185 replies to this topic

[thefirstimmortal]

What gods are there, what gods have there ever been, that were not from man's imagination?
-- Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By (1972),

[thefirstimmortal]

The priests used to say that faith can move mountains, and nobody believed them. Today the
scientists say that they can level mountains, and nobody doubts them.

[thefirstimmortal]

I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to
two pieces of wood.

[thefirstimmortal]

I credit that eight years of grammar school with nourishing me in a direction
where I could trust myself and trust my instincts. They gave me the tools to reject
my faith. They taught me to question and think for myself and to believe in my
instincts to such an extent that I just said, "This is a wonderful fairy tale they have going here,
but it's not for me."

[thefirstimmortal]

In the Bullshit Department, a businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman. 'Cause I gotta
tell you the truth, folks. When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to
stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims: religion. No
contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told.
Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living
in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man
has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten
things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish,
where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and
ever 'til the end of time!
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's
all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion
takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you
talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!

[thefirstimmortal]

Aulus Cornelius Celsus (C.E. 1st Century)
Roman writer who wrote an encyclopedia on the subjects of medicine, rhetoric, history,
philosophy, warfare, and agriculture

Before accepting any belief one ought to follow reason as a guide, for
credulity without enquiry is a sure way to deceive oneself.
-- Celsus (ca. C.E. 170), quoted from Antony Flew, Atheistic Humanism, p. 17

[thefirstimmortal]

For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.

[thefirstimmortal]

If revealed religions have revealed anything it is that they are usually wrong.

[thefirstimmortal]

A knowledge of the true age of the earth and of the fossil record makes it impossible for any balanced intellect to believe in the literal truth of every part of the Bible in the way that fundamentalists do. And if some of the Bible is manifestly wrong, why should any of the rest of it be accepted automatically?
-- Francis Crick, "How I Got Inclined Towards Atheism" from his autobiography What Mad Pursuit

[thefirstimmortal]

A belief, at the time it was formulated, may not only have appealed to the imagination but also
fit well with all that was then known. It can nevertheless be made to appear ridiculous
because of facts uncovered later by science. What could be more foolish than to base one's
entire view of life on ideas that, however plausible at that time, now appear to be quite
erroneous? And what would be more important than to find our true place in the universe by
removing one by one these unfortunate vestiges of earlier beliefs? Yet it is clear that some
mysteries have still to be explained scientifically. While these remain unexplained, they can
serve as an easy refuge for religious superstition. It seemed to me of the first importance to
identify these unexplained areas of knowledge and to work toward their scientific
understanding whether such explanations would turn out to confirm existing beliefs or to
refute them.

[thefirstimmortal]

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a
great many philosophers.

-- Denis Diderot, Observations on Drawing Up of Laws (1774; repr. in Selected Writings, ed. by Lester G.
Crocker, 1966).

[thefirstimmortal]

Mankind shall not be free until the last king is strangled in the entrails of the last priest.
-- Denis Diderot

[thefirstimmortal]

Science may have come a long way, but as far as religion is concerned, we are first cousins to the !Kung tribesmen of the Kalahari Desert. Except for the garments, their deep religious trances might just as well be happening at a revival meeting or in the congregation of a fundamentalist TV preacher.... As we move further from the life of ignorance and superstition in which religion has its roots, we seem to need it more and more....

[thefirstimmortal]

A dream is a scripture, and many scriptures are nothing but dreams.
-- Umberto Eco: Brother William, in The Name of the Rose, "Sixth Day: After Terce" (1980; tr. 1983),

[thefirstimmortal]

Fear prophets ... and those prepared to die for the truth, as a rule make many others die with them, often before them, and at times instead of them.

[thefirstimmortal]

"I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe." or sometimes quoted as "God does not play dice with
the universe."

Albert Einstein

[thefirstimmortal]

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium (1941)

[thefirstimmortal]

"The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it
to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them."
[Albert Einstein, letter to Sigmund Freud, 30 July 1932]

[thefirstimmortal]

"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this
holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be
influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being."
[Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray. Source: "Albert Einstein: The Human
Side", Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann]

[thefirstimmortal]

I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation.

[thefirstimmortal]

Morality is of the highest importance-but for us, not for God.

[thefirstimmortal]

God must have an enormous clerical staff to keep track of all their sins.

[thefirstimmortal]

I feel most ministers who claim they've heard God's voice are eating too much pizza before they go to bed at night, and it's really
an intestinal disorder, not a revelation.

[thefirstimmortal]

Real religion should be something that liberates men. But churches don't want free men who can think for themself and find
their own divinity within. When a religion becomes organized it is no longer a religious experience but only superstition and
estrangement.

[thefirstimmortal]

When the masses become better informed about science, they will feel less need for help form supernatural Higher Powers. The need for religion will end when man becomes sensible enough to govern himself.

[thefirstimmortal]

"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is
even infinitely above it."

--Benjamin Franklin
[from "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion", Nov. 20, 1728]

[thefirstimmortal]

"I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the
last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did." --Benjamin Franklin [letter to his father, 1738]

[thefirstimmortal]

From Augustine down, theologians have tried to compel people to
accept their special interpretation of the Scripture, and the tortures
of the inquisition, the rack, the thumb-screw, the stake, the
persecutions of witchcraft, the whipping of naked women through
the streets of Boston, banishment, trials of heresy, the halter about
Garrison's neck, Lovejoy's death, the branding of Captain Walker,
shouts of infidel and atheist, have all been for this purpose.

-- Matilda Joslyn Gage, answering an attack by the president of the Baptist Theological
Seminary in Rochester, New York, in National Citizen and Ballot Box, a four-page monthly
edited by Gage from 1871-81, from History of Woman Suffrage, I, 126, quoted from Annie
Laurie Gaylor, Women Without Superstition, p. 214

[thefirstimmortal]

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

[thefirstimmortal]

If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns
been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the
Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Roman
Catholic Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice themselves