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Properly Read, The Bible Is The Most Potent Force For Atheism Ever Conceived.
-Isaac Asimov
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Properly Read, The Bible

Isaac Asimov
...
Properly Read, The Bible Is The Most Potent Force For Atheism Ever Conceived.

Understanding the Quote: "properly read, the bible is the most potent force for atheism ever..."

This quote by Isaac Asimov reflects deeply on the theme of death. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Death, Atheist, If There Is A God, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Isaac Asimov interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov is celebrated for insightful thoughts on death and atheist. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Death
Atheist
If There Is A God
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I Am An Atheist, Out And Out. It Took Me A Long Time To Say It. I've Been An Atheist For Years And Years, But Somehow I Felt It Was Intellectually Unrespectable To Say That One Is An Atheist, Because It Assumed Knowledge That One Didn't Have. Somehow It Was Better To Say One Was A Humanist Or Agnostic. I Don't Have The Evidence To Prove That God Doesn't Exist, But I So Strongly Suspect That He Doesn't That I Don't Want To Waste My Time.
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Tens Of Millions Of Americans Who Neither Know Or Understand The Actual Arguments For, Or Even Against, Evolution, March In The Army Of The Night With Their Bibles Held High
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Death
Sleep
Boredom
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Death
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Forever
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May
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Sympathy
Death
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I Was Once Being Interviewed By Barbara Walters. In Between Two Of The Segments She Asked Me: "but What Would You Do If The Doctor Gave You Only Six Months To Live?" I Said, "type Faster." This Was Widely Quoted, But The "six Months" Was Changed To "six Minutes," Which Bothered Me. It's "six Months."
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Giving
Peculiar
And Above All Things, Never Think That You're Not Good Enough Yourself. A Man Should Never Think That. My Belief Is That In Life People Will Take You At Your Own Reckoning.
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Reality
Believe In Yourself
[social] Science Fiction Is That Branch Of Literature Which Is Concerned With The Impact Of Scientific Advance On Human Beings.
Impact
Fiction
Literature
To Introduce Something Altogether New Would Mean To Begin All Over, To Become Ignorant Again, And To Run The Old, Old Risk Of Failing To Learn.
Running
Ignorance
Mean
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Running
War
Cutting
A Good Question Is, Of Course, The Key By Which Infinite Answers Can Be Educed.
Inspirational
Wise
Wisdom
In A Properly Automated And Educated World, Then, Machines May Prove To Be The True Humanizing Influence. It May Be That Machines Will Do The Work That Makes Life Possible And That Human Beings Will Do All The Other Things That Make Life Pleasant And Worthwhile
Machines
World
May
I Don't Believe In Personal Immortality; The Only Way I Expect To Have Some Version Of Such A Thing Is Through My Books.
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Book
Way
What I Will Be Remembered For Are The Foundation Trilogy And The Three Laws Of Robotics. What I Want To Be Remembered For Is No One Book, Or No Dozen Books. Any Single Thing I Have Written Can Be Paralleled Or Even Surpassed By Something Someone Else Has Done. However, My Total Corpus For Quantity, Quality And Variety Can Be Duplicated By No One Else. That Is What I Want To Be Remembered For.
Book
Writing
Law
In My Life There Have Been Several Individuals Whose Presence Made It Easier For Me To Think, Pleasanter To Make My Responses.
Thinking
Individual
Easier
I'm Gradually Managing To Cram My Mind More And More Full Of Things. I've Got This Beautiful Mind And It's Going To Die, And It'll All Be Gone. And Then I Say, Not In My Case. Every Idea I've Ever Had I've Written Down, And It's All There On Paper. And I Won't Be Gone; It'll Be There.
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Learning
Science
It's Humbling To Think That All Animals, Including Human Beings, Are Parasites Of The Plant World.
Animal
Grandchildren
Thinking
You Can Prove Anything You Want By Coldly Logical Reason---if You Pick The Proper Postulates.
Want
Reason
Logical
The Advance Of Genetic Engineering Makes It Quite Conceivable That We Will Begin To Design Our Own Evolutionary Progress.
Engineering
Design
Progress
The Greatest Inventors Are Unknown To Us. Someone Invented The Wheel - But Who?
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Inventor
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Absolute Truth
Testing
Absolutes
Speech, Originally, Was The Device Whereby Man Learned, Imperfectly, To Transmit The Thoughts And Emotions Of His Mind. By Setting Up Arbitrary Sounds And Combinations Of Sounds To Represent Certain Mental Nuances, He Developed A Method Of Communication--but One Which In Its Clumsiness And Thick-thumbed Inadequacy Degenerated All The Delicacy Of The Mind Into Gross And Guttural Signaling.
