I often asked Laplace what he thought of God. He owned that he was an atheist.
Napoléon BonaparteTag: atheism atheist french views beliefs astronomer scientist laplace pierre-simon-laplace
I should like to preface my remarks with a personal statement in order that my later remarks will not be misunderstood. I consider myself an atheist.
Subrahmanyan ChandrasekharTag: atheist views preface beliefs indian gita nobel-laureate scientist
I came into the room, which was half dark, and presently spotted Lord Kelvin in the audience and realised that I was in for trouble at the last part of my speech dealing with the age of the earth, where my views conflicted with his. To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye and cock a baleful glance at me! Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the earth, provided no new source (of energy) was discovered. That prophetic utterance refers to what we are now considering tonight, radium! Behold! the old boy beamed upon me.
Ernest RutherfordTag: humor science energy speech funny dating discovery views prophecy creationism nobel-laureate lord-kelvin age-of-earth age-of-the-earth new-source-of-energy radioactive-decay radiometric-dating radium
The alchemists of past centuries tried hard to make the elixir of life: ... Those efforts were in vain; it is not in our power to obtain the experiences and the views of the future by prolonging our lives forward in this direction. However, it is well possible in a certain sense to prolong our lives backwards by acquiring the experiences of those who existed before us and by learning to know their views as well as if we were their contemporaries. The means for doing this is also an elixir of life.
Hermann Franz Moritz KoppTag: science life experience purpose history meaning-of-life meaning effort views purpose-of-life historian alchemy scientist vain alchemists elixir elixir-of-life life-extension
Consistent with the liberal views of the Enlightenment, Leibniz was an optimist with respect to human reasoning and scientific progress. Although he was a great reader and admirer of Spinoza, Leibniz, being a confirmed deist, rejected emphatically Spinoza's pantheism.
Shelby D. HuntTag: progress liberal deism reasoning pantheism views enlightenment leibniz baruch-spinoza spinoza optimist scientist gottfried-leibniz gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz scientific-progress
The humanitarian philosophies that have been developed (sometimes under some religious banner and invariably in the face of religious opposition) are human inventions, as the name implies - and our species deserves the credit. I am a devout atheist - nothing else makes any sense to me and I must admit to being bewildered by those, who in the face of what appears so obvious, still believe in a mystical creator. However I can see that the promise of infinite immortality is a more palatable proposition than the absolute certainty of finite mortality which those of us who are subject to free thought (as opposed to free will) have to look forward to and many may not have the strength of character to accept it.
Thus I am a supporter of Amnesty International, a humanist and an atheist. I believe in a secular, democratic society in which women and men have total equality, and individuals can pursue their lives as they wish, free of constraints - religious or otherwise. I feel that the difficult ethical and social problems which invariably arise must be solved, as best they can, by discussion and am opposed to the crude simplistic application of dogmatic rules invented in past millennia and ascribed to a plethora of mystical creators - or the latest invention; a single creator masquerading under a plethora of pseudonyms. Organisations which seek political influence by co-ordinated effort disturb me and thus I believe religious and related pressure groups which operate in this way are acting antidemocratically and should play no part in politics. I also have problems with those who preach racist and related ideologies which seem almost indistinguishable from nationalism, patriotism and religious conviction.
Tag: science politics strength existence equality acceptance morality freedom obvious ethics philosophy nationalism patriotism democracy atheism autobiography dogma humanism mortality atheist sense superstition immortality views mysticism beliefs racism separation-of-church-and-state ideology biography religious-conviction freethought mystical humanitarian nobel-laureate creator humanist scientist individual-rights secular-humanism simplistic amnesty-international ancient-dogma religious-opposition secular-humanist
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