Your favorite anti-religious quotes

RationalRespons...
Moderator
RationalResponseSquad's picture
Posts: 567
Joined: 2006-08-17
User is offlineOffline
Your favorite anti-religious quotes

In 2006 a member posted a thread on our message board to ask other atheists about favorite quotes that are anti-religious.  The first post of this thread has been edited, to compile most of these atheist quotes in one place.  Some of these quotes can be found at Celebatheists.com.  

"Surely the ass who invented the first religion ought to be the first ass damned" - Mark Twain

"Faith is believing in that which I know ain't so." - Mark Twain

"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." Robert Green Ingersoll

"Nothing could be more idiotic and absurd than the doctrine of the trinity." Robert Green Ingersoll

"Fear paints pictures of ghosts and hangs them in the gallery of ignorance." Robert Green Ingersoll

"Nothing could be more idiotic and absurd than the doctrine of the trinity." Robert Green Ingersoll

(paraphrase) - "If God objected to [people with various handicaps], he ought not have created such people." Robert G Ingersoll

"All thinking men are atheists." - Ernest Hemmingway

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Mohandas Gandhi

"Born again?! No, I'm not. Excuse me for getting it right the first time." - Dennis Miller

Annie Dillard:
Eskimo:"If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"

"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke 

"Without religion, we'd have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." Stephen Weinburg

 ""Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for 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

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State." Thomas Jefferson

"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is." Thomas Jefferson

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter." Thomas Jefferson

"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point." - Friederich Nietzsche

"The word "Christianity" is already a misunderstanding - in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross."  Friederich Nietzsche

"The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad."  Friederich Nietzsche

"There is not enough love and kindness in the world to give any of it away to imaginary beings." - Friederich Nietzsche

"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." - John Adams

"The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence." - Abu Ala Al-Maari

"Creationists make it sound like a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night." - Isaac Asimov

"So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake. Religion is all bunk." - Thomas Alva Edison

"I am myself a dissenter from all known religions, and I hope that every kind of religious belief will die out." - Bertrand Russell

"I do not believe any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States." - Thomas Alva Edison

"Tell me there is a God in the serene heavens that will damn his children for the expression of an honest belief! More men have died in their sins, judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves in all the forests in the wide world ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in Hell; that these men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and that they are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this doctrine as the most infamous of lies." - Robert G. Ingersoll

"The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites." - Thomas Jefferson

"Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility." - H. L. Mencken

"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration--courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth."- H. L. Mencken

". Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain." - Gene Roddenberry

"If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced?" - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"It is easier to suppose that the universe has existed for all eternity than to conceive a being beyond its limits capable of creating it." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." - Voltaire

"Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be." - Frank Zappa 

"To sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me." - Charles William Stubbs

"For there is nothing either good or bad, thinking makes it so." - William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Hamlet, II.ii

"Faith: not wanting to know what is true." - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

"The being we call god is merely a pawn working for a powerful and rational force in some far-off galaxy. This force is trying to weed out people who are irrational by seeing who would be stupid enough to believe in his god illusion so easily. Those that believe in this illusion, he will send to eternal damnation and he will deliver the rational beings, those who stoically refused to believe in a god, to heaven." - Nicholas Yee

"God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intelligence. You simply turn your mind off and say God did it." - Carl Sagan (1934-1996), Contact

"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies." --Thomas Jefferson

"It's fair to say that the Bible contains equal amounts of fact, history, and pizza." --Penn Jillette

"I don't see any god up here" - Yuri Gagarin - first man in space, while in space.

God is a concept by which we measure our pain. - John Lennon

"We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself." - Carl Gustav Jung

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

If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another. - Epicurus

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God? - Epicurus

God Himself, sir, does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I? - Samuel Johnson

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. - Galileo

To judge from the notions expounded by theologians, one must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to crowding hell. - Marquis De Sade

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. - Voltaire

God is the great mysterious motivator of what we call nature and it has been said often by philosophers, that nature is the will of God
. And, I prefer to say that nature is the only body of God that we shall ever see.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.
- Robert Frost

To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance. - Eric Hoffer

If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circustance. - Theodore Dreiser

A country dominated by televangelism would be unrecognizable to the Founding Fathers, who envisioned religion as personal and spiritua, not social and political. No particular variety of religion was intended to control the political agenda, to set the community's moral tone or to judge who are the true believers and members of our society. But this is precisely the objective of the electric church - Razelle Frankel

My faith is that the only soul a man must save is his own. - William Orville Douglas

England has forty-two religions and only two sauces. - Voltaire

Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to the garage makes you a car. - Laurence J. Peter

I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability. - Oscar Wilde

If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? - Art Hoppe

"Since no one really knows anything about God, those who think they do are just troublemakers." Rabia Al-Basri

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. - Socrates.

