Famous Atheists and Freethinkers

1. Famous Atheists and Freethinkers Kentucky State Fair August 18-28, 2011

2. Thomas Edison I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God… The thing which most impresses me about theology is that it does not seem to be investigating. It seems to be asserting, merely, without actual study. - The Columbian, January 1911

3. Thomas Edison "The days of miracles have passed. I do not believe, of course, that there was ever any day of actual miracles... My guide must be my reason, and at thought of miracles my reason is rebellious. Personally, I do not believe that Christ laid claim to doing miracles, or asserted that he had miraculous power." The Columbian, January, 1911.

4. Katherine Hepburn I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for each other. October 1991 Ladies' Home Journal

5. As long as every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is simply impossible.-- The Gods (1872) Robert Green Ingersoll

6. Robert Green Ingersoll Orthodox Christians have the habit of claiming all great men, all men who have held important positions, men of reputation, men of wealth. As soon as the funeral is over clergymen begin to relate imaginary conversations with the deceased, and in a very little while the great man is changed to a Christian -- possibly to a saint. -The Religious Beliefs of Abraham Lincoln

7. Mark Twain In all the ages the Roman Church has owned slaves... Yet now at last, in our immediate day, we hear a Pope saying slave trading is wrong... The texts remain: it is the practice that has changed. Why? Because the world has corrected the Bible. The Church never corrects it; and also never fails to drop in at the tail of the procession -- and take the credit of the correction. - Bible Teaching and Religious Practice

8. Thomas Paine I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. -The Age of Reason

9. W. E. B. DuBoisCofounder of the NAACP The kind of sermon which is preached in most colored churches is not today attractive to even fairly intelligent men.- "On Christianity," an essay published posthumously in Against Racism

10. W. E. B. DuBoisCofounder of the NAACP Half the Christian churches of New York are trying to ruin the free public schools in order to replace them by religious dogma.- “A Vista of Ninety Fruitful Years," from W E B Du Bois Writings

11. Mark Twain "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."-- Following the Equator, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" (1897)

12. Susan B. Anthony I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.- Arrested for voting in 1872 and found guilty in 1873

13. Butterfly McQueen "As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion."

14. National Academy of Sciences 93% of the National Academy of Sciences do not believe in a personal god. -Nature, 1998, vol 394, p 313

15. Thomas Jefferson Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear. -letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

16. Thomas Jefferson Describes 1st Amendment as Separation of Church and State I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. -letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

17. Thomas Jefferson Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. -letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, Feb 10, 1814

18. Elizabeth Cady Stanton The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstitions of the Christian religion. - Eight Years and More (1898)

19. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Embrace truth as it is revealed to-day by human reason. - New York American & Journal , Oct 27, 1902

20. Douglas Adams Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? - Last Chance To See Best known as author of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

21. Jane Addams Nobel Prizewinning Social Activist and Author The very word woman in the writings of the church fathers stood for the basest of temptations.... As women were lowered in the moral scale because of their identification with her at the very bottom of the pit, so they cannot rise themselves save as they succeed in lifting her with whose sins they are weighed. -"A Challenge to the Contemporary Church"

22. Susan B. Anthony The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. -from Rufus K Noyes, Views of Religion

23. Isaac AsimovScientist and Writer Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

24. Isaac AsimovScientist and Writer To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. -"On Religiosity," Free Inquiry

25. Isaac AsimovScientist and Writer If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.- I Asimov: A Memoir

26. Dan BarkerFormer preacher and Christian musician Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation 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.- Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

27. Luther BurbankPioneer in Agricultural Sciences Obsolete misleading theologies bear the same relation to the essence of true religion that scarlet fever, mumps, and measles do to education… Children are the greatest sufferers from outgrown theologies.-"Luther Burbank Speaks Out"

