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.”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

“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, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

“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?”
― Dan Barker

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

“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?”
― Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

“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, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

“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?”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

“You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time, But I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime.”
― Dan Barker

“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.”
― Dan Barker

“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.”
― Dan Barker

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Life Driven Purpose: How an Atheist Finds Meaning

“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”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

“How happy can you be when you think every action and thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost?”
― Dan Barker

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Life Driven Purpose: How an Atheist Finds Meaning

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

“Solving a real problem was much more meaningful than saving fictional souls from a fictional hell.”
― Dan Barker, Life Driven Purpose: How an Atheist Finds Meaning

“People should be judged by their actions, not their beliefs. Actions speak louder than faith.”
― Dan Barker, Life Driven Purpose: How an Atheist Finds Meaning

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

“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”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

“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”
― Dan Barker, Life Driven Purpose: How an Atheist Finds Meaning

“religion that cannot survive looking at itself through the eyes of others does not deserve to survive.”
― Dan Barker, Life Driven Purpose: How an Atheist Finds Meaning

“Religion + Good Works = Good Works

Solve for Religion.”
― Dan Barker

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

“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.”
― Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists