This whole business about going after the "lost" sheep is so transparently about church self-interest. In fact, I laugh at the whole metaphor of a good shepherd guarding his flock. Why does a shepherd have a flock? Just because he like having sheep? No, so he can take their fleece and eat some of them.
"Hi, I'm calling from the church. Could you tell us where your child is so we can fleece him?" - 09/25/2010 - Stray Mutt at Recovery from Mormonism
Regarding the Eternal Juvenile State of Mormonism:
The LDS Church is selling itself as having the actual nuts & bolts manual for life on Earth and eternity composed and delivered, personally by God & Jesus Christ, just like going to Barnes & Noble and getting a Linux book or a Chilton's manual for your '75 Camaro (Except when they can't answer a question, then it's "God's ways are not our ways."). - 09/18/2010 by Thread Killer at Recovery from Mormonism
"All religions die of one disease - that of being found out." --John Morley (English 1st Viscount of Blackburn, Journalist 1838 - 1923 - 04/03/2010 submitted by Dave The Atheist at Recovery from Mormonism
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion! - by Stephen_Weinberg - posted here - 02/01/2009
If I ever have the misfortune of beating my head against a wall for several hours trying to impart reason or logic onto a TBM. I typically end with this phrase "if god is as obstanent, self centered, egotistical, needy, petty and altogether cruel as the mormon faith makes him out to be, look for me on the steps of heaven, I'll be the one leading the army to take him down." - 04/09/2008 - proudapostate
You can't reason with crazy. - 04/03/008 - proudapostate
Religion is a crutch for those to weak to chose for themselves what is right and what is wrong. - 03/27/2008 - proudapostate
"One cannot reason someone out of an opinion they did not arrive at by reason." - 04/02/2006 - anon
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." - Carl Sagan submitted by runtu - 02/04/2006
We humans are social creatures. Yet the LDS church brings people together in groups while stripping away -- or failing to accommodate -- the social aspects of groups. There's a schedule and agenda to be adhered to, indoctrination to dispense, the machinery of the institution to service. If the church is the Kingdom of God on Earth, then the members are the serfs. - 11/19/2005 - Stray Mutt
"If God wanted us to go to church a lot, He'd have given us bigger behinds to sit on and smaller heads to think with." - P.J. O'Rourke
I loved the fuckin' church, and the church loved fuckin' me. - 07/12/2005 - The Mad Jesuit
For thine is the parody, the comedy, and the lampoon, now and forever. Amen. - 07/10/2005 - The Mad Jesuit
To apply the words of Boyd K. Packer, Even if the church is true it isn't very useful. - 07/10/2005 - by Nothing
"If God wanted us to go to church a lot, He'd have given us bigger behinds to sit on and smaller heads to think with." - P.J. O'Rourke
"If the glory of God is intelligence, when do we get to use ours?" - 02/20/2005 - Leslee
"The LDS Church, at the present time, is akin to a tumor that has been contained. It is ugly, but it is not going to grow any larger due to the promulgation of the cure known as truth. However, those people who are already "infected" and their offspring will continue to provide frustration and amusement for many of us for some time to come." - 01/22/2005 - Skybolt at Recovery from Mormonism
"Had enough of Joseph's Myth?" "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad." - 02/29/2004 - Randy Jordan
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." Albert Einstein - 02/06/2004 - anon
Whereas Christianity is a model of spirituality to build your life around, Mormonism is a life to model your spirituality after. - 01/11/2004 - from Andy Krause
I once thought I was a prophet, until my pills took effect. - 01/11/2004 - from Andy Krause
It is my firm belief that it is a mistake to hold firm beliefs - Malacalypse the Younger, The Principia Discordia (www.principiadiscordia.com)- 11/25/2003 - from Giggling Buddha
"The revelations that came through the Prophet Joseph Smith are still correct!"- James Faust 2003 (except that bit about polygamy, and men on the moon, and when Christ was coming back, and the united order, and the lost tribes living at the North Pole, and the temple penalties, and the curse of Cain......) - 11/16/2003 - anon
"Revelations from the prophets of God are not like offerings at the cafeteria, some to be selected and others disregarded."-James Faust 2003 - 11/16/2003 - anon
A smile a day keeps the "dogma away." - 11/06/2003 - cricket
"Don't pray in our school. I won't think in your church." - 11/05/2003 - anon
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. - Voltaire - 11/02/2003 - from H
Doctrines are only for pointing to the mind. Once you see your mind, why pay attention to doctrines? Pg. 35 The Bodhidharma - 10/16/2003 - anon
"Religion is for people who are afraid of going to Hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there." -Anonymous Vietnam Vet - 10/16/2003 - from former RC, former LDS
"All religions begin with a revolt against morality, and perish when morality conquers them." by Bernard Shaw - 07/26/2003 - submitted by Steve Benson
WHAT IS THE 14TH ARTICLE OF FAITH ???????????? WE BELIEVE IN MEETINGS : ) : ) : ) : ) - 07/24/2003 - -From One Who Has Been There/Done That
