Rodney Stark Quotes

The only people I've met in this world who never doubt are materialists and atheists.

Most people in the West who say they believe in God actually believe in belief in God.

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.

I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets.

I'm a strict, strict agnostic. It's very different from a casual, 'I don't know.' It's that you cannot present as knowledge something that is not knowledge. You can present it as faith, you can present it as belief, but you can't present it as fact.

I'm unashamed in my faith, and I'm okay with that.

Does the prospect of seeing the Great Commission of Christ fulfilled drive you day and night? If not, then I pray that the story of my life will light a fire in you. A fire that will change everything. A holy fire that will convince you that nothing is impossible with God.

In real life, Keaton believes in God. But she also believes that the radio works because there are tiny people inside it.

If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. ...But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion.

Your faith is what you believe, not what you know.

We need to stop giving people excuses not to believe in God.

I'd rather live dangerously for Jesus than exist safely for people's approval.

Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful.

Most people’s religion is what they want to believe, not what they do believe.

My faith runs so very much faster than my reason that I can challenge the whole world and say, 'God is, was and ever shall be'.

The unbelieving mind would not be convinced by any proof, and the worshiping heart needs none.

"The Holy Ghost," Luther instructs us, "is not a skeptic." Not everyone can be, and that is really too bad.

So tenaciously should we cling to the world revealed by the Gospel, that were I to see all the Angels of Heaven coming down to me to tell me something different, not only would I not be tempted to doubt a single syllable, but I would shut my eyes and stop my ears, for they would not deserve to be either seen or heard.

I love the idea of God, but it's not stylistically in keeping with the way I function. I would describe myself as an enthusiastic agnostic who would be happy to be shown that there is a God. I can see that people who believe in God are happier. ... But I doubt.

Men may believe what they cannot prove. They may not be put to the proof of their religious doctrines or beliefs. Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.

The people of Israel, like those of the United States, are imbued with a religious faith and a sense of moral values

... the thing that kept Christ on that cross was love, not the nail.

By the age of fifteen, I had convinced myself that nobody could give a reasonable explanation of what he meant by the word 'God' and that it was therefore as meaningless to assert a belief as to assert a disbelief in God. Though this, in a general way, has remained my position ever since, I have always avoided unnecessarily to offend other people holding religious belief by displaying my lack of such belief, or even stating my lack of belief, if I was not challenged.

Faith was intended precisely for the simple, but the quest for certainty and simplicity becomes dangerous when it leads to fanaticism and narrow-mindedness. When reason as such becomes suspect, then faith itself becomes falsified.