Help Me With My Athiest Quotes

[AC Skeptic]

There are two quotes I am trying to track down. The first is supposedly from Bertrand Russell, but the only reference I can find is from Dawkins quoting him in the movie Expelled.

 

"Bertrand Russell had that point put to him, and he said something like: sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself?"

 

(in reference to what Russell would tell God if he faced him after death).

 

Did Russell say something like this? I found another quote that said Russell said "Not enough evidence". I like Dawkins version better. I don't really care if Russell said it, if he didn't I would attribute it to Dawkins. Unlike the religious, I don't have to tie my quotes to famous names for their validity, that quote represents me and I want to use it.

 

The second is a quote I read in someone's signature on this very site. It was from someone, either a ancient Greek or a founder father, that said something like,

 

"death is peaceful after a well lived life just as sleep is peaceful after a hard day's work".

 

that is a paraphrase. Whatever it was, I love it and want to know exactly what it was.

[Realist]

There are two quotes I am trying to track down. The first is supposedly from Bertrand Russell, but the only reference I can find is from Dawkins quoting him in the movie Expelled.

 

"Bertrand Russell had that point put to him, and he said something like: sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself?"

 

(in reference to what Russell would tell God if he faced him after death).

 

Did Russell say something like this? I found another quote that said Russell said "Not enough evidence". I like Dawkins version better. I don't really care if Russell said it, if he didn't I would attribute it to Dawkins. Unlike the religious, I don't have to tie my quotes to famous names for their validity, that quote represents me and I want to use it.

 

The second is a quote I read in someone's signature on this very site. It was from someone, either a ancient Greek or a founder father, that said something like,

 

"death is peaceful after a well lived life just as sleep is peaceful after a hard day's work".

 

that is a paraphrase. Whatever it was, I love it and want to know exactly what it was.

 

 

.... I think the Russell quote you seek was this:

 

Someone asked Russell: 'Lord Russell, what will you say when you die and are brought face to face with your Maker?' He replied without hesitation: 'I shall say, 'God, why did you make the evidence for your existence so insufficient?'

[AC Skeptic]

Thanks!

[ShallowByThyGame]

This may not be right, maybe what it was based on, but the second one reminds me of Socrates.

 

Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: - either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night.