Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Accepting
Tool
Nothing
Stand
Merit
Knowledge
Claim
Religion
Claims
Faith
Tools

More quotes by Dan Barker

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time, but I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime.
Dan Barker
Image
People are always asking, What's the purpose of life? That's easy. Relieve suffering. Create beauty. Make gardens.
Dan Barker
Image
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
Image
If the Prodigal Son's a parable, and if Adam and Eve are metaphors, then maybe God is just figure of speech.
Dan Barker
Image
Freethought is respectable. Freethought is crucial. Freethought needs to be publicized.
Dan Barker
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Insanity is believing your hallucinations are real. Religion is believing that other peoples' hallucinations are real.
Dan Barker
Image
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
Image
Prayer never changes the laws of nature.
Dan Barker
Image
Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, 'Yes, gravity is real! I will have faith!'
Dan Barker
Image
The longer I have been an atheist, the more amazed I am that I ever believed Christian notions.
Dan Barker
Image
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
Image
You believe in a book that has sticks turning into snakes, and you say we are the ones that need help?
Dan Barker
Image
The 9/11 terrorist attack was a faith-based initiative.
Dan Barker