"The fact that Mormonism has to have Fast and Testimony meetings every month should be an indication that people have to continually convince themselves of the veracity of the faith." - 07/07/2003 - Shakjula
"What is any religion? A little ritual, a little superstition, and some magic. It's not a strictly spiritual affair; it has psychological roles to fulfill. You might not want it to be a religion based on your own experience but that's like wanting to clean up your dreams" --- Gary Snyder
"Many small people, in many small places, doing many small things can alter the face of the earth" - 06/02/2003 - anon
"When you understand why you do not believe in other gods, then you will understand why I don't believe in yours." - Unknown - 05/17/2003
If the church isn't a cult, then we should stop behaving like one. - 05/12/2003 - active LDS scientist wishing to remain anonymous
God is dead. -- Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead. -- GOD - 03/29/2003 - anon
All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed; and
Third, it is accepted as self-evident.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who've said they've found it" - 01/19/2003 - anon
"God is only God when he is acting as such." - Gordon Hinckley
“Cowardice asks, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks, ‘Is it popular?’ But conscience asks, ‘Is it right?” - The Revered Martin Luther King, Jr
Mormon Law: If you ARE a Mormon No matter what you do wrong, you're right. If you ARE NOT a Mormon No matter what you do right you're wrong. - 10/28/2002 - NSR
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 - 10/28/2002 - submitted by dkm44
"If you re-define Jesus Christ as a business man...Mormons are the most Christian centered people of all." - 10/24/2002 - Ed at BYU
The Book of Mormon is chloroform in print. - Mark Twain
A man is accepted into church for what he believes--and turned out for what he knows. - Mark Twain
"When a man's willing and eager, the gods join in." -----Aeschylus
"Never discuss religion with those who are so ignorant they don't subscribe to your beliefs." - Dogbert
"Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do . . . Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too . . . Imagine all the people living life in peace." - - -John Lennon
One of the greatest tragedies in human history was the hijacking of morality by religion. -- Sir Arthur C. Clarke - 06/29/2002 - submitted by Jay Shine
"Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof." - - - Ashley Montague
"Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest" - - - Emile Zola
"If there's any miracle in the world, it's that so many people actually believe god exists." -John Mackie
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. -----Stephen Roberts
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." ------Albert Einstein
“It has been discovered that the man who was lost in thought was not a church member." -Lemuel K. Washburn - 06/22/2002 - submitted by Jay@jayshine.com
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation. - Herbert Spencer - 06/19/2002 submitted by SLCabbie of the Recovery Bulletin Board
"When Mormons ask me if I'm practicing I say yeah, but I think a lot of them would say that I need more practice," 06/17/2002 - Neil LaBute - movie maker
"In the face of ignorance, man resorts to superstition. Religion is born out of fear of the unknown, and the lack of understanding the universe. Man is constantly working and trying to impress the God he doesn't know or understand, and fears him, for if he knew him, he would find a stranger that gives unconditional love for free." - 06/02/2002 - from Sterling Smith
"The reason I don't believe in God is because I've never found one who's up to my high moral standards." - anon
"The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell
"Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends." - Woody Allen
If god doesn't like the way I live,
Let him tell me, not you.
If
atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!
[Clark Adams]
If the
Bible is mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust
it to
tell us where we're going?
If god really existed, it would be necessary
to abolish him. [Mikhail
Bakunin]
To assert that the earth revolves
around the sun is as erroneous as to
claim that Jesus was not born of a
virgin.
[Cardinal Bellarmine 1615, during the trial of
Galileo]
Scriptures: The sacred books of our holy religion, as
distinguished from
the false and profane writings on which all other faiths
are based.
[Ambrose Bierce]
Why has a religious turn of mind always a
tendency to narrow and harden the
heart? [Robert Burns]
A one sentence
definition of mythology?
'Mythology' is what we call someone else's religion.
[Joseph Campbell]
I don't believe in god because I don't believe in
Mother Goose. [Clarence
Darrow]
Reality is that which, when you stop
believing in it, doesn't go away.
[Philip K. Dick]
I do not believe in
the immortality of the individual, and I consider
ethics to be an exclusively
human concern with no superhuman authority
behind it. [Einstein]
The
foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to
any
authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the
authority
imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action. [Einstein]
It will
yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line
to the
Bible.
