I'm not sure I really am a Humanist. I describe myself as a rigorous agnostic, which means that you cannot declare as a matter of material truth something that is in fact a matter of spiritual belief.
Confucianism strongly condemned the use of drugs like opium.
I am not the opposite of theism. I am right in the middle of those non-believers and believers. It's not even about being agnostic or nastik. Why would I take a name given to me by my opposition? I am just a rationalist.
I am not a positivist. Positivism states that what cannot be observed does not exist. This conception is scientifically indefensible, for it is impossible to make valid affirmations of what people 'can' or 'cannot' observe. One would have to say 'only what we observe exists,' which is obviously false.
I stand on the black side of issues, philosophically, politically, socially, and for me to not check that box, I felt like, would be some sort of betrayal of not only who I am but also the community I affiliate with.
Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle.
I have no faith at all. I only hold convictions.
Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.
If I've learned any one lesson from life, it's this: If you don't stand for something, you will stand for anything.
Atheism is a theoretical formulation of the discouraged life.
I would say that, between us, I tend to be a little bit more philosophically optimistic. Jonah, I think he sees things as more finite.
I do not feign hypotheses.
The biggest way to say, philosophically, you'll never be part of a war is to look completely the opposite of anyone in a war.
What sort of philosophy one chooses depends, therefore, on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can reject or accept as we wish; it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it.
I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.
I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author.
According to the moral absolutism that characterizes McCandless's beliefs, a challenge in which a successful outcome is assured isn't a challenge at all.
One cannot be a part-time nihilist.
I think most people who call themselves relativists are not, in practice.
Philosophically, I don't believe in public funding for private sports.
I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.
Every one starts out being an atheist.
Let that ethical philosophy therefore of free-will be far from a Christian mind.
Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position.
Atheism is indeed the most daring of all dogmas . . . for it is the assertion of a universal negative.
