Frederick Buechner Quotes

That's true that I'm "not religious as that term is conventionally understood," though I've never been an atheist. Atheism is an active faith; it says, "I believe there is no God." But I don't know what I believe. I was brought up a Lutheran in Jamestown, North Dakota. I have trouble with faith. I'm not proud of this. I don't think it makes me an intellectual. I would believe if I could, and I may be able to before it's over. I would welcome that.

For a while, I thought of myself as an atheist until I realized it was a belief, too. It's a shame everything has to have a label.

There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they are atheists; it is with them only a question of definition, and in any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God.

I wouldn't call myself an atheist. I neither deny nor accept that there is a God... So I do not laugh at people who believe in God. But I do not necessarily believe in God - nor deny that there could be one.

I met somebody once who said, "I'm a lapsed-atheist" by what he meant was, "I don't believe in God but the older I get the more I realise there is a spirituality in everybody that has to be cherished and nourished." That made a lot of sense to me.

Do you believe in God, doctor?" No - but what does that really mean? I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding that original.

It strikes me as somewhat odd that the people who use God's name most frequently, both in life and in literature, usually don't believe in him.

God knows, I'm not the thing I should be, Nor am I even the thing I could be, But twenty times I rather would be An atheist clean, Than under gospel colours hid be Just for a screen.

I don’t believe in God as you imagine Him to be, but I believe in many things that you could never even dream of.

I don't have enough faith to be an Atheist.

I think at least two of [my kids] - and I'm - I better not speak them by name because I'm not sure where they are these days, but at least two of them believe in some kind of higher force. The - another is an atheist and the other is still pondering.

Atheists are pious people.

I've never met a happy atheist.

I don't believe in God, so I'm not afraid of dying.

I'm a linear thinking agnostic, but not an atheist folks.

I was an Agnostic. Agnostics didn't have much to argue about.

I have always considered "Pascal's Wager" a questionable bet to place. Any God worth "believing in" would surely prefer an honest agnostic to a calculating hypocrite.

There doesn't need to be a God for me. There's something in people that's spiritual, that's godlike. I don't feel like doing things just because people say things, but I also don't really know if it's better to just not believe in anything, either.

After a few days in hospital, I was thinking, Oh, gee - I raised in a church, Protestant upbringing which I'd rejected as an adult - I'm lying in bed thinking, Hmmm, maybe I ought to pray. They always say there are no atheists in a foxhole... and I thought, Here I am in a pretty good-sized foxhole... and I thought Naahhh. I wouldn't respect any God who would listen to me after I'd rejected him so vociferously.

It never really occurred to me to believe in God.

I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. There must be some human truth that is beyond religion.

I have always considered myself as an Agnostic.

I was not raised with religion, and I had no faith before my mother died. On the other hand, when she died, I did not immediately feel she was "gone." I don't believe she is in something like heaven, but I also feel that we don't understand much about the nature of the universe. So I hold on to that uncertainty, at times.

I think God is something that people use to avoid reality. I think faith allows people to reject what is right in front of our eyes, which is that thing, this life, this existence, this consciousness, or whatever word you want to use for it, is all we have, and all we'll ever have. I think people have faith because they want and need to believe in something, whatever that something is, because life can be hard and depressing and brutal if you don't.

It does not matter whether you have religion or are an agnostic believe in nothing, You can only appreciate (without knowing or understanding) the mysteries of life.