Thoughts on a Quote
If there were no God, there would be no Atheists.
- G. K. Chesterton
The above quote was on my igoogle page for the Quotes of the Day application. It made me stop and think. I don't know who G. K. Chesterton is and I should probably to take a look. Here's my thought: If there had been no belief of any god from the beginning there would be no one to have the opposite belief. But any time there is belief in something there will be someone who believes the opposite. It's like the concept of light an dark or good and evil- one does not exist without the other. So in that case that would mean that if the glorious time came when everyone stopped their belief in gods and embraced the truth there would be no atheists anymore. There would be no need of them because everyone would be the same and religion or silly beliefs wouldn't mean anything anymore. There would be no belief to hold onto, only the truth and what can be proven. I don't think we atheists will be out of a job any time soon but the thought is nice.
- G. K. Chesterton
The above quote was on my igoogle page for the Quotes of the Day application. It made me stop and think. I don't know who G. K. Chesterton is and I should probably to take a look. Here's my thought: If there had been no belief of any god from the beginning there would be no one to have the opposite belief. But any time there is belief in something there will be someone who believes the opposite. It's like the concept of light an dark or good and evil- one does not exist without the other. So in that case that would mean that if the glorious time came when everyone stopped their belief in gods and embraced the truth there would be no atheists anymore. There would be no need of them because everyone would be the same and religion or silly beliefs wouldn't mean anything anymore. There would be no belief to hold onto, only the truth and what can be proven. I don't think we atheists will be out of a job any time soon but the thought is nice.
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Comment by Gabriel Garcia on April 11, 2009 at 10:39am -
To me, the quote sounds like one of those crappy "proofs" for god's existence.
1. Atheists exists.
2. Without God, there can't be any atheists.
3. God exists.
But yeah, all silliness aside, I see what you mean. And you know what? I can't wait for the day that happens. In general, I have a case of fuck its when it comes to people being religious (in terms of believing in the afterlife, a god, etc.), what does bother me is when people subscribe to an organized religion and give up thinking for themselves. But when the day comes that religion is a thing of the past, you can bet I'll be jumping around in my underwear blasted out of my mind on vodka.
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Comment by David Capito on April 11, 2009 at 12:38pm -
If there was no Invisible Pink Unicorn, there would be no Christians.
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Comment by Cara Coleen on April 11, 2009 at 7:13pm -
Ooh, David, good point ;).
And I'm really excited about the day were there are no atheists, too... just people who are not defined by what they do or don't belief. It would just rock my face off if knowledge about the life and the world was equally distributed.
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Comment by James on April 11, 2009 at 10:55pm -
This quote is missing the plot. If there was never a belief of a god, then no one would believe in a god they never heard of. Thus, EVERYONE would be an Atheist. However they wouldn't know it, as the term 'Atheist' would never had been coined.
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