“The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself; but is the Theist any other? Well, perhaps; for he has seen the shadow of God and clutched at it.”

— Sri Aurobindo

The quote "The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself; but is the Theist any other? We…" is famous quote attributed to Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950), Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet.

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Jnana

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update April 18, 2023. History

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Sri Aurobindo 224

Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, gur… 1872–1950

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“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

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“Reason is like an officer when the King appears;
The officer then loses his power and hides himself.
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“My friend (s), I'm not an atheist like you. In fact, I'm a theist. Meaning, I do believe in One Living God!”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“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 (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

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

“The fact is, when we are born, we are neither theists nor atheists, but ignoro-theists.”

Varadaraja V. Raman (1932) American physicist

page 157
Truth and Tension in Science and Religion

“Define God in a sufficiently nebulous way as beauty, love, mysterious complexity, or the ethereal taste of strawberry shortcake, and most atheists become theists. Still, although one can pose as Humpty Dumpty and aver, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less,” others needn’t play along.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

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Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

“Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly. Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.”

Margaret Atwood book The Year of the Flood

Source: The Year of the Flood

“The atheist has got completely different views from the theist, but each one of them is regarding their opponent as the foolish one.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“He understands that the world is an enormous farce, a canular played by God against man, and that he has to play God’s game and laugh about it.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

canular refers to hoaxes, humorous deceptions.
The Paris Review interview (1984)
Context: You know, the Cathars believed that the world was not created by God but by a demon who had stolen a few technological secrets from Him and made this world — which is why it doesn’t work. I don’t share this heresy. I’m too afraid! But I put it in a play called This Extraordinary Brothel, in which the protagonist doesn’t talk at all. There is a revolution, everybody kills everybody else, and he doesn’t understand. But at the very end, he speaks for the first time. He points his finger towards the sky and shakes it at God, saying, “You rogue! You little rogue!” and he bursts out laughing. He understands that the world is an enormous farce, a canular played by God against man, and that he has to play God’s game and laugh about it.

“Not only does God play dice but… he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

“The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself; but is the Theist any other? Well, perhaps; for he has seen the shadow of God and clutched at it.”

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Sri Aurobindo 224

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