Thought for atheist pride day

We are not endeavouring to chain the future but to free the present. We are not forging fetters for our children but we are breaking those our fathers made for us. We are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation and thought. This of itself is an admission that we are not perfectly satisfied with all our conclusions. Philosophy has not the egotism of faith. While superstition builds walls and creates obstructions, science opens all the highways of thought. We do not pretend to have circumnavigated everything and to have solved all difficulties but we do believe that it is grander and nobler to think and investigate for ourselves than to repeat a creed. We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accomplish everything in our day but we want to do what good we can and to render all the service possible in the cause of human progress. We know that doing away with gods and supernatural beings and powers is not an end. It is a means to an end – the real end being the happiness of man…

Robert Ingersoll