A Quote by Studs Terkel

You happen to be talking to an agnostic. You know what an agnostic is? A cowardly atheist.

Studs Terkel

Quote Topics

Agnostic Atheist Cowardly Happen Know Talking

Quote Author

Studs Terkel
American - Journalist
May 16, 1912 - October 31, 2008

An agnostic is a cowardly atheist.

Studs Terkel

I am an atheist. There, I said it. Are you happy, all you atheists out there who have remonstrated with me for adopting the agnostic moniker? If "atheist" means someone who does not believe in God, then an atheist is what I am. But I detest all such labels. Call me what you like - humanist, secular humanist, agnostic, nonbeliever, nontheist, freethinker, heretic, or even bright. I prefer skeptic.

Michael Shermer

An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism.

Bertrand Russell

I just became a stronger agnostic, and then I started to realize that everyone who was saying they were agnostic really hadn't thought about it that much. Still, I went with agnosticism for a long, long time because I just hated to say I was an atheist -- being an atheist seemed so rigid. But the more I became comfortable with the word, and the more I read, it started to stick.

Julia Sweeney

An agnostic is someone who believes the nature of the Divine is unknowable... and in that sense, I'm willing to subscribe to being an agnostic.

Robert J. Sawyer

Science is agnostic when it comes to god; not atheistic, as some people prefer to read that laden word wrongly; just agnostic.

Eric Chaisson

People are invariably surprised to hear me say I am both an atheist and an agnostic, as if this somehow weakens my certainty. I usually reply with a question like, “Well, are you a Republican or an American?” The two words serve different concepts and are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism addresses knowledge; atheism addresses belief. The agnostic says, “I don't have a knowledge that God exists.” The atheist says, “I don't have a belief that God exists.” You can say both things at the same time. Some agnostics are atheistic and some are theistic.

Dan Barker

I am also atheist or agnostic (I don't even know the difference). I've never been to church and prefer to think for myself.

Steve Wozniak

I'm at the atheist end of the agnostic spectrum.

Sara Paretsky

Isn't an agnostic just an atheist without balls?

Stephen Colbert

I'm a linear thinking agnostic, but not an atheist folks.

Neil Peart

Being an agnostic means all things are possible, even God, even the Holy Trinity. This world is so strange that anything may happen, or may not happen. Being an agnostic makes me live in a larger, a more fantastic kind of world, almost uncanny. It makes me more tolerant.

Jorge Luis Borges

My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn’t believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I’m agnostic.