Dan Barker Quotes

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.

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.

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?

The next time believers tell you that 'separation of church and state' does not appear in our founding document, tell them to stop using the word 'trinity.' The word 'trinity' appears nowhere in the bible. Neither does Rapture, or Second Coming, or Original Sin. If they are still unfazed (or unphrased), by this, then add Omniscience, Omnipresence, Supernatural,Transcendence, Afterlife, Deity, Divinity, Theology, Monotheism, Missionary, Immaculate Conception, Christmas, Christianity, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Methodist, Catholic, Pope, Cardinal, Catechism, Purgatory, Penance, Transubstantiation, Excommunication, Dogma, Chastity, Unpardonable Sin, Infallibility, Inerrancy, Incarnation, Epiphany, Sermon, Eucharist, the Lord's Prayer, Good Friday, Doubting Thomas, Advent, Sunday School, Dead Sea, Golden Rule, Moral, Morality, Ethics, Patriotism, Education, Atheism, Apostasy, Conservative (Liberal is in), Capital Punishment, Monogamy, Abortion, Pornography, Homosexual, Lesbian, Fairness, Logic, Republic, Democracy, Capitalism, Funeral, Decalogue, or Bible.

The very concept of sin comes from the Bible. Christianity offers to solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?

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.

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.

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!

People are invariably surprised to hear me say I am both an atheist and an agnostic, as if this somehow weakens my certainty. I usually reply with a question like, 'Well, are you a Republican or an American?' The two words serve different concepts and are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism addresses knowledge; atheism addresses belief. The agnostic says, 'I don't have a knowledge that God exists.' The atheist says, 'I don't have a belief that God exists.' You can say both things at the same time. Some agnostics are atheistic and some are theistic.

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

Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. 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.

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 who should detest.

How happy can you be when you think every action and thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost?

Isn't atheism just another religion?' No, it isn't. Atheism has no creeds, rituals, holy book, absolute moral code, origin myth, sacred spaces or shrines. It has no sin, divine judgment, forbidden words, prayer, worship, prophecy, group privileges, or anointed 'holy' leaders. Atheists don't believe in a transcendent world or supernatural afterlife. Most important, there is no orthodoxy in atheism.

There is no “universal moral urge” and not all ethical systems agree. Polygamy, human sacrifice, infanticide, cannibalism (Eucharist), wife beating, self-mutilation, foot binding, preemptive war, torture of prisoners, circumcision, female genital mutilation, racism, sexism, punitive amputation, castration and incest are perfectly “moral” in certain cultures. Is god confused?

Solving a real problem was much more meaningful than saving fictional souls from a fictional hell.

Perhaps the funniest example is that of the Rev. Milton Barfoot, who said to Dan’s brother, in apparently honest bafflement, “But, isn’t Dan afraid of hell?” No, Reverend, Dan doesn’t believe in hell anymore, that’s one of the things about being an atheist, you see.

Even if the world was falling apart, that was no reason to let his appearance and good habits fall apart with it.

religion that cannot survive looking at itself through the eyes of others does not deserve to survive.

People should be judged by their actions, not their beliefs. Actions speak louder than faith.

It is true that “atheism” is a negative word, but so is “nonfiction.” They are double negatives. Both words tell you that what you are getting is real, not pretend. Those of

Religion + Good Works = Good Works Solve for Religion.

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Mithra’s birth was witnessed by shepherds and by Magi who brought gifts to his sacred birth-cave of the Rock. Mithra performed the usual assortment of miracles: raising the dead, healing the sick, making the blind see and the lame walk, casting out devils.

The short life of Jesus can hardly compare with the suffering of brave heretics who have been persecuted for criticizing Christianity, or with the agony of the “witches” who were burned, drowned and hanged by bible believers (quoting Exodus 22:18: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”). Nor

The Gospels, written many decades after the fact, are a blend of fact and fantasy—historical fiction—and although the proportions of the blend may differ from scholar to scholar, no credible historians take them at 100 percent face value.

Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.

Before returning to heaven, Mithra celebrated a Last Supper with his twelve disciples, who represented the twelve signs of the zodiac.

Why is there no governmental oversight of how public money is spent by these organizations and churches? Probably because there is an assumption that if it is religious, it must be good.

In any event, how can the temporal sufferings of Jesus compare to the sufferings of the entire human race? Did Jesus ever experience the pain of childbirth? The billions of women going through labor are much more life giving, much more nurturing of value than a few hours of self-imposed bleeding on a cross. The

The preachers have got it completely backward. If life is eternal, then life is cheap. Value does not come from surplus; it comes from rarity. Prices rise as supply drops. The reality that our lives are brief is what makes them precious. The fact that they will end makes them more meaningful. “Ultimate purpose” is no purpose at all: it is the surrender of purpose. It is the pretense that faith equals meaning.