[George W. Foote]
I do not feel obliged to believe that same
God who endowed us with sense,
reason, and intellect had intended for us to
forego their use. [Galileo]
Heresy is only another word for freedom of
thought. [Graham Greene, 1981]
We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the
ancients. But we can't scoff at them
personally, to their faces, and this is
what annoys me. [Jack Handey]
John Wesley said that if you give up the
witchcraft, you must give up the
Bible. He is right. The choice is easy for
me. [Rupert Hughes]
The Christian religion not only was at first attended
with miracles, but
even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable
person without one.
[David Hume]
To hate man and worship god seems to
be the sum of all the creeds. [Robert
G. Ingersoll]
I have little
confidence in any enterprise or business or investment that
promises
dividends only after the death of the stockholders. [Robert
G.
Ingersoll]
If we should put god in the Constitution
there would
be no room left for man. [Robert G. Ingersoll]
If a man would follow,
today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would
be a criminal. If he
would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he
would be insane. [Robert
G. Ingersoll]
Ministers say that they teach charity. That is natural.
They live on
hand-outs. All beggars teach that others should give. [Robert G.
Ingersoll]
Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common
sense.
[Ingersoll's Works]
The invisible and the non-existent look
very much alike. [Delos McKown]
I find every sect, as far as reason will
help them, make use of it gladly;
and where it fails them, they cry out, It
is a matter of faith, and above
reason. [John Locke]
An atheist [...]
only has to be someone who believes that the evidence on
the God question is
at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf
question. [John
McCarthy]
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the
sense and to
the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful
and his
children smart. [H.L. Mencken]
...I was suddenly inspired to
describe the Judeo-Christian god as a penis
which has been endowed with
cosmic significance. [Soledad de Montalvo]
Fear prophets ... and those
prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule
they make many others die with
them, often before them, at times instead of
them. [Umberto Eco]
One
of my favorite fantasies is that next Sunday not one woman, in any
country of
the world, will go to church. If women simply stop giving our
time and energy
to the institutions that oppress, they cease to be.
[Sonia
Johnson]
Koranic teaching still insists that the sun moves
around the earth. How can
we advance when they teach things like that?
[Taslima Nasrin Time magazine,
31st Jan 1994]
Many people would rather
die than think; in fact, most do. [Bertrand
Russell]
I do not need the
idea of God to explain the world I live in. [Salman
Rushdie, on David Frost
show]
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in
praise of
intelligence. [Bertrand Russell]
If atheism is a religion,
then bald is a hair color.
[Mark Schnitzius on alt.atheism]
The Bible
and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way
of women's
emancipation. [Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Free Thought
Magazine,
1896]
The truth cannot be asserted without denouncing the
falsehood. [Leslie
Stephen]
Man is the religious animal. He is the
only religious animal. He is the
only animal that has the True
Religion--several of them. [Letters from the
Earth, Mark
Twain]
Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than
reason and
common sense. [Voltaire]
I don't want to see any religious
people in public office because they're
working for another boss. [Frank
Zappa]
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
I have
never used any other, and I trust I never shall. [Thomas Paine, Age
of
Reason]
Why be born again, when you can just grow up?
To
surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and
it
remains premature today. [Isaac Asimov]
The word heretic ought to
be a term of honour...
[Charles Bradlaugh]
I am an agnostic; I do not
pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure
of. [Clarence
Darrow]
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the
entrails
of the last priest.
[Denis Diderot, Dithyrambe sur la fête des
rois]
The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the
more
widespread is the decline of religious belief. [Sigmund Freud]
No
deity will save us, we must save ourselves. Promises of immortal
salvation or
fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful.
[Humanist Manifesto
II, Prometheus Books, 1973]
The hands that help are better far than the
lips that pray. [Robert G.
Ingersoll]
...to argue with a man who has
renounced his reason is like giving medicine
to the dead.
[Ingersoll's
Works, Vol. 1, p.127]
It cannot be too often repeated, that truth scorns
the assistance of
miracle. [Robert G. Ingersoll]
Reason should be
destroyed in all Christians. [Martin Luther]
Faith may be defined briefly
as an illogical belief in the occurrence of
the improbable. [H. L.
Mencken]
Christian theology is not only opposed to the scientific spirit;
it is
opposed to every other form of rational thinking. [H. L.
Mencken]
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does
not prove
anything. [Nietzsche]
To recognize that nature has neither a
preference for our species nor a
bias against it takes only a little courage
[James Randi]
It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all
children are atheists
and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they
would remain so.
[Ernestine Rose]
You pronounce sentence upon me with
greater fear than I receive it.
[Giordano Bruno to his
inquisitors]
And that inverted bowl we call the sky,
Whereunder
crawling coop't we live and die,
lift not thy hands to It for help - for
It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I. [Rubàiyàt]
Nothing fails like
prayer [Annie Laurie Gaylor]
Eve was framed [Annie Laurie
Gaylor]
The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making ten thousand
revolutions a
minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. Religion
is the theory
that the wheel was designed and set in motion to give him the
ride. [H.L.
