Dan Barker Quotes

If everything has a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just be the world as God.

It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God.

The argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist.

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.

The question of whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the Universe has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed.

I don't think God is an explanation at all. It's simply redescribing the problem. We are trying to understand how we have got a complicated world, and we have an explanation in terms of a slightly simpler world, and we explain that in terms of a slightly simpler world and it all hangs together down to an ultimately simple world. Now, God is not an explanation of that kind. God himself cannot be simple if he has power to do all the things he is supposed to do.

Although I was once sharply critical of the argument to design, I have since come to see that, when correctly formatted, this argument constitutes a persuasive case for the existence of God.

You have to stop thinking logically to argue that the universe came into being by itself, out of nothing.

On the subject of the nature of the gods, the first question is Do the gods exist or do the not? It is difficult you may say to deny that they exist. I would agree if we were arguing the matter in a public assembly, but in a private discussion of this kind, it is perfectly easy to do so.

Does God exist? Well, I would say, 'not yet'.

God is love. Yes or no? No.

[The human mind] finds more facility in assenting to the self-existence of an invisible cause possessing infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, than in the self-existence of the universe, visibly destitute of these attributes, and which may be the effect of them.

Seems as unfounded ... to say there isn't a God as to say there is.

We cannot start with God and deduce the universe from his existence; we must start with the world as we know it, and deduce God from the world.

Atheists don't hate fairies, leprechauns, or unicorns because they don't exist. It is impossible to hate something that doesn't exist. Atheists - like the painting experts hated the painter - hate God because He does exist.

Existentialism isn't so atheistic that it wears itself out showing that God doesn't exist. Rather, it declares that even if God did exist, that would change nothing.

Now it seems that everything in the world stems from sources other than God, since the products of nature have their source in nature; deliberate effects can be traced back to human reason or will as their source. There is no need then to assume that God exists.

I'm not a believer, I call myself an atheist. It was man who invented God. I once wrote that there are 15 things I know about God, and one is that he is allergic to shellfish. There are far too many commandments and you really only need one: Do not hurt anybody.

It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe without the agency of a Supreme Being.

Our own consciousness is incapable of having produce the universe. God, therefore, exists. That is to say, there is no reason for not applying the term God, Theos, to the intimate essence

Theology is a non-subject. I'm not saying that professors of theology are non-professors. They do interesting things, like study biblical history, biblical literature. But theology, the study of gods, the study of what gods do, presupposes that gods exist. The only kind of theology that I take account of are those theological arguments that actually argue for the existence of God.

The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously.

God's existence needs to be established independently before he can be brought into account for causation; it cannot be assumed at the start.

From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.

There is a dispute about the existence of God. Both sides try to hide that they killed Him - even before He came into being.