“He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him), and took a sort of pleasure in thinking that human affairs would never improve.”
Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 30
Source: Down and Out in Paris and London
Context: He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him), and took a sort of pleasure in thinking that human affairs would never improve. Sometimes, he said, when sleeping on the Embankment, it had consoled him to look up at Mars or Jupiter and think that there were probably Embankment sleepers there. He had a curious theory about this. Life on earth, he said, is harsh because the planet is poor in the necessities of existence. Mars, with its cold climate and scanty water, must be far poorer, and life correspondingly harsher. Whereas on earth you are merely imprisoned for stealing sixpence, on Mars you are probably boiled alive. This thought cheered Bozo, I do not know why. He was a very exceptional man.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
George Orwell 473
English author and journalist 1903–1950Related quotes
You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)
“He is an atheist who does not believe in himself.”
The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is an atheist who does not believe in himself.
Call to the Nation
"Who Are The Blasphemers?" http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/flowers/112blasphemers.htm (June, 1882), p. 112
Flowers of Freethought (1893)
“If there were not God, there would be no atheists.”
Where All Roads Lead (1922); this is often misquoted as "If there were no God, there would be no atheists."
Context: Atheism is, I suppose, the supreme example of a simple faith. The man says there is no God; if he really says it in his heart, he is a certain sort of man so designated in Scripture [i. e. a fool, Ps 53:2]. But, anyhow, when he has said it, he has said it; and there seems to be no more to be said. The conversation seems likely to languish. The truth is that the atmosphere of excitement, by which the atheist lived, was an atmosphere of thrilled and shuddering theism, and not of atheism at all; it was an atmosphere of defiance and not of denial. Irreverence is a very servile parasite of reverence; and has starved with its starving lord. After this first fuss about the merely aesthetic effect of blasphemy, the whole thing vanishes into its own void. If there were not God, there would be no atheists.
You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)
You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)
Source: You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think: Answers to Questions from Angry Skeptics
“He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not.”
The Philosophy of Paine (1925)
Context: He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity.
His Bible was the open face of nature, the broad skies, the green hills. He disbelieved the ancient myths and miracles taught by established creeds. But the attacks on those creeds — or on persons devoted to them — have served to darken his memory, casting a shadow across the closing years of his life.
When Theodore Roosevelt termed Tom Paine a "dirty little atheist" he surely spoke from lack of understanding. It was a stricture, an inaccurate charge of the sort that has dimmed the greatness of this eminent American. But the true measure of his stature will yet be appreciated. The torch which he handed on will not be extinguished.
A Bitter Rift Divides Atheists, NPR, 19th October 2009 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113889251