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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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Dan Barker
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: June 25
Musician
Pianist
Songwriter
Writer
Santa Monica
California
Something
Prayers
Thinking
Proof
Atheism
Answers
Prayer
Successful
Critically
Wrong
Assumed
Religion
Failures

More quotes by 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!
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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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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.
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Atheists are suffering from bad PR. What if Sesame Street had an atheist character?
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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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Insanity is believing your hallucinations are real. Religion is believing that other peoples' hallucinations are real.
Dan Barker
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The longer I have been an atheist, the more amazed I am that I ever believed Christian notions.
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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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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Insanity is believing your hallucinations are real. Religion is believing that other peoples' hallucinations are real.
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
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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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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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If the Prodigal Son's a parable, and if Adam and Eve are metaphors, then maybe God is just figure of speech.
Dan Barker
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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
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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
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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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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
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Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, 'Yes, gravity is real! I will have faith!'
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