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Men
Mind
Saying Something Is 'too Bad' Is Easy. You Say You Disapprove, Which Makes You A Nice Person, And Then You Can Go About Your Business And Not Be Interested Anymore. It's A Lot Worse Than 'too Bad.' It's Against Everything Decent And Natural.
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Easy
Natural
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Finite Number
Data
Numbers
Life Is Glorious When It Is Happy; Days Are Carefree When They Are Happy; The Interplay Of Thought And Imagination Is Far Superior To That Of Muscle And Sinew.
Life
Imagination
Happy Day
Goodbye, Hari, My Love. Remember Always--all You Did For Me.” -i Did Nothing For You.” -you Loved Me And Your Love Made Me--human.
Goodbye
Remember
Made
One Thought That Occurs To Me Is That Men Will Continue To Withdraw From Nature In Order To Create An Environment That Will Suit Them Better.
Men
Order
Suits
The Spell Of Power Never Quite Releases Its Hold.
Power
Never Quit
Release
During The Century After Newton, It Was Still Possible For A Man Of Unusual Attainments To Master All Fields Of Scientific Knowledge. But By 1800, This Had Become Entirely Impracticable.
Knowledge
Science
Men
It's Just Science Fiction So It's Allowed To Be Silly, And Childish, And Stupid. It's Just Science Fiction, So It Doesn't Have To Make Sense. It's Just Science Fiction, So You Must Ask Nothing More Of It Than Loud Noises And Flashing Lights.
Stupid
Silly
Light
The Important Prediction Is Not The Automobile, But The Parking Problem; Not Radio, But The Soap Opera; Not The Income Tax, But The Expense Account; Not The Bomb, But The Nuclear Stalemate
Important
Income
Nuclear
It Is The Writer Who Might Catch The Imagination Of Young People, And Plant A Seed That Will Flower And Come To Fruition.
Flower
Writing
Imagination
Now Any Dogma, Based Primarily On Faith And Emotionalism, Is A Dangerous Weapon To Use On Others, Since It Is Almost Impossible To Guarantee That The Weapon Will Never Be Turned On The User.
Faith
Emotional
Guarantees That
I Want To Be A Human Being, Nothing More And Nothing Less. ... I Don't Suppose We Can Ever Stop Hating Each Other, But Why Encourage That By Keeping The Old Labels With Their Ready-made History Of Millennial Hate?
Hate
Labels
Millennials
That's The Harm Of Close Encounters: That It Convinces Tens Of Millions That That's What Just Science Fiction Is.
Encounters
Fiction
Harm
Jokes Of The Proper Kind, Properly Told, Can Do More To Enlighten Questions Of Politics, Philosophy, And Literature Than Any Number Of Dull Arguments.
Wise
Philosophy
Numbers
I Don't Think I've Ever Held A Racket In My Hand ... There's Got To Be Somebody In The Us Who Isn't Trying To Play Tennis And Stinking Up The Court.
Thinking
Hands
Play
Imagine The People Who Believe Such Things And Who Are Not Ashamed To Ignore, Totally, All The Patient Findings Of Thinking Minds Through All The Centuries Since The Bible Was Written. And It Is These Ignorant People, The Most Uneducated, The Most Unimaginative, The Most Unthinking Among Us, Who Would Make Themselves The Guides And Leaders Of Us All; Who Would Force Their Feeble And Childish Beliefs On Us; Who Would Invade Our Schools And Libraries And Homes. I Personally Resent It Bitterly.
Believe
Home
School
It Was Childish To Feel Disappointed, But Childishness Comes Almost As Naturally To A Man As To A Child.
Children
Men
Feels
In The Presence Of Total Darkness, The Mind Finds It Absolutely Necessary To Create Light.
Light
Darkness
Mind
Every Religion Seems Like A Fantasy To Outsiders, But As Holy Truth To Those Of The Faith.
Fear
Atheism
Outsiders
It Was Easy To Cover Up Ignorance By The Mystical Word "intuition.
Ignorance
Intuition
Cover Ups
It Is Remarkable, Hardin, How The Religion Of Science Has Grabbed Hold.
Remarkable
Until Now In World's History, Whenever We've Had A Dark Age, Its Been Temporary And Local. And Other Parts Of The World Have Been Doing Fine. And Eventually, They Help You Get Out Of The Dark Age. We Are Now Facing A Possible Dark Age Which Is Going To Be World-wide And Permanent! That's Not Fun. That's A Different Thing. But Once We Have Established Many Worlds, We Can Do Whatever We Want As Long As We Do It One World At A Time.
