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If God is the answer, it must’ve been a really stupid question.
The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From
a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions
have evolved–Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-god religions.
They are, literally, patriarchal–God is the Omnipotent Father–hence the loathing
of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his
earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires
total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is not just in place for one tribe,
but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed
for their own good. –Gore Vidal, 1998
The mind is a terrible thing to waste, and theology a great way to waste it.
If Jesus died for our sins, shouldn’t the sin of unbelief be included?
"…I beg you be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself
to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and
every species of religious persecution." –George Washington, to United
Baptists Churches of Virginia, May, 1789
Money is the root of all gods.
Creationism is not the alternative to Evolution – ignorance is.
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world,
and I do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming
feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. –Thomas Jefferson
"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of
Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been
the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other
half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth." –Thomas
Jefferson
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman
church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church,
nor by any church that I know of…Each of those churches accuse the other of
unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all." –Thomas Paine,
The Age of Reason
"We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts. do better without
Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson
that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Govt."
—James Madison, from a letter to Edward Livingston, July 10,
1822
"I cannot accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear
of death or blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God,
but if I were to speak of him I would be a liar." –Albert Einstein
“The Bible is the greatest hoax in all history. The leading characters of the
Old Testament would today be in the penitentiary and those of the New would
be under observation in psychopathic wards.” — Charles Smith (1887-1964)
"You need to look no further than religion for proof of evolution, its
constantly evolving to fit scientific fact." –Scott Catterton
“I don’t want a God that would go around killing people’s little girls. Neither
do I want a God who would kill his own son."
–John Spong, retired Episcopal bishop
“Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the
devastation wrought by the teachings of religion.” –Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D.
“It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line
to the Bible.” — George W. Foote
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme
being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable
of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." — Thomas Jefferson
(letter to J. Adams April 11,1823)
“Theologian: An uncommon individual who, though possessing finite abilities,
has been called by God himself who, though possessing infinite abilities, requires
the assistance of the former in explaining Himself to the rest of us.” — “Rev.”
Donald Morgan
Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father
can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telephatically
tell him you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your
soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking
snake to eat from a magical tree.
“The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss,
while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting
pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be believed only by that unhappy
mixture of insanity and ignorance called ‘faith.'” — Robert G. Ingersoll
“There is no sin greater than ignorance.” — Rudyard Kipling
"The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments
to heterosexuals. That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love heterosexuals. It’s
just that they need more supervision." –Lynn Lavner
“I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance.”
— Christopher Marlowe
“What is the nature of God? His nature is entirely dependent upon the age or
culture that has reinvented him.” — Solomon Skink
“It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion,
however satisfying and reassuring.” — Carl Sagan
“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced
that it says what he means.” — George Bernard Shaw
“God: The Preeminent Chameleon; whenever the need is felt by one or more of
his followers, He obligingly recreates himself to suit the occasion.” — “Rev.”
Donald Morgan
“Religion is like chemotherapy, it may solve one problem, but it can cause a
million more.” — John Bledsoe
“The theory that you should always treat the religious convictions of other
people with respect finds no support in the Gospels.” — Arnold Lunn (1888-1974)
“Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?” — Friedrich
Nietzsche
“Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.” — Graham Greene
“All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the
few.” — Marie Henri Beyle (1783-1842)
“Religion is not insanity but it is born of the stuff which makes for insanity.
…all religions perform the function of delusion.” — George Dorsey
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those
who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that
this or that problem will never be solved by science.” — Charles Darwin
“Should one continue to base one’s life on a system of belief that–for all
its occasional wisdom and frequent beauty–is demonstrably untrue?” — Charles
Templeton, former right-hand man to Billy Graham
“The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.” — Delos B. McKown,
Ph.D.
“One man’s religion is another man’s belly laugh.” — Robert A. Heinlein
“The Bible is not my book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never
give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma.” — Abraham
Lincoln
“If God made us in His image we have certainly returned the compliment.” —
Voltaire (1694-1778)
“You go back and tell Brigham Young that I’ll give up the Lord’s money when
he sends me a receipt signed by the Lord, and no sooner.” — Sam Brannan
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and
by rulers as useful.” — Seneca the Younger (4? B.C. – 65 A.D.)
