“It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist. … I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.”

— Charles Darwin

Letter http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/entry-12041 to John Fordyce, 7 May 1879
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements

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Charles Darwin 161

British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by… 1809–1882

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“The atheist makes the mistake of denying that of which nothing may be said… and the theist makes the mistake of affirming it.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 21
Context: "Tell me," said the atheist, "Is there a God — really?"
Said the master, "If you want me to be perfectly honest with you, I will not answer."
Later the disciples demanded to know why he had not answered.
"Because the question is unanswerable," said the Master.
"So you are an atheist?"
"Certainly not. The atheist makes the mistake of denying that of which nothing may be said... and the theist makes the mistake of affirming it.

“I call myself a non-theist as opposed to an atheist because as I see an atheist as having a belief about God, i.e. that there isn't one.”

Ursula Goodenough (1943) American biologist

Meaning of Life interview (2008)
Context: Well, God answers of course come in every flavor imaginable these days so God can be process-God can be mind-God … so there are all of these ways that God is now configured as well as the ones that come to us from traditional religions where God has much more power — then there's the whole personal God part which I do talk about in there at some point. So I don't think that even that there is a God framework out there at this point that I am either accepting or rejecting. My response is that I call myself a non-theist as opposed to an atheist because as I see an atheist as having a belief about God, i. e. that there isn't one. And my I've never been actually very interested in the question I guess is one way to put it. I see it as a question That can be summarized in the aphorism "Why is there anything at all rather than nothing." And science doesn't have any answer to That so what I articulated in the book and continued to do is what I call a covenant with mystery where mystery is itself a … noun but I am using it as literally in absence of category. It's not like I have a mystery then I put attributions onto it it just … I don't know the answers.