The atheists I know, virtually all of whom are happy and mentally healthy, might more properly be called anti-nihilists. We are mainly optimists who love our lives and find them to be full of meaning and purpose.

Jesus supposedly lived sometime between 4 B.C.E. and 30 C.E., but there is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, not during his entire lifetime.

Nor can the one day of suffering Jesus supposedly endured compare with the Holocaust, the genocide of Native Americans or the pain of those who were tortured during the Inquisition. His supposed contribution to the world hardly compares with the hard work, sacrifice and discipline of intelligent individuals who have dedicated their lives to science and medicine. Just because Jesus was considered a Higher Power does not make his alleged suffering any higher than yours or mine.

The Greek god Dionysus was a man-god said to be the “Son of Zeus.” He was killed, buried, descended into hell, and rose from the dead to sit at the right hand of the father. His empty tomb at Delphi was long preserved and venerated by believers.

But purpose is personal. It can’t be right or wrong. It can’t be true or false. It can’t not be about you. It’s how you decide to live your own life. If someone else tells you how to live, you are not free. If you don’t choose your own purpose, you are a slave.

How happy can you be when you think every action and thought is being monitored by a judgemental ghost?

Mere Morality can be summarized as: using instinct, law, and reason as guides, try to act with the intention of minimizing harm.

What does the number of copies have to do with authenticity?

Bart Ehrman, in Misquoting Jesus, reminds us that there are more variants among the ancient documents than there are words in the New Testament.

Matthew is caught tinkering with the facts. His reliability as a historian is severely crippled.

The Gospel writers wanted to make of their hero nothing less than what was claimed of saviors of other religions: a king born of a virgin.

The Gospel accounts cannot be considered historical, but even if they were, they tell us that the earliest biography of Jesus contains no resurrection!

with hundreds of millions of good people believing that the illiterate Muhammad miraculously wrote the Koran.

You can’t have the freedom to believe if you do not have the freedom not to believe.

Dan Ariely did a study in which people were given the opportunity to cheat on a test. (They didn’t know the researchers administering the test would be able to tell.) Of course, those who exploited this performed better, but here’s what’s interesting: when surveyed about how they thought they’d do on another test, the cheaters rated themselves higher than non-cheaters. In other words, despite having succeeded due to deception, they attributed their success to being smarter. In deceiving others they ended up deceiving themselves. That’s

Don’t blow your one and only shot at happiness by selling your birthright and squandering your meaning and purpose on someone else’s undeserved glory. Live your own life. If you are reasonable and kind, you will discover that meaning is not handed to you from on high; it emerges naturally from your own life-driven purpose.

According to believers like Craig who are unhappy with blunt reality, life needs to be more than it is, otherwise it is absurd, and since we can’t possibly allow life to be absurd, then life must be more than it is! As an atheist, I think that is absurd.

But we exist now. We are caring, intelligent animals and can treasure our brief lives. Why is eternal better than temporal, or supernatural "higher" than natural? Doesn't rarity increase value? God is an idea, not a natural creature. Why should his "image" be more valuable than our own "nature?

If salvation is the cure, then atheism is the prevention.

It appears that in order to win favor in the eyes of the God of the Old Testament, you have to be an obedient and heartless ethnic cleanser. Otherwise, step aside.

The Christ in Paul’s writings is a different character from the Jesus of the Gospels.

Luke says Jesus was born during a Roman census, and it is true that there was a census in 6 C.E.

We think this is unconstitutional. Our secular government should not be promoting or funding religion.

To sum up: 1) There is no external historical confirmation for the Jesus story outside of the New Testament. 2) The New Testament accounts are internally contradictory. 3) There are many other plausible explanations for the origin of the myth that do not require us to distort or destroy the natural worldview. 4) The miracle reports make the story highly suspect.

Whatever country you live in, any law based on “glory” instead of real harm is dangerous. The glory of the nation, or the glory of the monarchy, or the glory of the superior race, or the glory of the church have been the cause of horrible wars and legally sanctioned discrimination. Any laws based solely on these glories should be morally denounced. They cause unnecessary harm.

Pagan mythical parallels can be found for almost every item in the New Testament: the Last Supper, Peter’s denial, Pilate’s wife’s dream, the crown of thorns, the vinegar and gall at the crucifixion, the mocking inscription over the cross, the Passion, the trial, Pilate’s washing of hands, the carrying of the cross, the talk between the two thieves hanging beside Jesus, and so on.