Mencken]
The Church has always been willing to swap off
treasures in heaven for cash
down. [Robert G. Ingersoll]
In nature
there are neither rewards nor punishments - there are
consequences. [R.G.
Ingersoll]
I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no
sin but ignorance. [Christopher Marlowe]
Men never do evil so completely
and cheerfully as when they do it from
religious conviction. [Blaise
Pascal]
I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness
of a thick
forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out. [Denis
Diderot]
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. [Thomas
Paine]
To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler
-- and
less trouble. [Mark Twain]
My mind is my own church. [Thomas
Paine]
The first step towards philosophy is incredulity. [Denis
Diderot]
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks
without
knowledge, of things without parallel. {Ambrose
Bierce]
'Faith' means not wanting to know what is true. [Friedrich
Nietzsche]
It was the schoolboy who said, 'Faith is believing what you
know ain't so'.
[Mark Twain]
Never judge a man till you have walked a
mile in his shoes, 'cuz by then,
he's a mile away, you've got his shoes, and
you can say whatever the hell
you want to.
Despite the high cost of
living, it remains a popular item.
Common sense is what tells you that
the world is flat.
Just say NO to religion. [Dan Barker]
My
thoughts will not cater to priest or dictator;
No person can deny,
Die
Gedanken Sind Frei!
[16th century German peasant song]
Imagine there's
no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky.
[Imagine, John Lennon]
Our lives shall not be sweated
from birth until
life closes;
hearts starve as well as bodies;
give us bread, but give us
roses. [Bread & Roses]
No woman can call herself free until she can
choose consciously whether she
will or will not be a mother. [Margaret
Sanger]
It is almost intrinsically impossible for ideas about how we are
fooling
ourselves to gain an adequate hearing. We are good enough at it to
keep
them nicely at bay. - Melvin Konner, Tangled Wing
You keep
accusing me of blasphemy all of the time,
But I cannot be convicted of a
victimless crime.
Friendly Neighborhood Atheist --[Dan Barker]
I
think, therefore I am an atheist.
Cogito, ergo non credo.
Cogito,
ergo atheos sum.
Jesus is a Myth.
Evolution, the Greatest Theory
Ever Told!
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. -
Oscar Wilde
Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on
behalf of a single
petitioner confessedly unworthy. - Ambrose
Bierce
While there is a lower class, I am in it;
while there is a
criminal element, I am of it;
and while there is a soul in prison, I am not
free. - Eugene Debs
The Puritan through Life's sweet garden goes
To
pluck the thorn and cast away the rose.
[Kenneth Hare]
Theology is the
effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth
knowing. - H.L
Mencken
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to
do than in
what we are free not to do. [Eric Hoffer]
By the year 2000
we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human
potential, not
God.
[Gloria Steinem]
Die Gedanken sind frei!
WARNING! Literal
belief in this book may endanger your health and your
life.
I must
have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and
then I
know it-- I don't need to believe it. -- [Carl Jung]
Eliminate the
Deficit,
Tax the Churches!
For God so loved the world that he made up
his mind to damn the large
majority of the human race. -- Robert G.
Ingersoll
Jesus is not my best friend, I have real friends.
Andrew
Lias on alt.atheism
Happiness is the only good.
The time to be happy
is now,
The place to be happy is here --R.G. Ingersoll
I haven't
rejected god, I've never met him.
Trevor Hick on alt.atheism
To rule
by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world,
is just as
base as to use force. -- Hypatia (c. 370-415 CE)
... there could be
talking bunny rabbits, spiders who write English
messages in their webs, and
for that matter, melancholy choo-choo trains.
There could be, I suppose, but
there aren't--so my theory doesn't have to
explain them. --Daniel
Dennett
Public prayer...Don't Stand for it!
...it would be more
pardonable to believe in no God at all, than to
blaspheme Him by the
atrocious attributes of Calvin. Thomas Jefferson
The fundamental cause of
trouble in the world today is that the stupid are
cocksure while the
intelligent are full of doubt. -- [Bertrand Russell]
Exploring the
universe through meditation is like studying human
relationships through
masturbation.
A mystic is someone who wants to understand the universe,
but is too lazy
to study physics
I do not find in our particular
superstitions of Christianity one redeeming
feature. They are all alike,
founded on fables and mythology. [Thomas
Jefferson]
Humanity has the
stars in its future, and that future is too important to
be lost under the
burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.
[Isaac Asimov]
God
exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or
infective
power, in the environment provided by human culture.
[Richard Dawkins, The
Selfish Gene]
The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by
the simple
unconscious expedient of discouraging rational
inquiry.
[Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene]
I have never seen the
slightest scientific proof of the religious theories
of heaven and hell, of
future life for individuals, or of a personal God.
