right time in history, because the world’s ending any minute ... One of these days, someone is going to be right. ibid.
How do you explain the gullibility? ibid.
The mindset of a fundamentalist is a binary brain: it’s either right or wrong, good or evil, black or white, yes or no. ibid.
There are as many Christianities as there are Christians. ibid.
I’ve debated some liberal Christians and it’s like trying to nail jello to the tree. ibid.
Can you think of a single book that’s caused more confusion than the Bible? ibid.
There is no evidence at all. ibid.
There’s no need for a God. ibid.
A faith is something you die for; a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world. Tony Benn
Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 1843
Infinite resignation is the last stage before faith, so anyone who has not made this movement does not have faith, for only in infinite resignation does an individual become conscious of his eternal validity, and only then can one speak of grasping existence by virtue of faith. ibid. p46
We may define ‘faith’ as a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of ‘faith’. We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups substitute different emotions. Bertrand Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics 1954
It was the schoolboy who said, ‘Faith is believing what you know ain’t so’. Mark Twain
Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. Mark Twain
Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe. Albert Einstein, attributions inc Humphrey Davy
Adeste, fideles, [O Come All Ye Faithful] Laeti triumphantes, Venite, Venite in Bethlahem. John Francis Wade, attributed
It ain’t supposed to make sense; it’s faith. Faith is something that you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe. Archie Bunker, All in the Family
Life is doubt,
And faith without doubt is nothing but death. Miguel de Unamuno, Poesias, 1907
Faith is an excitement and an enthusiasm; it is a condition of intellectual magnificence to which we must cling as to a treasure, and not squander on our way through life in the small coin of empty words, or in exact and priggish argument. George Sand, letter 25th May 1866
When we blindly accept a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. Anais Nin
We have not lost faith but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession. George Bernard Shaw
It is often said that Christian faith is the dominant faith in America. It is also often said that faith is a bad thing, which prevents religious people from determining the answers to various vital questions. On the basis of the relevant evidence, faith in other words is regarded as not only blind, but blinding. The truth about America however is more complex. Another kind of faith, radically different from Christian faith, is actually the dominant faith in our country. Professor David Ray Griffin, interview Guns & Butter 7th January 2009
Too often Christian faith is less important to Christians in America than their American faith. The evidence that 9/11 was an inside job I have argued is overwhelming to anyone with eyes to see. And Christian faith at its best serves to open people’s eyes to this evidence. When Christian faith is subordinated to faith in American goodness, however, it becomes a blinding faith. Producing Christians with eyes wide shut. In working so long to expose the truth about 9/11 one of my central hopes is that this exposure will lead American Christians to repent of this idolatrous subordination. And once Christians see 9/11 for what it was, in the pretext to extend the American Empire, in predominantly Muslim countries, I hope they will realise that to be loyal to Jesus, I preach an anti-Imperial gospel. They will need to oppose American imperialism as they have opposed previous types of imperialism. Our country needs, our world needs, our leadership in exposing the truth about 9/11. Let’s do it! ibid.
It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge. Adolf Hitler
Scepticism is the beginning of faith. Oscar Wilde
Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods. C S Lewis
Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to. George Seaton
A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests. Niccolo Machiavelli
The biggest placebo of them all – God. Derren Brown: Fear and Faith, Channel 4 2012
We’re all born with an inbuilt hard-wired tendency to believe. ibid.
Even atheists often betray a tendency to give purpose and meaning to events in their life that really they shouldn’t. ibid.
We create the idea of an agency – that God takes an interest in us, and is pulling strings in our lives. ibid.
We all find ways of making ourselves happy. ibid.
We each live an extraordinary and improbable life. ibid.