Once, when my ex told someone I was an Atheist, they asked her "Well, what does he believe in, then?" She said, "He believes in himself." =]

"To read the bible is to be Christian, to understand it is to be Atheist". Love this line and think I actually saw it on FB.

I think this sums it up nicely

Nature is profound and amazing. why waste your mind on anything else?

Not sure where I saw this one, I like it a lot..... "I got nothing against God, it's his fan club what I can't stand"

There was no difference between the behavior of a god and the operations of pure chance.
Thomas Pynchon

Rather than place my faith in a God I have never seen, I place my faith in my fellow human beings. (My Dad)

"All thinking men are atheists."
~Ernest Hemingway

"Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be...NOT magic." Tim Minchin, The Storm.

The song, "The Bible Is Bullshit," by Corporate Avengers.

I think it was Ricky Gervais who said, "We're all atheists, I just believe in one less god than you."

On the burning of the ancient Library of Alexandra-" Fanitical Christians, Fanitical Musulms, what difference does it make-religion at work." James Burke-Connections

Whoever declares any belief the onus is on him or her to prove it. The fact that large numbers of people ( validation and confirmation in numbers) agree with you does not constitute a proof.

It is interesting to note that nearly everyone who has some belief seeks validation of his or her belief and the quest for validation takes on a variety of irrational forms, "If you do not believe me I will leave you. If you do not believe me I will stop loving you. I will call you names. I will demonize you and make you into a scapegoat. I will do whatever I can to belittle or besmirch your name because you refuse to validate my beliefs." Beliefs that have been held for a long time tend to become part of the believer's notion of identity.

A good video about finding common ground instead of looking for differences.

Life's hard then you die... Unknown.

Maybe this, the here and now, is the afterlife...

I loved that show.

There's this one too...

We are all destined to a make believe place called hell.

"You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world and you tried to suppress the second half the way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think."

• Hermann Hesse, Demian

The book is of the point of view of an old man reflecting on his youth, but one of the themes is revolving around the loss of his faith and how new ideas took root that radically changed his worldview.

One notable section is how he is given a new interpretation on the old Cain and Abel bible story by a classmate he admired in their confirmation class. It becomes evident that being told to suppress and reject all that is considered evil, we are not fully living.

The thing is, human nature being what it is, what we repress, tends to be the thing we spend most of our energies on and our subconscious is still attracted to what it can't have and it's a constant struggle because we are trying to push those bad things away.

I know from my own experience, you are only supposed to be monogamous. Anything else was sinful and punishable and you were a horrible person.

And I tried to be monogamous. I really did. And the more I tried to be monogamous and push away the feelings of wanting more than one sexual relationship at a time, the more tension there was. I spent so much time and energy on puhsing down on my sexuality that all I could ever think about was wanting sex with other men while having my relationship. Once embraced the idea that I could live a polyamorous lifestyle, I rearranged my life and the tension went away and I am more patient and relaxed. If I have another concurrent sexual relationship, great, if not, that's good too. My anxiety about my sexuality has been eliminated.

Here's another quote:

"We who bore the mark [of Cain], felt no anxiety about the shape the future was to take. All of these faiths and teachings seemed to us already dead and useless. The only duty and destiny we acknowledged was that each one of us should become so completely himself, so utterly faithful to the active seed which nature planted within him, that in living out its growth he could be surprised by nothing unknown to come."

The solution to having broken free from faith in God is to simply be true to ourselves and develop the only thing we really have any kind of control over - ourselves. We have gifts/abilities/talents inside of us and it is important that we nurture them. Our energy that was once spent suppressing parts of us is now free to be applied on those parts of us that we want developed.

For me, instead of chasing down my next sexual conquest or suppressing my strong urges to do so, I spend my time on creative endeavors (making art, photography, etc).

i find the song "what if god was one of us, just a slob like one of us, just trying to make his way home" rather provocative.

I learned about intersubjective beliefs from Harari, gave me an understanding of how and why our beliefs are formed.
[goodreads.com]

The moment one sees god as a fact he loses the symbol that leads past the individual realm and into transcenence.