28. Francis CrickNobel Prize Winner, Co-discoverer of the structure of DNA A knowledge of the true age of the earth and of the fossil record makes it impossible for any balanced intellect to believe in the literal truth of every part of the Bible in the way that fundamentalists do. - from his autobiography What Mad Pursuit

29. Clarence DarrowAttorney, famous for defending John Scopes for teaching evolution I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means.- Speech, 13 July 1925, Dayton, Tennessee

30. Clarence DarrowAttorney, famous for defending John Scopes for teaching evolution I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose.- from a speech given in Toronto (1930)

31. Emily DickinsonAmerican Poet "Faith" is a fine invention, when gentlemen can seeBut microscopes are prudent, in an emergency.- "Faith"

32. Albert Einstein The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. - letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind

33. Ralph Waldo EmmersonEssayist and Poet The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next. -The Cassell Dictionary of Cynical Quotations

34. Ralph Waldo EmmersonEssayist and Poet Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. - "Self-Reliance"

35. Benjamin Franklin I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies. - Toward the Mystery

36. Benjamin Franklin He [the Rev Mr. Whitefield] used, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard.- Autobiography

37. Matilda Joslyn GageWomen’s Suffrage Pioneer The careful student of history will discover that Christianity has been of very little value in advancing civilization, but has done a great deal toward retarding it. - Woman, Church and State (1893)

38. Matilda Joslyn GageWomen’s Suffrage Pioneer The Christian theory of the sacredness of the Bible has been at the cost of the world's civilization. - from Rufus K Noyes, Views of Religion

39. Asa Phillip Randolph "Our aim is to appeal to reason, to lift our pens above the cringing demagogy of the times, and above the cheap peanut politics of the old reactionary Negro leaders. Prayer is not one of our remedies; it depends on what one is praying for. We consider prayer as nothing more than a fervent wish; consequently the merit and worth of a prayer depend upon what the fervent wish is.“ Messenger (magazine), 1917

40. Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)The 18th US President (1869-77) Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.- address to the Army of the Tennessee, Des Moines, Iowa, September 25, 1875

41. Carl SaganAstronomer and Author I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.- The Demon Haunted World

42. Daniel Radcliffe • "I'm an atheist, but I'm very relaxed about it. I don't preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do. Anything he does on television, I will watch." • Esquire Magazine, July 2009

43. Bruce Lee • What is your religious affiliation? "None whatsoever." Do you believe in God? "To be perfectly frank, I really do not." • The Warrior Within : The Philosophies of Bruce Lee, p. 128.

44. Jodie Foster Are you religious? "No, I'm an atheist." Entertainment Weekly, August 31, 2007

45. Warren Buffett, Investor, Philanthropist "He did not subscribe to his family's religion. Even at a young age he was too mathematical, too logical, to make the leap of faith. He adopted his father's ethical underpinnings, but not his belief in an unseen divinity." --from Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, by Roger Lowenstein , page 13.

46. Andrew Carnegie, Steel Industry Billionaire, Philanthropist "Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution." Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie

47. Alan Turing, Father of Computer Science, World War II hero decoder of the German Enigma Machine “I am not very impressed with theological arguments... In the time of Galileo it was argued that the texts, ‘And the sun stood still… and hasted not to go down about a whole day’ (Joshua x. 13) and ‘He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not move at any time’ (Psalm cv. 5) were an adequate refutation of the Copernican theory.”

48. Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer “I am also atheist or agnostic (I don’t even know the difference). I’ve never been to church and prefer to think for myself.” (from his website)

49. Richard Leakey, paleontologist "I simply would not accede to being forced into this, and would frequently be kept out of classes because of irreverent comments and mocking this religious stuff. Frankly, it stayed with me to this day. In fact, don't get me going. I'm almost as bad as Richard Dawkins on this issue.“ 2007 Interview upon induction into the Academy of Achievement

50. Hubert Henry Harrison, the Black Socrates, member of the Harlem Renaissance Any rational Black man who accepted Christianity must be crazy. Reply at a lecture.