[Thomas Alva
Edison,]
I am a demo religious meme which has been replicated here. You
will be
blessed if you copy me and pass me on to infect the next mind. And
damned
if you don't.
The church never doubts -- never inquires. To
doubt is heresy -- to inquire
is to admit that you do not know -- the church
does neither. [R.G.
Ingersoll]
If that story [Creation] was necessary
to keep me out of hell and put me in
heaven -- necessary for my life -- I
wouldn't believe it because I couldn't
believe it. [Clarence
Darrow]
Fear believes -- courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and
prays --
courage stands erect and thinks. Fear is barbarism -- courage
is
civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear
is
religion, courage is science. [R.G. Ingersoll]
The only terror in
death is the apprehension of what lies beyond it, and
that emotion is
impossible to a sincere disbeliever.
[C.W. Foote Infidel Death
Beds]
The enemy with whom I have to grapple is one with whom no peace can
be
made. Idolatry will not parley; superstition will not treat on
covenant.
They must be uprooted for public and individual safety. [Richard
Carlisle]
Religion stills a thinking mind.
WARNING: Giving up
religion now greatly increases humanity's chances for
survival.
I
distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because
I
notice it always coincides with their own desires.
[Susan B.
Anthony]
For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is:
childish
dependency. [Albert Ellis]
I have been looking for god for
fifty years and I think if he had existed I
should have discovered him.
[Thomas Hardy]
It is grander to think and investigate for yourself than
to repeat a creed.
[Robert G. Ingersoll]
The inspiration of the Bible
depends on the credulity of him who reads.
[Robert G. Ingersoll]
The
time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all to make
their
dissent from religion known. [John Stuart Mill]
The whole tone of Church
teaching in regard to women is, to the last
degree, contemptuous and
degrading. [Elizabeth Cady Stanton]
It ain't the parts of the Bible that
I can't understand that bother me, it
is the parts that I do understand.
[Mark Twain]
In every country and in every age the priest has been
hostile to liberty;
he is always in allegiance to the despot, abetting his
abuses in return for
protection of his own. [Thomas Jefferson]
Every
one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable
offence and
liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
Criminal Code of
Canada sec. 296(1) So, arrest me!
Warning: Giving up religion now
significantly improves chances of mental
health.
Commonly, those who
have professed the strongest motives of love of a God
have demonstrated the
deepest hatred toward human joy and liberty.
[E.
Haldeman-Julius]
After all, the principle objection which a
thinking man has to religion is
that religion is not true -- and is not even
sane. [E. Haldeman-Julius]
A miracle is the badge and brand of fraud. ...
No intelligent, honest man
ever pretended to perform a miracle, and never
will. {Robert G. Ingersoll]
...in every religion the priest insists on
five things --
First: There is a God.
Second: He has made known his
will.
Third: He has selected me to explain this message.
Fourth: We will
now take up a collection; and
Fifth: Those who fail to subscribe will
certainly be damned.
[Robert G. Ingersoll]
The very fact of there
being more than one revelation is sufficient to
raise doubts in the minds of
reasoning people as to the validity of any of
them. Rationalist's Manual,
Aletheia, M.D.
Commerce makes friends, religion makes enemies; the one
enriches, and the
other impoverishes; the one thrives best where the truth is
told, the other
where falsehoods are believed. [R.G.
Ingersoll]
Intelligence is the only moral guide. [Robert G.
Ingersoll]
The man who wants to be an angel is never in a hurry to begin.
[Lemuel K.
Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays]
The
man who gets on his knees has not learned the right use of his legs.
[Lemuel
K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays]
Trying to find
God is a good deal like looking for money one has lost in a
dream. [Lemuel K.
Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays]
If there were an
afterlife, Isaac Asimov would have written a book about it
by
now.
Ignorance is the soil of the supernatural. The foundation of
Christianity
has crumbled, has disappeared, and the entire fabric must fall.
The natural
is true. The miraculous is false. [R.G. Ingersoll]
...but
I also can't prove that mushrooms could not be intergalactic
spaceships
spying on us.
Ä Daniel Dennett
Go around the world, and where you find
the least superstition, there you
will find the best men, the best women, the
best children.
Ä Robert G. Ingersoll
There are some truths, however,
that we should never forget: Superstition
has always been the relentless
enemy of science; faith has been a hater of
demonstration; hypocrisy has been
sincere only in its dread of truth, and
all religions are inconsistent with
mental freedom. R.G. Ingersoll
If God wants us to do a thing, He should
make his wishes sufficiently
clear. Sensible people will wait till He has
done this before paying much
attention to Him. [Samuel Butler]
Would
you have mansions of gold in the sky,
and live in a shack, here in the
back?
