Jean-Paul Sartre on atheism

I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.

Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.

Life has no meaning a priori … It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.

Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning…

C. S. Lewis1898–1963Mere Christianity

A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere⁠—‘Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,’ as Herbert says, ‘fine nets and stratagems.’ God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.

C. S. Lewis1898–1963Surprised by Joy (1955), Ch. XII: “Guns and Good Company”

If there is a God, atheism must strike Him as less of an insult than religion.

Goncourt brothersJanuary 24, 1868; translation from Robert Baldick (ed. and trans.) Pages from the Goncourt Journal (London: Oxford University Press, 1962) p. 135.

• Religion