Fun
Dark
Moon
There Never Can Be A Man So Lost As One Who Is Lost In The Vast And Intricate Corridors Of His Own Lonely Mind, Where None May Reach And None May Save.
Lonely
Men
Mind
Having Reached 451 Books As Of Now Doesn't Help The Situation. If I Were To Be Dying Now, I Would Be Murmuring, "too Bad! Only Four Hundred Fifty-one." (those Would Be My Next-to-last Words. The Last Ones Will Be: "i Love You, Janet.") [they Were. -janet.]
Book
Love You
Dying
They Don't Want Equal Time - They Want All The Time There Is.
Want
Equal
It Is Not So Much That I Have Confidence In Scientists Being Right, But That I Have So Much In Nonscientists Being Wrong.
Science
Scientist
Have Confidence
One Might Accept Death Reasoningly, With Every Aspect Of The Conscious Mind, But The Body Was A Brute Beast That Knew Nothing Of Reason.
Mind
Body
Might
Finished Products Are For Decadent Minds.
Mind
Products
Finished
It Pays To Be Obvious, Especially If You Have A Reputation For Subtlety.
Foundation
Pay
Reputation
The Closer To The Truth, The Better The Lie, And The Truth Itself, When It Can Be Used, Is The Best Lie.
Lying
Used
There Is As Yet Insufficient Data For A Meaningful Answer.
Meaningful
Data
Answers
It Is Always Useful, You See, To Subject The Past Life Of Reform Politicians To Rather Inquisitive Research.
Past
Reform
Research
A Fire-eater Must Eat Fire Even If He Has To Kindle It Himself.
Fire
Kindles
Ifs
Life Is A Journey, But Don't Worry, You'll Find A Parking Spot At The End.
Life
Journey
Worry
There Is A Single Light Of Science, And To Brighten It Anywhere Is To Brighten It Everywhere.
Science
Light
Single Relationship
A Subtle Thought That Is In Error May Yet Give Rise To Fruitful Inquiry That Can Establish Truths Of Great Value.
Encouragement
Truth
Mistake
Inertia! Our Ruling Class Knows One Law; No Change. Despotism! They Know One Rule; Force. Maldistribution! They Know One Desire; To Hold What Is Theirs.
Law
Class
Desire
Before Another Century Is Done It Will Be Hard For People To Imagine A Time When Humanity Was Confined To One World, And It Will Seem To Them Incredible That There Was Ever Anybody Who Doubted The Value Of Space And Wanted To Turn His Or Her Back On The Universe.
Future
Science
Space
People Think Of Education As Something That They Can Finish.
Thinking
People
Any Planet Is 'earth' To Those That Live On It.
Earth
Planets
A Robot Must Protect Its Own Existence As Long As Such Protection Does Not Conflict With The First Or Second Laws.
Law
Long
Robots
I Am The Beneficiary Of A Lucky Break In The Genetic Sweepstakes.
Lucky
Break
Heredity
The Greatest Weapons In The Conquest Of Knowledge Are An Understanding Mind And The Inexorable Curiosity That Drives It On.
Understanding
Curiosity
Mind
The Energy Requirements For Interstellar Travel Are So Great That It Is Inconceivable To Me That Any Creatures Piloting Their Ships Across The Vast Depths Of Space Would Do So Only In Order To Play Games With Us Over A Period Of Decades. If They Want To Make Contact, They Would Make Contact; If Not, They Would Save Their Energy And Go Elsewhere.
Order
Games
Play
When I Read About The Way In Which Library Funds Are Being Cut And Cut, I Can Only Think That American Society Has Found One More Way To Destroy Itself.
Ignorance
Cutting
Science
Any Book Worth Banning Is A Book Worth Reading.
Book
Reading
Book Banning
It's The Writing That Teaches You.
Writing
Teach
Part Of The Inhumanity Of The Computer Is That, Once It Is Competently Programmed And Working Smoothly, It Is Completely Honest.
Honesty
Technology
Computer
There Are Many Aspects Of The Universe That Still Cannot Be Explained Satisfactorily By Science; But Ignorance Implies Only Ignorance That May Someday Be Conquered. To Surrender To Ignorance And Call It God Has Always Been Premature, And It Remains Premature Today.
Ignorance
May
Today
Scientists Derive Satisfaction From Figuring Out The Puzzle. It's About The Quest, Not The Grail.