Would you have wings up in heaven to fly,
While you live here with
rags on your back? IWW song, from The Little Red
Songbook, Songs to fan the
flames of discontent
While we are under the tyranny of Priests [...] it
will ever be their
interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in
order to establish
systems incompatible therewith. [Ethan Allen, Reason the
Only Oracle of
Man]
We cannot hope for a society in which formal
organized religion dies out.
But we can stop behaving as if it was worthy of
our collective respect. [A.
N. Wilson, Against Religion]
Jesus - Myth
or Legend?
Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ. --
Heine
They were allowed to stay there on one condition, and that is that
they
didn't eat of the tree of knowledge. That has been the condition of
the
Christian church from then until now. They haven't eaten as yet, as a
rule
they do not. --Clarence Darrow
A dogma is the hand of the dead on
the throat of the living. [Lemuel K.
Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And
Other Essays]
If God exists, what objection can he have to saying so?
[Lemuel K.
Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other
Essays]
Prayer is like a pump in an empty well, it makes lots of noise,
but brings
no water. [Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And
Other Essays]
A man cannot be happy who believes in hell, any more than
he can sweeten
his coffee with a pickle.
[Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible
Worth Reading And Other Essays]
If the factory pays taxes and the church
does not, it follows that the
church will some day own the factory. [Lemuel
K. Washburn, Is The Bible
Worth Reading And Other Essays]
Everywhere
in the world there are ignorance and prejudice, but the greatest
complex of
these, with the most extensive prestige and the most intimate
entanglement
with traditional institutions, is the Roman Catholic Church.
[H.G.
Wells]
The two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and
stupidity.
A hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong.
All the
professors in all the religious colleges in this country rolled
into one,
would not equal Charles Darwin. [Robert G. Ingersoll]
Atheism has one
doctrine: To Question
Atheism has one dogma: To Doubt
The Atheist Bible
has but one word: THINK.
paraphrase from Emmet F. Fields
Those who
believe in hell can never know truth, for they are blinded by
fear. [Emmet F.
Fields]
...the Bible, a book that glorifies behavior you abhor.
[FFRF]
Modern societies march towards morality in proportion as they
leave
religion behind.-Paul Bert
'Dear friends, -- Man has created
God, not God man. Yours ever, Garibaldi.'
[entire text of
letter]
...and when you tell me that your deity made you in his own
image, I reply
that he must be very ugly. [Victor Hugo, writing to
clergy]
No wild beasts are as hostile to men as Christian sects in
general are to
one another. [Emperor Julian]
Morality becomes
hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers suffering or dying
in connection with
unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions--and unwanted
children living in
misery. Gro Harlem Brundtland
'...the Bible as we have it contains
elements that are scientifically
incorrect or even morally repugnant. No
amount of explaining away can
convince us that such passages are the product
of Divine Wisdom.' --
Bernard J. Bamberger, The Story of Judaism
The
destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is a benefactor whether he
soweth
grain or not.
--Robert G. Ingersoll
Re: God...
1) The emperor has
no clothes.
2) There is no emperor.
Irreligion: The principal one of
the great faiths of the world. [Ambrose
Bierce]
I have noticed all my
life that many people think they have religion when
they are troubled with
dyspepsia. [R.G. Ingersoll]
An atheist is a man who has no invisible
means of support. - John Buchan
Anyone who opposes methods to control the
birth rate, is automatically
voting in favour having the death rate go
up.
Dr. Paul Erlich, on CBC's Quirks and Quarks
As the poet said,
'Only God can make a tree' -- probably because it's so
hard to figure out how
to get the bark on. [Woody Allen]
The belief in a supernatural source of
evil is not necessary; men alone are
quite capable of every wickedness
[Joseph Conrad]
Should it turn out that I am the worst man in the whole
world, the story of
the flood will remain just as improbable as before, and
the contradictions
of the Pentateuch will still demand an explanation. --
Robert G. Ingersoll
When people learn no tools of judgment and merely
follow their hopes, the
seeds of political manipulation are sown. -- Stephen
Jay Gould
God is make believe
Consider the ignorance of the
average fundamentalist. Then realize that by
definition fully half of them
must be even dumber than that.
A humanist is an atheist who cares.
Dr.
Wendell Watters
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or
freed a human soul.
-- Mark Twain
Ignorance is the mother of devotion.
-- Dean Henry Cole
There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel,
fights, malignant
opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the
state, as religion.
-- Supreme Court of Wisconsin Weiss vs District Board
March 18, 1890
Inspired? The Bible is not even intelligent. It is not
even good
craftsmanship, but is full of absurdities and contradictions.
E.
