Functions/New.Thoughts.For.The.Day.txt
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Religion is a modesty curtain for ignorance - Perturabo
My own mind is my own church. - Thomas Paine 1737 - 1809 Faith is fear dressed up as virtue. - Ancient Viking Proverb Never trust people who've only got one book. - Billy Connolly Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. - Bill Maher To such heights of evil are men driven by religion. - Lucretiusca Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. - Napoleon Bonaparte A book that changed me? The Bible. It turned me into an Atheist. - Andy Hamilton Religions are cultural artifacts. We make God, not the other way round. - Iain M. Banks A strongly held belief does not automatically deserve respect. - Ancient Viking Proverb If something defies belief, a good starting position is not to believe it. - Jamie Whyte Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition. - Adam Smith Designating something 'religious' does not exempt it from ethical analysis. - Randy Cohen Chastity - the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions. - Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963) The worst enemy women have is in the pulpit. - Susan B. Anthony (Suffragist) (1820 - 1906) Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies. Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) Religion is an advertising campaign for a product that doesn't exist. - Ancient Viking Proverb Drawing a cartoon is not an act of aggression. Trying to kill somebody with an axe is. - Johann Hari The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive. - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad. - Friedrich Nietzsche The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers. - Denis Diderot Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it. - Ancient Viking Proverb The word 'heretic' comes from the Greek word 'hairetikos' meaning 'able to choose' which pretty much says it all. - Pat Condell There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages. - Richard Lederer The argument is not atheism versus creationism. It is logic and reason versus superstition and ignorance. - Ancient Viking Proverb It's fine to be a religion man. But if you get too much of the religion, you get out of your mind and do stupid things. - Murat Duka When enough people share a delusion, it loses its status as a psychosis and gets a religious tax exemption instead. - Ronald de Sousa Books have always been fearful things to priesthoods. Things to police and secure. Dangerous, with radical new ideas. - Magnus The Red For me, the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. - Albert Einstein 1879 - 1955 No wickedness comes anywhere near the wickedness of a woman... Sin began with a woman and thanks to her we all must die. - Ecclesiasticus 25:19,24 Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning. - Bill Gates There is not enough love and goodness in the world for us to be permitted to give any of it away to imaginary things. - Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900 My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. - Bertrand Russell The clergy believe that any power confided in me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes, and they believe rightly. - Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) Superstition and ignorance always attract the religiously inclined. For the core of religion is the twin pillars of ignorance and fear. - Emperor of Mankind Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins and astrology ends, and astronomy begins. - Christopher Hitchens (1949 - 2011) Human beings will find a balanced situation when they do good things not because God says it, but because they feel like doing them. - Olof Palme (1927 - 1986) The real problem is not that those who stop believing in God will believe in anything, but that those who have faith in God can justify doing anything. - Simon Morris We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. -Bobby Henderson Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. - Karl Marx 1818-1883 Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson 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 (suffragist) 1820 - 1906 The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church. - Ferdinand Magellan I don't think there's any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse, and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock. - Howard Stern I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending. - Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992) 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 The contemplation of this world beckoned as a liberation. The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to the religious paradise; but it has shown itself reliable, and I have never regretted having chosen it. - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) It is individuals who have human rights, not religions or beliefs. To give the latter legal protection would severely curb the individual's right to freedom of expression - as already happens in some Muslim countries, where people of other faiths need to tread very carefully. - Ian Harris Shepherds don't look after sheep because they love them - although I do think some shepherds like their sheep too much. They look after their sheep so they can, first, fleece them and second, turn them into meat. That's much more like the priesthood as I know it. - Christopher Hitchens (1949 - 2011) I can't say that it's the Koran that causes a husband to beat his wife, but when I was a translator in Holland and we condemned some men for beating their wives, they would pull out the Koran and say, 'Look here, Chapter 4, Verse 34, gives me a reason, and in fact even obligates me, to beat my wife if she's disobedient.' - Ayaan Hirsi Ali I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modelled after our own - a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbour such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) By all means let an observant Jewish adult male have his raw-cut penis placed in the mouth of a rabbi. By all means let grown women who distrust their clitoris or their labia have them sawn away by some other wretched adult female. But the conscription of the unprotected child for these purposes is something that even the most dedicated secularist can safely describe as a sin. - Christopher Hitchens |