Product Description

"All thinking men are atheists," Ernest Hemingway famously wrote. True? Here are quips, quotes, and questions from a distinguished assortment of geniuses and jokers, giving readers a chance to decide for themselves....

When I think of all the harm [the bible] has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.
Oscar Wilde

SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
Ambrose Bierce

There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.
Gertrude Stein

Do not let yourself be deceived: great intellects are skeptical.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Susan Ertz

God is love, but get it in writing.
Gypsy Rose Lee

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
George Bernard Shaw

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #216966 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-01
• Released on: 2007-06-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

Review
"If atheism’s going mass you need not just a sacred text but an easily portable one..." -- Philadelphia Inquirer

"This slim, attractive volume will amuse nonbelievers -- and, ironically, cause them to spend hours reading about God and religion." -- Boston Globe

Review
"This slim, attractive volume will amuse nonbelievers -- and, ironically, cause them to spend hours reading about God and religion." (Boston Globe )

"If atheism's going mass you need not just a sacred text but an easily portable one..." (Philadelphia Inquirer )

About the Author

Joan Konner is a veteran, award-winning journalist in television and print. She served for nine years as Dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she introduced and taught a course in "Covering Ideas," and was publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review from 1988 to 1999. Her most recent television production was "The Mystery of Love," a 2-hour documentary special broadcast on public television in December 2006. She has produced more than 50 documentaries for public and commercial television, including the legendary six part television documentary Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. She also founded Public Affairs Television in partnership with Bill Moyers, and served as President of the company and Executive Producer of such series as God and Politics, In Search of the Constitution, and The World of Ideas. Her work has been widely honored: in addition to 16 Emmys, she has won the Peabody Award; Alfred. I. duPont Award; three American Bar Association Awards; the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism’s Alumni Award; and the New Jersey Press Women’s Association Award for Outstanding Accomplishment. She has also been a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board. She is now Professor Emerita and Dean Emerita of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, and lives with her husband in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Sometimes misleading. Practically worthless without references.
I have been an atheist activist for 23 years. I am a past president of Minnesota Atheists and a past vice president of Atheist Alliance International. I love books of atheist quotes. However, I have discovered that without clear references to their original sources, they are practically worthless. For that reason alone I would only give this book two stars. For other reasons, I'm lowering it to one star.

If putting the sources right next to the quotes is distracting, then stick them at the end. A handful of quotes that needed permission to reprint ARE well referenced at the end. It strikes me as sheer laziness or stinginess not to have done this for all the quotes. Page 177 states that the book WAS researched. Well, please cite your references so we can see how good a job was done. Otherwise we must accept the accuracy of these quotes on faith - very difficult for an atheist to do!

If you want to go to the trouble to track down the sources yourself, then you might like this book. Otherwise, I'm sure there are better books out there that have done the research for you. However, beware of books of atheist quotations that cite as their source OTHER books of quotations! I know of one popular such book, 2000 Years of Disbelief, and the book of quotations it sometimes cites as its source does not contain the original sources either!

This book could easily have included entire subsections on Jefferson and Madison. I wish it had (with sources referenced).

There are a couple quotes attributed to Founding Fathers that are often repeated by atheists but which cannot be verified. Thankfully, neither one is included in this book.

Skimming through the book, I came across one very misleading quote. On page 19 it states:

Question: How do you know you're God?
Answer: Simple. When I pray to him, I find I'm talking to myself.
- Peter O'Toole

Yes, these words were technically uttered by the actor Peter O'Toole. But they were the words of the character he was playing in the film The Ruling Class - a deluded member of the House of Lords who thought he was Jesus. What are Peter O'Toole's actual thoughts about religion? Who knows? But don't refer to this quote to find out.

In one section (page 41) the author uses the invented word "Scientosophy" for some quotes "implying that science is a belief system, as much as any other." However, most of the quotes in this section imply no such thing. This strikes me as the author trying to be too cute.

In sum, this book seems like an opportunistic attempt to catch the current wave of atheist popularity. My advise is to skip it and take a look at some other atheist quote books that are out there.

A "Good Book" for the rest of us!
"The Atheist's Bible," edited by Joan Konner, aims to be a Bartlett's Familiar Quotations of unbelief. The entire contents are quotes, usually from atheists or agnostics, but also from critics of organized religion, no matter what their belief system. Therefore, while you'll find many of the "usual suspects" of modern atheism represented here (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens), you'll also come across vintage sayings by Deists like Benjamin Franlin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. To stretch the "Bible" conceit a little, Konner arranges the quotes into various chapters with religious-sounding titles: "The Word," "The Gospel," "Our Forefathers Who Art in Heaven," etc. Many speakers are given several quotes, and some particularly quotable religious critics, such as Bertrand Russell, Robert G. Ingersoll and, ahem, Woody Allen have whole chapters devoted to them. There's even four quotes from the fictional luminary Homer Simpson (p. 53: "God bless those pagans")! Some fictional characters, such as god and Jesus Christ, don't make the cut, which is strange. I personally can't think of a better path to atheism than the actual Bible itself, and hotel managers the world over seem to agree with me. Anyway, here are some words of wisdom, chosen pretty much at random:

"The Christian religion was not only at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one." (David Hume, page 32)

"Praying is like a rocking chair--it'll give you something to do, but it won't get you anywhere." (Gypsy Rose Lee, page 78)

"Faith is the great cop-out; the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." (Richard Dawkins, Page 47)

That should give you a pretty good idea of what you'll find throughout. For an atheist, this is definitely a "good book" to keep handy, or at the very least offer excellent bathroom reading. In any case, it's certainly not essential reading, unless you have a good memory and frequently get into arguments with Jehovah's Witnesses. As for the intentions or opinions of Ms. Konner herself, currently Professor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, little is given. The short introduction includes one short quote of herself: "The reason there are so many opinions is that no one knows the Truth." (FYI: a Google search turned up nothing useful, but then I get discouraged pretty easily)

I've "come out" as a disbeliever...
...and it's so nice to find that better minds than mine have been, and are disbelievers, too. Albert Einstein, for instance. A friend of mine used to say that the only reason he believed in God was that Einstein was quoted as saying, "'God does not play dice with the universe.' And if it was good enough for Albert, it was good enough for him."

Well, Einstein may have said it, but the Atheist's Bible has a few terse quotes from Albert Einstein saying, "no, I've been misquoted." That's right. Albert Einstein was a non-believer.

If you've ever wondered whether you were the only non-believer in the world; a closet heretic like me, then this book will be a God-send (oops!) for you. Atheists, you can come out now and join the company of Lord Byron, Mark Twain, Thomas Paine, George Bernard Shaw, Gertrude Stein, et al. You won't be burned for your disbelief's.