Paul Kurtz Quotes

Christian ethics are seldom found save in the philosophy of some unbeliever.

Secular humanism is avowedly non-religious. It is a eupraxsophy (good practical wisdom), which draws its basic principles and ethical values from science, ethics, and philosophy.

Despite what they tell you, there are simply no moral absolutes in a complex world.

Modernism is typically defined as the condition that begins when people realize God is truly dead, and we are therefore on our own.

I am honorary President of the American Humanist Society, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that utterly functionless capacity. We Humanists behave as well as we can, without any rewards or punishments in an Afterlife.

Where there is no God, all is permitted.

Plenty of kind, decent, caring people have no religious beliefs, and they act out of the goodness of their hearts. Conversely, plenty of people who profess to be religious, even those who worship regularly, show no particular interest in the world beyond themselves.

Religion and the traditions based on it were once the chief sources for moral confidence and strength. Their influence has faded in the modern world, but the need for a sound base for moral judgments has not. If we cannot look simply to moral guidance firmly founded on religious precepts it is natural and reasonable to turn to history, the record of human experience, as a necessary supplement if not a substitute.

A secular worldview hostile to biblical values has overrun our culture and permeated our government.

All stealing is comparative. If you come to absolutes, pray who does not steal.

I don't believe in god, so I don't have to make elaborately sounded structures. ... Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you. ... As for measure and other technical apparatus, that's just common sense: if you're going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There's nothing metaphysical about it.

Secular humanism proposes ... the complete implementation of the agenda of modernism ... what is necessary for it to occur is a ... New Enlightenment.

The laughter in response to my question unmasked the double standard our deconstructionists espouse. And that is precisely the double standard of atheism! It is possible to dress up and romanticize our bizarre experiments in social restructuring while disavowing truth or absolutes. But one dares not play such deadly games with the foundations of good thinking.

There is no such thing as good and bad in an absolute sense. There is only the good and bad- the harm in terms of happiness and suffering- that our thoughts and our actions do to ourselves and others.

The question of whether a thing is right or wrong, good or bad, must always be considered in relation to a persons needs.

God is dead not because He doesn't exist, but because we live, play, procreate, govern, and die as though He doesn't.

Without religion, also there is a way, it could be this way, through education, through scientific findings, then you get conviction. Not necessarily really love other, but for their own interest they are showing love, compassion to other like that.

Atheists can be good people; they just have no objective way to judge the conduct of those who are not.

Atheism is the absence of religion. We don’t really need atheism. We just need to get rid of religion.

Morality—like velocity—is relative. The determination of it depends on what the objects around you are doing. All one can do is measure one's position in relation to them; never can one measure one's velocity or morality in terms of absolutes.

My ancestors were Freethinkers - and that's what I am, except we're called secular humanists now.

The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed.

Religion gets its morality from us. We don't get our morality from religion.

There is nothing new about humanism. It is the yielding to Satan's first temptation of Adam and Eve: "Ye shall be as gods." (Gen. 3:5)

There must be a way of promoting human values without involving religion, based on common sense, experience and recent scientific findings.