Religion
The gods and the trouble they bring
Quotes (36)
"At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political ideas."
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
"The gods too are fond of a joke."
"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
"Heresy is another word for freedom of thought."
"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."
"Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them."
"I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me, Superman!"
There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
"Freethinker: a skeptic about conventional religious beliefs."
"No matter what is doing the creating, I have to say that the giraffe and the rhinoceros are ridiculous."
"Humanists try to behave decently and honorably without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife."
"Could people be seeing that the Christian right is not very Christian? The golden rule doesn't include gay bashing and divisiveness."
"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability."
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds
[I call myself] an atheist. Agnostic for me would be trying to weasel out and sound a little nicer than I am about this.
"You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway."
"Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything."
"A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vainthen have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?"
"Certainty is a poor guide to truth"
Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.
"I contend 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."
"The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window."
"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 blind-folded fear."
"Judaeo-Christian culture owes its success to the fact the Jehovah never shows his face. What better way to control the masses than through fear of an omnipotent force whose authority can never be challenged because it is never direct?"
"Each modern religion has boasted that it and it alone is on speaking terms with the Deity, and its adherents have been quite willing to die--or kill--to support its presumptuous claims."
"As long as a population can be induced to believe in a supernatural hereafter, it can be oppressed and controlled."
"Religion is little more than a transaction in which troubled people trade their souls for temporary and wholly illusionary psychological comfort"
"Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car."
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Unknown
"It took God six days to create the world... and on the seventh he was arrested."
"Churches welcome all denominations, but most prefer fives and tens."
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Unknown
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
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Voltaire
"If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever."
"Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends."
"To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition."