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