We atheists do want justice. Why would you imagine we don’t? As with purpose, justice doesn’t have to be ultimate to be meaningful. We want justice in our world, not in a pretend supernatural realm. Since there is no ultimate cosmic justice, we have all the more reason not to put it off to an uncertain future. We had better do it now. We

Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ’s miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness and resurrection of the dead took place—when Christ himself rose from the dead and in the presence of many witnesses ascended into heaven. These marvelous events which must have filled the world with amazement, had they really occurred, were unknown to him. It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although this Word incarnate dwelt in that very land and in the presence of multitudes revealed himself and demonstrated his divine powers, Philo saw it not.

I think the greatest problem with religious systems such as Christianity is their pessimistic view of human nature. If you teach a generation of children that they are sinful creatures by nature, that left on their own they are morally corrupt, deserving of eternal torment in hell, that they are not to be trusted to think their own (selfish, evil) thoughts, all of this can become—has become—a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whole segments of the population grow up with a negative self-image, thinking they really are rotten, in need of a savior or father figure. They are told they are bad, so they act like it. Their religion exaggerates and demonizes normal human feelings, turning them into cosmic struggles with evil, creating devils to be fought instead of problems to be solved.

Tras la reunión algunos de los miembros del equipo trajeron a una mujer que quería que la curasen de una artritis incapacitante. Todos estaban preparados para ver un milagro. ¡Glups! Daban vueltas a mi alrededor e insistieron en que rezase por esa mujer. Pobrecilla. Se sacudía, y lloraba, y rezaba. Bueno, ¿por qué no? pensé ésa es la promesa de Dios, no la mía. Así que puse mis manos en sus hombros y recé, pidiéndole a Dios, en el nombre de Jesús, que cumpliera su palabra y curase esa enfermedad. Entonces dije: -En el nombre de Jesús, ¡estás curada!- Todo estaba en silencio. La mujer abrió los ojos y me miró. Todos sonreían con esperanza. No sucedió nada. Seguía mirándome. Todos me miraban, ¿qué se suponía que tenía que hacer ahora? Al fin encontré una salida: Mujer, hágase según tu fe. Sé que fue un truco sucio, pero, ¿qué hubiera hecho usted? Si no estaba curada no era culpa mía. Simplemente era que no tenía suficiente fe, eso es todo. Recuerdo que el resto de los miembros del equipo parecían desilusionados, pero seguros de que Dios sabía lo que estaba haciendo. La mujer salió del edificio, perdiéndose encorvada en la noche y todavía enferma, y además con un reproche.

Did he have the best trainer? Nope. His friend Uroč Velepec described Robič as “Completely uncoachable.” In a piece for the New York Times, Dan Coyle revealed the edge Robič had over his competition that rendered him the greatest rider ever in the Race Across America: His insanity. That’s not an exaggerated way of saying he was extreme. It’s a literal way of saying when Robič rode, he utterly lost his mind. He became paranoid; had tearful, emotional breakdowns; and saw cryptic meaning in the cracks on the street beneath him. Robič would throw down his bike and walk toward the follow car of his team members, fists clenched and eyes ablaze. (Wisely, they locked the doors.) He leapt off his bike mid-race to engage in fistfights . . . with mailboxes. He hallucinated, one time seeing mujahedeen chasing him with guns. His then wife was so disturbed by Robič’s behavior she locked herself in the team’s trailer. Coyle

Asking "If there is no God, what is the purpose of life?" is like asking "If there is no master, whose slave shall I be?

The next February I had a daughter born. She lived only 12 days. There were some things very strange connected with the birth of this child, which I do not think best to write, but I shall never forget, which I never shall know the meaning of until the first resurrection, when I shall clasp it again in my arms.

BOOKS THAT GREATLY INSPIRED ME AND THAT YOU SHOULD CONSIDER READING (in no particular order) Beyond the Culture of Contest by Michael Karlberg A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt The Family Virtues Guide by Linda Kavelin Popov, Dan Popov, and John Kavelin The Second Mountain by David Brooks High Conflict by Amanda Ripley The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh The Seven Mysteries of Life by Guy Murchie Viral Justice by Ruha Benjamin The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein The Story of Our Time by Robert Atkinson Global Unitive Healing by Dr. Elena Mustakova What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck How Should We Live? by Roman Krznaric The God Equation by Michio Kaku Einstein’s God by Krista Tippett What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff Help, Thanks, Wow by Anne Lamott See No Stranger by Valarie Kaur Plays Well with Others by Eric Barker Narrow Road to the Interior by Matsuo Bashō The Soul’s Code by James Hillman The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss by David Bentley Hart The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton The Awakened Brain by Lisa Miller, PhD The Hidden Words by Baha’u’llah

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 fragile 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.