Haldeman-Julius, The Meaning Of Atheism
Christianity has made of death a
terror which was unknown to the gay
calmness of the Pagan. --Ouida
A
god's primary function is to confirm for us deeply held beliefs that we
can't
let go of, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. When you are
totally
and absolutely convinced of something fundamentally unreasonable,
it helps to
believe you have divine guidance
The undoubted sign of a society well
under control or in decline is that
language has ceased to be a means of
communication and has become instead a
shield for those who master it. --
John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards
The church has contributed nothing
to civilization. It has progressed
somewhat, and it has become a little more
decent, in reflection of the
movements of civilization that have taken place
outside of the church and
usually in the face of the strong opposition of the
church. E.
Haldeman-Julius The Church Is a Burden, Not a Benefit, In Social
Life
The citizen's job is to be rude--to pierce the comfort of
professional
intercourse by boorish expressions of doubt.
--John Ralston
Saul, The Doubter's Companion
With soap, baptism is a good thing. [Robert
G. Ingersoll]
This sentence no verb. -- Douglas Hofstadter Metamagical
Themas
When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and
when it
does not support itself so that its professors are obliged to call
for the
help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad
one.
--Ben Franklin
There is no need to search for global solutions,
apart from an absolute
necessity to destroy the idea that such things
exist.
- - John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards
Theists have good
reasons for not believing in every god but their own.
Atheists make no
exception for the last one. Brett Lemoine
Humanism : An exaltation of
freedom, but one limited by our need to
exercise it as an integral part of
nature and society.
-- John Ralston Saul, The Doubter's Companion
To
err is a sign of intelligence. ... A society that punishes error--as
Western
civilization increasingly does--discourages individual
responsibility.
--
John Ralston Saul, The Doubter's Companion
The creationists have this
creator who is evil, who is small-minded, who is
malevolent, and who is not
very bright and can't even get his science
right. Creationists have made
their creator in their own image, in my view.
--Prof. Ian Plimer - The
Skeptic, Vol 13, No2.
There is something feeble and a little contemptible
about a man who cannot
face the perils of life without the help of
comfortable myths. Bertrand
Russell in Human Society in Ethics and
Politics.
If I believed in a god, which I do not, I would like to
communicate with
him on the same intellectual level. Therefore, I would have
to teach him a
few things.
-- Aaron Erwin
nullifidian n. & a.
(Person) having no religious faith or belief, [f. med.
L nullifidius fr L
nullus none + fides faith; see IAN]
freethinker n. A person who forms
opinions about religion on the basis of
reason, independently of tradition,
authority, or established belief.
Whenever someone says, 'We can't be
sentimental.' You know they're about to
do something cruel. When they also
say, 'We have to be realistic.' You know
they're going to make money at
it.
We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly
understood; that
there is nothing mysterious about them; that they are simply
transparent
falsehoods. Robert Ingersoll
... we ought even to hold as
a fixed principle that what I see white I
believe to be black, if the
superior authorities define it to be so. --
Ignatius de Loyola
Don't
try to be happy, it will only make you miserable.dialogue from the
movie
Lovers and Other Strangers
Autumn wind:
gods, Buddha--
lies, lies,
lies
--Shiki
Where there are humans
you'll find flies,
and
Buddhas --Issa
What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the
responsibility of
choice. Ursula K. LeGuinn, The Day before the
Revolution
The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most
conservative notions
in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas
--uncertainty,
progress, change -- into crimes. --Salman Rushdie
God
tells Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of
good
and evil. If this was the only way they could understand the
difference
between good and evil, how could they have known that it was
wrong to disobey
god and eat the fruit? from laurie lynn
Philosophy is questions that may
never be answered.
Religion is answers that may never be
questioned.
Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with
insubstantial
dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone
control the
world? [Euripedes, Hecuba]
Lighthouses are more helpful
than churches.
[Benjamin Franklin]
The Theologian is an owl, sitting
on an old dead branch in the tree of
human knowledge, and hooting the same
old hoots that have been hooted for
hundreds and thousands of years, but he
has never given a hoot for
progress. [Emmet F. Fields]
Calvin founded
a little theocracy, modeled after the Old Testament, and
succeeded in
erecting the most detestable government that ever existed,
except the one
from which it was copied. --Heretics and Heresies, Robert
G.
Ingersoll
To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous
people, to know
that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural
does not and
cannot exist -- all this is but the beginning of wisdom.--R.G.
