Paul Kurtz Quotes

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

Clearly, Enlightenment thinkers were seeking a God substitute.

I am confident that those who believe in belief are wrong. That is, we no more need to preserve the myth of God in order to preserve a just and stable society than we needed to cling to the Gold Standard to keep our currency sound. It was a useful crutch, but we've outgrown it. Denmark, according to a recent study, is the sanest, healthiest, happiest, most crime-free nation in the world, and by and large the Danes simply ignore the God issue. We should certainly hope that those who believe in belief are wrong, because belief is waning fast, and the props are beginning to buckle.

The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion.

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.

Society must fight against this belief in God as it fought against idol worship and other narrow conceptions of religion. In this way man will try to stand on his feet. Being realistic, he will have to throw his faith aside and face all adversaries with courage and valour. That is exactly my state of mind.

Atheism is just a way of clearing the space for better conversations.

The death of God represents not only the realization that gods have never existed, but the contention that such a belief is no longer even irrationally possible: that neither reason nor the taste and temper of the times condones it. The belief lingers on, of course, but it does so like astrology or a faith in a flat earth.

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

When men can no longer be theists, they must, if they are civilized, become humanists.

From my point of view, there is a tremendous amount to be said for secular humanism.

I regard irreligious people as pioneers. If there had been no priesthood the world would have advanced ten thousand times better than it has now.

The ideal of progress, freedom of thought, and the decline of ecclesiastical power go together.

I personally believe that our planet would be absolutely fine without religion, and I also feel we are evolving in that direction.

I've met secular humanists who grew up in evangelical households, for whom 'Cosmos' was their first exposure to a scientific way of viewing the world.

The 'Enlightenment', which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines.

Atheism comes into rather a bad press and I suppose I'd rather describe myself as a humanist... I don't believe in God. I don't believe there is a God.

We have fought long and hard to escape from medieval superstition. I, for one, do not wish to go back.

Religion has ever been anti-human, anti-woman, anti-life, anti-peace, anti-reason and anti-science. The god idea has been detrimental not only to humankind but to the earth. It is time now for reason, education and science to take over.

I'm kind of an evangelical atheist.

Atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them -- and then they leap.

The loss of religious faith among the most civilized portion of the race is a step from childishness toward maturity.

It's a better tradition for people who think for themselves and who don't pray in aid of any supernatural authority. That's what you should be spending your life is in spreading and deepening that tradition.

Thank you God for making me an atheist.

The term that best describes me now is 'secular humanist.'