I fear no hell, just as I expect no heaven. Nabokov summed up a nonbeliever’s view of the cosmos, and our place in it, thus: “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” The 19th-century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle put it slightly differently: “One life. A little gleam of Time between two Eternities.” Though I have many memories to cherish, I value the present, my time on earth, those around me now. I miss those who have departed, and recognize, painful as it is, that I will never be reunited with them. There is the here and now — no more. But certainly no less. Being an adult means, as Orwell put it, having the “power of facing unpleasant facts.” True adulthood begins with doing just that, with renouncing comforting fables. There is something liberating in recognizing ourselves as mammals with some fourscore years (if we’re lucky) to make the most of on this earth. There is also something intrinsically courageous about being an atheist. Atheists confront death without mythology or sugarcoating. That takes courage. Jeffrey Tayler
You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth.
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William W. Purkey
Do people look the same when they go to heaven, mommy?"" I don't know. I don't think so."" Then how do people recognize each other?"" I don't know, sweetie. They just feel it. You don't need your eyes to love, right?
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R.J. Palacio
I think Heaven will be like a first kiss.
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Sarah Addison Allen
Earth's crammed with heaven... But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish–a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow–to sleep late, have fun,...
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Hunter S. Thompson
More Quotes By Jeffrey Tayler
Aging and the prospect of dying by no means enhance the attractiveness of fictitious comforts to come in paradise, or the veracity of malicious myths about hellfire and damnation. Fear and feeblemindedness cannot be credibly pressed into service to support fantastic claims about the cosmos...
Killing, raping and looting have been common practices in religious societies, and often carried out with clerical sanction. The catalogue of notorious barbarities — wars and massacres, acts of terrorism, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the chopping off of thieves’ hands, the slicing off of clitorises...
A purpose derived from a false premise — that a deity has ordained submission to his will — cannot merit respect. The pursuit of Enlightenment-era goals – solving our world’s problems through rational discourse, rather than through religion and tradition — provides ample grounds for...
I fear no hell, just as I expect no heaven. Nabokov summed up a nonbeliever’s view of the cosmos, and our place in it, thus: “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of...
Not taking the Bible (or other texts based on 'revealed truths') literally leaves it up to the reader to cherry-pick elements for belief. There exists no guide for such cherry-picking, and zero religious sanction for it.
