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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

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Dan Barker
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: June 25
Musician
Pianist
Songwriter
Writer
Santa Monica
California
True
Atheism
Merits
Doe
Accept
Admitting
Anything
Therefore
Valid
Reason
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Nothing
Stand
Merit
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Religion
Claims
Faith
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More quotes by Dan Barker

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Insanity is believing your hallucinations are real. Religion is believing that other peoples' hallucinations are real.
Dan Barker
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Prayer never changes the laws of nature.
Dan Barker
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You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time, but I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime.
Dan Barker
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People are always asking, What's the purpose of life? That's easy. Relieve suffering. Create beauty. Make gardens.
Dan Barker
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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
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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
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The 9/11 terrorist attack was a faith-based initiative.
Dan Barker
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Freethought is respectable. Freethought is crucial. Freethought needs to be publicized.
Dan Barker
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To think that the ruler of the universe will run to my assistance and bend the laws of nature for me is the height of arrogance. That implies that everyone else (such as the opposing football team, driver, student, parent) is de-selected, unfavored by God, and that I am special,above it all.
Dan Barker
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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
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You believe in a book that has sticks turning into snakes, and you say we are the ones that need help?
Dan Barker
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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
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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
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For my money, I'll bet on reason and humanistic kindness. Even if I am wrong I will have enjoyed my life, the existence of which is under little dispute.
Dan Barker
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Truth does not demand belief.
Dan Barker
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Even if it is true that all cultures share a common morality, why does this prove a supreme intelligence? After all, don't we humanists sometimes claim that there is a common thread of humanistic values running through history across cultural and religious lines?
Dan Barker