Ingersoll
The Santa myth is one of the most effective means ever devised
for
intimidating children, eroding their self-esteem, twisting their
behavior,
warping their values, and slowing their development of critical
thinking
skills. --Tom Flynn, The Trouble with Christmas
A mystic is a
person who is puzzled before the obvious but who understands
the nonexistent
[Elbert Hubbard]
Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger. [Abbie
Hoffman]
He is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he
who believes
what is wrong. --Thomas Jefferson
To love justice, to
long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the
suffering, to assist the weak,
to forget wrongs and remember benefits -- to
love the truth, to be sincere,
to utter honest words, to love liberty, to
wage relentless war against
slavery in all its forms, to love wife and
child and friend, to make a happy
home, to love the beautiful; in art, in
nature, to cultivate the mind, to be
familiar with the mighty thoughts that
genius has expressed, the noble deeds
of all the world, to cultivate
courage and cheerfulness, to make others
happy, to fill life with the
splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving
words, to discard error, to
destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with
gladness, to cultivate hope,
to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn
beyond the night, to do the best
that can be done and then to be resigned --
this is the religion of reason,
the creed of science. This satisfies the
brain and heart. --Robert G.
Ingersoll, The Foundations of Faith
No
miracle has ever taken place under conditions which science can
accept.
Experience shows, without exception, that miracles occur only in
times and
in countries in which miracles are believed in, and in the presence
of
persons who are disposed to believe them. --Ernest Renan, The Life of
Jesus
The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is
beyond all
decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to
compose this
sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many
others are
running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly
being
devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are
dying
of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a
time
of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in
the
population until the natural state of starvation and misery is
restored.
In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical
forces and
genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other
people are
going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it,
nor any
justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties
we
should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil,
no
good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
Richard Dawkins in "God's
Utility Function," Scientific American, November
1995, p. 85.
A
reasonable list of human qualities might include: Ethics, common
sense,
imagination or creativity, memory or history or experience, intuition
and
reason. The humanist tries to use all of these. ... The moment one
quality
is cut free from the others and given precedence over them, this
imbalance
will bring out the winner's negative aspects.
Thus ethics in
power quickly turn into a religious dictatorship. Common
sense couldn't help
but subside into pessimistc confusion, as if wallowing
in the mud. Creativity
into anarchy. Memory into the worst sort of
monarchical dictatorship.
Intuition into the rule of base superstition. And
reason, as we have seen
over the last half-century, into a directionless,
amoral dictatorship of
structure. John Ralston Saul -- The Doubter's
Companion
But why are
Paul's commands not followed to-day? Why are not the words,
sister, mother,
daughter, wife, only names for degradation and dishonor?
Because men have
grown more honorable than their religion, and the strong
arm of the law,
supported by the stronger arm of public sentiment, demands
greater justice
than St. Paul ever dreamed of. Because men are growing
grand enough to
recongize the fact that right is not masculine only, and
that justice knows
no sex. And because the church no longer makes the laws.
Saints have been
retired from the legal profession. I can't recall the name
of a single one
who is practicing law now. Have any of you ever met a saint
at the bar? Women
are indebted to-day for their emancipation from a
position of hopeless
degradation, not to their religion nor to Jehovah, but
to the justice and
honor of the men who have defied his commands. That she
does not crouch
to-day where St. Paul tried to bind her, she owes to the
men who are grand
and brave enough to ignore St. Paul, and rise superior to
his God.--Helen H.
Gardener
There could hardly be a more unbearable--and more irrational--
world than
one in which the most eminent specialists in each field were
allowed to
proceed unchecked with the realization of their ideals.
--Friedrich Hayek
in The Road to Serfdom
And worrying is less work
than doing something to fix the worry. This is
especially true if we're
careful to pick the biggest possible problems to
worry about. Everybody wants
to save the earth; nobody want to help Mom do
the dishes. P.J. O'Rourke All
The Troubles in the World
The first grand requisite to the growth of
prudential habits is the perfect
security of property; and the next perhaps
is that respectability and
importance which are given to the lower classes by
equal laws, and the
possession of some influence in the framing of
them.
We have been miserably deficient in the instruction of the poor,
perhaps
the only means of really raising their condition.
Thomas
Malthus, Essay on the Principle of Population
The most successful
supporters of tyranny are without doubt those general
declaimers who
attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all the
evils to which
society is subject, to human institutions and the iniquity
of
governments.
Thomas Malthus, Essay on the Principle of
Population
They hang the man
and flog the woman
that steals the
goose
from off the Common;
but let the greater
felon loose
that
steals the Common
from the goose.
18th century folk commentary,
reported by Adrian Vaughn in the New
Internationalist letters column.
My favorite: "Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ."----Heine.
"You can lead a Saint to knowledge, but you can't make him think." - Richard Packham
"Sacred cows make the best hamburger." - Abbey Hoffman
"I have often thought that the difference between a cult and a religion is an IRS ruling". - Ron Barrier
"There are three great things in the world: There is religion, there is science, and there is gossip." - Robert Frost
"There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages." - author Ruth H. Green, 1915-1981
"It's easy to tell the difference - a cult is someone else's religion." - Jim Heldberg
"Mormonism is to Jesus as kryptonite is to Superman." - Sister Lois Lane
"The Bible is a wonderful book; you can prove anything you want with it.+ - Mark Twain
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