Quests
Satisfaction
Scientist
Today's Science Fiction Is Tomorrow's Science Fact.
Fiction
Today
Facts
The Peace And Joy Of The Christmas Season Was Marred By A Proclamation Of A General Strike Of All The Military Forces Of The World. Panic Reigns In The Hearts Of All The Patriots Of Every Persuasion. Meanwhile, Fears Of Universal Disaster Sank To An All-time Low Over The World.
Peace
Fear
Military
If All Human Beings Understood History, They Might Cease Making The Same Stupid Mistakes Over And Over.
Mistake
Stupid
History
The Vast Majority, Who Believe In Astrology And Think That The Planets Have Nothing Better To Do Than Form A Code That Will Tell Them Whether Tomorrow Is A Good Day To Close A Business Deal Or Not, Become All The More Excited And Enthusiastic.
Believe
Good Day
Thinking
Unfortunately, In Many Cases, People Who Write Science Fiction Violate The Laws Of Nature, Not Because They Want To Make A Point, But Because They Don't Know What The Laws Of Nature Are.
Writing
Knowledge
Science
How Then To Enforce Peace? Not By Reason, Certainly, Nor By Education. If A Man Could Not Look At The Fact Of Peace And The Fact Of War And Choose The Former In Preference To The Latter, What Additional Argument Could Persuade Him? What Could Be More Eloquent As A Condemnation Of War Than War Itself? What Tremendous Feat Of Dialectic Could Carry With It A Tenth The Power Of A Single Gutted Ship With Its Ghastly Cargo?
War
Men
Looks
All You Have To Do Is Take A Close Look At Yourself And You Will Understand Everyone Else.
Looks
Look At Yourself
It Is The Obvious Which Is So Difficult To See Most Of The Time. People Say 'it's As Plain As The Nose On Your Face.' But How Much Of The Nose On Your Face Can You See, Unless Someone Holds A Mirror Up To You?
Mirrors
People
Common Sense
It Took Me Thirty-six Years; And, In Some Fifty Stories, Ranging In Length From Short-shorts To Novels, I Think I Must Have Touched, In One Way Or Another, On Every Aspect Of Computers And Computerization. And (mark This!) I Did It Without Ever Knowing Anything At All About Computers In Any Real Sense. To This Day, I Don't. I Am Totally Inept With Machinery... On My Typewriter I Turn Out Books At The Contemptible Rate Of One A Month
Real
Book
Thinking
I Wish That I Could Say I Was Optimistic About The Human Race. I Love Us All, But We Are So Stupid And Shortsighted That I Wonder If We Can Lift Our Eyes To The World About Us Long Enough Not To Commit Suicide.
Suicide
Stupid
Eye
I Don't Believe In An Afterlife, So I Don't Have To Spend My Whole Life Fearing Hell, Or Fearing Heaven Even More. For Whatever The Tortures Of Hell, I Think The Boredom Of Heaven Would Be Even Worse.
Life
Atheist
Believe
The Lucky Few Who Can Be Involved In Creative Work Of Any Sort Will Be The True Elite Of Mankind, For They Alone Will Do More Than Serve A Machine.
Creative
Lucky
Machines
Society Is Much More Easily Soothed Than One's Own Conscience.
Conscience
If Knowledge Can Create Problems, It Is Not Through Ignorance That We Can Solve Them.
Ignorance
Knowledge
Science
Many Adults, Whether Consciously Or Unconsciously, Find It Beneath Their Adult Dignity To Do Anything As Childish As Read A Book, Think A Thought, Or Get An Idea. Adults Are Rarely Embarrased At Having Forgotten What Little Algebra Or Geography They Once Learned
Book
Thinking
Ideas
All Normal Life, Peter, Consciously Or Otherwise, Resent Domination. If The Domination Is By An Inferior, Or By A Supposed Inferior, The Resentment Becomes Stronger.
Stronger
Normal
Resentment
I Am Not Responsible For What Other People Think. I Am Responsible Only For What I Myself Think, And I Know What That Is. No Idea I've Ever Come Up With Has Ever Struck Me As A Divine Revelation. Nothing I Have Ever Observed Leads Me To Think There Is A God Watching Over Me.
Fear
Thinking
Ideas
Human Beings Thought With Their Hands. It Was Their Hands That Were The Answer Of Curiosity, That Felt And Pinched And Turned And Lifted And Hefted. There Were Animals That Had Brains Of Respectable Size, But They Had No Hands And That Made All The Difference.
Animal
Hands
Differences
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