121 Quotes by Dan Barker

The Gospels, written many decades after the fact, are a blend of fact and fantasy – historical fiction – and although the proportions of the blend may differ from scholar to scholar, no credible historians take them at 100 percent face value.

The Christ in Paul’s writings is a different character from the Jesus of the Gospels.

The trouble is that neutrality is confused with hostility. We’re not disrupting churches, or interrupting people’s prayers. We’re not fighting religion.

How happy can you be when you think every action and thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost?

If faith is a valid tool of knowledge, then anything can be true ‘by faith,’ and therefore nothing is true. If the only reason you can accept a claim is by faith, then you are admitting that the claim does not stand on its own merits.

It’s not easy to change world views. Faith has its own momentum and belief is comfortable. To restructure reality is traumatic and scary. That is why many intelligent people continue to believe: unbelief is an unknown.

I took about a year to fully adjust. Like there’s a death at the family or a divorce, you don’t just snap your fingers and it’s over.

We atheists do want justice. Why would you imagine we don’t? As with purpose, justice doesn’t have to be ultimate to be meaningful. We want justice in our world, not in a pretend supernatural realm. Since there is no ultimate cosmic justice, we have all the more reason not to put it off to an uncertain future. We had better do it now. We.

Without “The Law of Moses” would we all be wandering around like little gods, stealing, raping, and spilling blood whenever our vanity was offended?