Two men have died trying to do this. Outside Magazine declared the Race Across America the toughest endurance event there is, bar none. Cyclists cover three thousand miles in less than twelve days, riding from San Diego to Atlantic City. Some might think Oh, that’s like the Tour de France. They would be wrong. The Tour has stages. Breaks. The Race Across America (RAAM) does not stop. Every minute riders take to sleep, to rest, to do anything other than pedal, is another minute their competitors can use to defeat them. Riders average three hours of sleep per night—reluctantly. Four days into the race and the top riders must debate when to rest. With the competition tightly clustered (within an hour of each other), it is a decision that weighs heavily on them, knowing they will be passed and need to regain their position. And as the race goes on they will grow weaker. There is no respite. The exhaustion, pain, and sleep deprivation only compound as they work their way across the entire United States. But in 2009 this does not affect the man in the number-one spot. He is literally half a day ahead of number two. Jure Robič seems unbeatable. He has won the RAAM five times, more than any other competitor ever, often crossing the finish line in under nine days. In 2004 he bested the number-two rider by eleven hours. Can you imagine watching an event during which after the winner claims victory you need to wait half a day in order to see the runner-up finish? It’s only natural to wonder what made Robič so dominant and successful in such a grueling event. Was he genetically gifted? No. When tested, he seemed physically typical for a top ultra-endurance athlete. Did he have the best trainer? Nope. His friend Uroč Velepec described Robič as “Completely uncoachable.” In a piece for the New York Times, Dan Coyle revealed the edge Robič had over his competition that rendered him the greatest rider ever in the Race Across America: His insanity.

When Elizabeth Cady Stanton said that “The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation,” she was obviously referring to the misogynistic God of the Old Testament.

There it is. That is the source of women’s inequality in the Middle East, the Western world, and every country infected with biblical belief. In the New Testament, Paul (or someone pretending to be Paul) pounces on this pretext for patriarchy:

That was the birth of religion, a shameful covering to hide our true human nature and pretend that we don’t know what we know.

Lord Jealous.

evangelical Christians

Massacring men, women, and children does not raise an eyebrow, but keeping a little war booty is “evil.” Notice that throughout the Old Testament, “evil” and “wicked” are not moral judgments. Saul is called “evil” because he disobeyed orders.

When it comes to being eaten or slaughtered, the God of the Old Testament is egalitarian. Other than that, you are better off being born a male.

This is evidence that goodness and wickedness in the bible have nothing to do with morality.

Mark Twain said the same thing better: “Heaven for climate; hell for society.

Certaines étoiles mettent plus de temps que d’autre à apparaître. Le paradoxe est le suivant : plus il fait nuit, plus ces secrets deviennent visibles. Pour finir, ils se déploient dans toute leur splendeur ; et ce sont ces choses même que nous dissimulons, ces choses dont nous avons le plus honte, dont nous nous servons pour nous guider.

The loftiest biblical principles are obedience, submission, and faith, rather than reason, intelligence, and human values.

If a god is trying to get his message across to the masses of humanity, why did he do it in such a way that the only people qualified to grasp its true significance are those with doctorates in biblical studies?

preacher

the bible is not a reliable source of truth.

evangelicals,

The apologists have shot themselves in the foot.

evangelical translators are simply trying to paper over a discrepancy.

National Association of Evangelicals),

Holy Scriptures

[T]he translators were united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of the bible as God’s Word in written form.

This is not the agenda of a team of objective scholars.

rigid evangelical position.

the translators of the NIV and the Living Bible and other evangelical apologists have dishonestly tampered with the meaning of scripture, using a phony argument (a phone argument!) in order to deceive the readers and disguise an embarrassing discrepancy in their so-called “holy book.

Though most scholars (pro and con) agree that the current edition of the Book of Mormon is a trustworthy copy of the 1830 version, few Christian scholars consider it to be reliable history.

Perhaps Matthew was right, or perhaps Luke was right, but both could not have been right. (See Chapter 13 for the exact citations.)

Believe it or not, many Christians can make these statements with a straight face.

An idea does not need to be true in order to be believed, and the same could be asked about any other myth: Santa Claus, William Tell or Zeus.

if a miracle is defined as some kind of violation, suspension, overriding or punctuation of natural law, then miracles cannot be historical.

Pat Robertson

orthodox claim of scriptural inerrancy and reliability.

It could also be applied to the Moonies, Jehovah’s Witnesses and many other successful religious movements. If smoke is evidence of fire, are they all true?

Billions of tax dollars have freely flowed to undisguised religious organizations that openly laud faith to accomplish their mission.

Faith Works’ only tools were prayer, bible study and church attendance,