You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)
1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)
“Atheism alone is the surest way to morality.”
The Need of Atheism
Context: Because morality is a social necessity, the moment faith in god is banished, man's gaze turns from god to man and he becomes socially conscious. Religious belief prevented the growth of a sense of realism. But atheism at once makes man realistic and alive to the needs of morality. Atheism alone is the surest way to morality. Those who oppose atheism in any form betray their vested interests in inequality of some kind of other.
Source: 2000s, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), p. 51
Context: Atheism is not a philosophy - it is not even a view of the world. It is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.
1960s, The American Promise (1965)
Source: Books, What's So Great about Christianity (2007), Ch. 23
“Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be popular with God himself.”
September 7, 1851
Journals (1838-1859)
"Code + Law: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig" at O'Reilly P2P (29 January 2001)(29 January 2001)
Context: Our problem is that lawyers have taught us that there is only one kind of economic market for innovation out there and it is this kind of isolated inventor who comes up with an idea and then needs to be protected. That is a good picture of maybe what pharmaceutical industry does. It's a bad picture of what goes on, for example, in the context of software development, in particular. In the context of software development, where you have sequential and complementary developments, patents create an extraordinarily damaging influence on innovation and on the process of developing and bringing new ideas to market. So the particular mistake that lawyers have compounded is the unwillingness to discriminate among different kinds of innovation.
We really need to think quite pragmatically about whether intellectual property is helping or hurting, and if you can't show it's going to help, then there is no reason to issue this government-backed monopoly.