“The old faiths light their candles all about, but burly Truth comes by and
puts them out.” — Lizette Reese
“People fare best when they look not to moral rules and principles, not to priests
and churches, and not to creeds, but to the actual results of what they do.”
— Richard Taylor
“The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H.Sapiens is that the Lord
God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration
of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant
if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one
real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest,
largest and least productive industries in history.” — Robert A. Heinlein
"The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."
–John Adams
“As men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of
the intellect.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds
are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her
tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence
of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason,
than that of blindfolded fear.” — Thomas Jefferson
“If acorns start growing into theologians, or if women begin turning into pillars
of salt, then we may wish to hypothesize about a supernatural influence. But
until such time as nature becomes hopelessly unintelligible and unpredictable,
we need look no further than nature itself for explanations.” — George H. Smith
“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking,
feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe
that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert
an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.”
— Carl Sagan
“How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell
as fables.” — Michel E. de Montaigne
“Not by accident, you may be sure, do the Christian Scriptures make the father
of knowledge a serpent–slimy, sneaking and abominable.” — H. L. Mencken
“Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other ‘sins’ are invented
nonsense.” — Robert A. Heinlein
[On seeing the marsupials in Australia for the first time and comparing them
to placental mammals:] “An unbeliever . . . might exclaim ‘Surely two distinct
Creators must have been at work.'” — Charles Darwin
“Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“The fundamentalists, by ‘knowing’ the answers before they start (examining
evolution), and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited
preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science–or of any honest intellectual
inquiry.” — Stephen Jay Gould
“The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world
ugly and bad.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity,
not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a
creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction.”
— Stephen Jay Gould
“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly
created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the
living bodies of Caterpillars.” — Charles Darwin
“God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“The biblical concepts of sin and salvation are an integral part of Christian
doctrine. Christianity first creates a problem (sin) and then offers a ‘solution’
(salvation). This is not unlike the protection racket; you either buy ‘protection’–or
else!” — “Rev.” Donald Morgan
“Jesus’ last words on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
hardly seem like the words of a man who planned it that way. It doesn’t take
Sherlock Holmes to figure there is something wrong here.” — “Rev.” Donald Morgan
"Always take a leaflet from a fanatic…. It means that there is one less
in circulation." — Richard Brown.
AUTHORS UNKNOWN:
“Religion is a major weapon in the war against reality.”
"I gave myself to Jesus – and now he never calls."
“Help preserve your child’s belief in Santa Claus. Tell him or her that Santa
will send them to hell if they don’t believe in him.”
“Like all religions, the Holy Religion of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is based
upon both Logic and Faith. We have Faith that She is Pink; we Logically know
that She is Invisible, because we can’t see Her.”
“Although it is said that faith can move mountains, experience shows that dynamite
works better.”
“Christianity is an appeal to selfishness. It is a promise of a great reward
in the future which is bought with faith, obedience, time, effort, and money
in the present.”
“Christians believe that the most wonderful thing that can happen to them is
to go to Heaven, but few of them are in a hurry to make the trip.”
“The pig is taught by sermons and epistles to think that God has snout and bristles.”
“I am treated as evil by those who feel persecuted because they are not allowed
to force me to believe as they do.”
The scientist yearns to find and eventually know the truth;
The religious man wants the truth to fit his preconceived mold. So, as a result…
The scientist alters his perception to conform to the facts;
The religious man tries to change the facts to conform to his beliefs.
“To become educated is to move from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.”
“[I believe in] more of a pantheistic god–a sense of wonder and mystery about
the universe–certainly not a meddling God who lets millions die of starvation
around the world, but moves my lost keys to the desk after I pray.”
“Religion is like farts…yours is good, but everybody else’s stinks.”