I'll take a stab at it, Ali.  I take the quote to mean that NOT believing in God -- a fairly large and inclusive concept in the first place -- opens one up to all sorts of wilder, disparate notions.  It's pretty hard to believe in a negative -- "nothing."  Something about the human mental configuration craves at least some level of belief in the supernatural, the mystical and the magic.  If you discount all varieties of God that have been conjured by other humans throughout all written human history, what remains is... everything.  Anything.

At least that's how I interpret the quote.  I'll have to read more of what he has to say though.  Isolated quotes generally don't have enough to flesh out full philosophies.  This one is a good start though. One thing I did read about Chesterton is that he is the Christian thinker most often quoted by atheists, so that perks my interest.  Plus his hanging with Bertrand Russell means there had to have been lively discussion on the subject of God with plenty of challenges in both directions.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I did find this online:

"To defend the honour of G.K. Chesterton, actually he never even said the quote about "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything". It's a paraphrase of a statement made by Emile Cammaerts in his book "The Laughing Prophet" (1937) when Cammaerts was reviewing the Father Brown story "The Oracle of the Dog". Chesterton has Brown say "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense", which Cammaerts paraphrases as "The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything".

Certainly Chesterton was a great fan of the epigrammatic paradox and the remark may sound like one of his, but it isn't."

But it's not exactly from the most reliable of sources, so i'm not sure. http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/lewis_baston/2006/04/no_bread_plenty_of_circuses.html

 Lol ! Yes, I was surprised by what I found at the new office. One of the Black chicks was listening to the rap station 105. All the DJs I noticed were mentioning God and prayers . Huh? I guess those concepts go with the hood ? and maybe even thug life ? One of the station's DJs- Blaze -had been shot 16 times recently and his gold chain stolen. The station was suggesting prayers for Blaze and asking God to help stop the street violence... Notice how many rappers thank God and mention praying.

Just reporting what I hear. I hope Blaze recovers.

Here's the story on Carl Blaze--at least 13 shots-I heard 16.

Just to set the record staight on Fiddy and his number of bullet wounds from his shooting incident. According to this biography link it was only 9 bullet wounds. I thought it was higher.

http://www.quotemonk.com/authors/50-cent/biography-profile.htm

Rap is indeed repititious, formulaic and often deals with negative subjects. I have to admit however, that rolling with my girls, my crew I found my Anglo head bobbing to one of the cuts last Friday.      These girls are not hoodlums by the way, they are just nice kids working for a living.

And yes Booth that name Kum Kum is quite a handle. : )

Bad news follow up on the above duscussion : Thirty year old NY DJ Blaze, a guy with a wife and two kids -one 1 y.o. one 8 y.o.

has just died this afternooon from wounds inflicted in a street crime robbery for a gold chain. Crazy. Carl Blaze, I have learned the past couple weeks, was beloved by the Black and Latino New York communities as an unassuming, generous all around laid back guy.

Rest in Peace Carl Blaze- Carlos Rivera. I know my work crew is feeling down. 

Mike, your 2cats

I saw this in the current issue of Chicago magazine - a quiz to answer the question "What religion should I be?" http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html  (the Belief-o-matic personality quiz at beliefnet.com)

According to this, I'm a secular humanist.

(I also took the "What is my political affiliation?" quiz http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html - the World's Smallest Political Quiz at theadvocates.org - it says I'm a centrist, and here I thought I was a liberal, and the "Am I a dork?" quiz http://nerdtests.com/ft_nq.php - the Nerd test at nerdtests.com - my results were "not nerdy, but definitely not hip" and I'm sure I'm more nerdy than that.)

Wasn't raised religious, but went to Christian schools. I became baptised as a Born Again Christian at the age of 27 in 2005. Since that's happened, I went through quite a few upsetting experiences (namely my wife suffering a miscarriage, and my father dying) which kind of made me wander off the path. But I never lost my faith. Just stopped talking to God cause I didn't think He was listening anymore.

I'm 30 now, and slowly but surely, I think I'm finding my way back. I still sin of course (who doesn't?) but I'm praying again, talking to God again, and have not been afraid to ask Him for His help. I just hopes He's forgiven me for straying off the path the way I did. I've asked Him for one particular favour, and hopefully He'll grant this prayer to me. He's never let me down before. I just keep letting Him down... :(