G. K. Chesterton on atheism

‘My country, right or wrong’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober’.

The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.

The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.

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.

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