Five quotes from people born on this date
Kurt Vonnegut, 1922, author
“I am an atheist (or at best a Unitarian who winds up in churches quite a lot).”
— Vonnegut, "Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s" (1991)
Joseph McCabe, 1867, former priest and freethought scholar
“I took a sheet of paper, divided it into debt and credit columns on the arguments for and against God and immortality. On Christmas Eve I wrote ‘bankrupt’ at the foot. And it was on Christmas morning 1895, after I had celebrated three Masses, while the bells of the parish church were ringing out the Christmas message of peace, that, with great pain, I found myself far out from the familiar land — homeless, aimlessly drifting. But the bells were right after all; from that hour on I have been wholly free from the nightmare of doubt that had lain on me for ten years.”
— Joseph McCabe, "Twelve Years in a Monastery" (1897)
Pete Stark, 1931, California congressman for 40 years
“Thankfully, we’re moving in a direction where some feel it’s not an act of courage simply to state that you don’t believe in God. … We must continue to speak out, be honest about our beliefs.”
— Stark, acceptance speech for the 2010 Emperor Has No Clothes Award
Hugh Everett III, 1930, physicist in theoretical and quantum physics
“Because of his loudly avowed atheism, he was labeled ‘the heretic’ by devout classmates.”
— Peter Byrne, writing about Everett in "The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III" (2010)
Andy Partridge, 1955, musician and founder of the band XTC
“I’m interested in the pre-Christian appreciation of the land and the spirit of things, spirits in animate things and inanimate things. I think it’s more of a natural wanting to believe in something natural and something tangible rather than Christianity, which I think is totally fake. Maybe well-meaning, but it’s held together by a terrible web of fibs and stealing other people’s good stories.”
— Interview, Chalkhills: The XTC Resource (March 5, 1999)
© Freedom From Religion Foundation
“I am an atheist (or at best a Unitarian who winds up in churches quite a lot).”
— Vonnegut, "Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s" (1991)
Joseph McCabe, 1867, former priest and freethought scholar
“I took a sheet of paper, divided it into debt and credit columns on the arguments for and against God and immortality. On Christmas Eve I wrote ‘bankrupt’ at the foot. And it was on Christmas morning 1895, after I had celebrated three Masses, while the bells of the parish church were ringing out the Christmas message of peace, that, with great pain, I found myself far out from the familiar land — homeless, aimlessly drifting. But the bells were right after all; from that hour on I have been wholly free from the nightmare of doubt that had lain on me for ten years.”
— Joseph McCabe, "Twelve Years in a Monastery" (1897)
Pete Stark, 1931, California congressman for 40 years
“Thankfully, we’re moving in a direction where some feel it’s not an act of courage simply to state that you don’t believe in God. … We must continue to speak out, be honest about our beliefs.”
— Stark, acceptance speech for the 2010 Emperor Has No Clothes Award
Hugh Everett III, 1930, physicist in theoretical and quantum physics
“Because of his loudly avowed atheism, he was labeled ‘the heretic’ by devout classmates.”
— Peter Byrne, writing about Everett in "The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III" (2010)
Andy Partridge, 1955, musician and founder of the band XTC
“I’m interested in the pre-Christian appreciation of the land and the spirit of things, spirits in animate things and inanimate things. I think it’s more of a natural wanting to believe in something natural and something tangible rather than Christianity, which I think is totally fake. Maybe well-meaning, but it’s held together by a terrible web of fibs and stealing other people’s good stories.”
— Interview, Chalkhills: The XTC Resource (March 5, 1999)
© Freedom From Religion Foundation