"I refuse to prove that I exist" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing."  "Oh," says man, "but the Babel Fish is a dead give-away, isn't it?  It proves You exist, and so therefore You don't.  Q.E.D."  "Oh, I hadn't thought of that," says God, who promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.  ~ Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Moral:  a peerless maxim enumerated by God in his Holy Bible, such as that of Deut. 23:1, if your testicles are crushed or your male member missing, you must never enter a sanctuary of the Lord.  ~ Donald Morgan

There is a story, which is fairly well known, about when the missionaries came to Africa.  They had the Bible and we, the natives, had the land.  They said "Let us pray," and we dutifully shut our eyes.  When we opened them, why, they now had the land and we had the Bible.  ~Desmond M. Tutu, "Religious Human Rights and the Bible"

Religion:  A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.  ~ Ambrose Bierce

I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do.  ~ D. Dale Gulledge

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope?  If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

The world is not a prison house but a kind of spiritual kindergarten where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.  ~Edwin Arlington Robinson

The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists from getting flabby.  Let us be duly thankful for out blessings. ~Garrett Hardin

Sunday school:  a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.  ~H.L. Mencken

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words.  I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.  ~Isaac Asimov, I.  Asimov:  A Memoir

"There's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over." - Frank Zappa.

"How do I know the Bible isn't the word of God? Well if it was the word of God it would be clear and easy to understand...considering God was the creator of LANGUAGE!" - Bill Hicks.

""I'm proud to be an atheist - it helps me stand for so much more and fall for so much less." - Dan Barker

"All religions have been made by men." - Napoleon Bonaparte

"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?" - Mark Twain

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beutiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" - Douglas Adams

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beutiful and his children smart." - H.L. Mencken

"One cannot really be a Catholic and grown up." - George Orwell

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect, had intended for us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei

 "Atheism is a requirement for a complete human being. Religion is a crutch that is shackled to you, one you never really needed in the first place, but were convinced by others that you couldn't live without. Once you discover it's only an illusion, that it's not even a real crutch, you discard it gladly." -Brent Yaciw

"If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.” --Edmond de Goncourt

"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." --Huang Po

"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits." --Dan Barker, former evangelist

"Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, 'atheist' is a term that should not ever exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a 'non astrologer' or a 'non-alchemist'. We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. An atheist is simply a person who believes that the 260 million Americans (87 percent of the population) claiming to 'never doubt the existence of God' should be obliged to present evidence for his existence-and, indeed, for his BENEVOLENCE, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day." --Sam Harris, "Letter to a Christian Nation"

"Religion is the opium of the masses." Karl Marx

Heaven will be a great place as long as you keep the christians out. - G. Janus

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"  - Denis Diderot.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet”  –Napoleon Bonaparte

“Hence today I believe I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator” –Adolph Hitler

“I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job.” –George W. Bush

"Let's face it; God has an ego problem, why do we always have to worship him? "- Bill Maher

"I don't know anyone less Jesus like than Christians." - Bill Maher

"I would never want to be the member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood." - George Carlin"

"I have as much authority as the pope, I just don't have as many people that believe it." George Carlin

"One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." - Robert Heinlein

"History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it." - Robert Heinlein

If we go back to the beginning we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm, or deceit adorned or disfigured them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them, and that custom, respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve its own interests. -- Baron d'Holbach, The System of Nature 

Nature, you say, is totally inexplicable without a God. That is to say, to explain what you understand very little, you have need of a cause which you understand not at all. -- Baron d'Holbach, Good Sense

Few intelligent Christians can still hold to the idea that the Bible is an infallible Book, that it contains no linguistic errors, no historical discrepancies, no antiquated scientific assumptions, not even bad ethical standards. Historical investigation and literary criticism have taken the magic out of the Bible and have made it a composite human book, written by many hands in different ages. The existence of thousands of variations of texts makes it impossible to hold the doctrine of a book verbally infallible. Some might claim for the original copies of the Bible an infallible character, but this view only begs the question and makes such Christian apologetics more ridiculous in the eyes of the sincere man. -- Elmer Homrighausen, Christianity in America

I recall the story of the philosopher and the theologian. The two were engaged in disputation and the theologian used the old quip about a philosopher resembling a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat—which wasn't there. "That may be," said the philosopher: "but a theologian would have found it." -- Julian Huxley, The Creed of a Scientific Humanist

"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." - George Carlin 

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us." Joseph Campbell

"I'd rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief." Gerry Spencer

"We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us" Samuel Johnson

"Believe one who has proved it.  Believe an expert." Virgil

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit attrocities." Voltaire

"Such evil deeds could religion prompt" Lucretius

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness" Joseph Conrad

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfullly as when they do it from a religious conviction" Blaise Pascale 

"When one person suffers from delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called Religion."

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."--Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, ch. 2.

"The study of theology,  as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on nothing; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing."--Thomas Paine, in The Age Of Reason, quoted with approval by David Mills in Atheist Universe, ch. 6. 

"The moment we admit that our beliefs are attempts to represent states of the world, we see that they must stand in right relation to the world to be valid." --Sam Harris, The End Of Faith

"Urging humans to be superhumans, on pain of death and torture, is the urging of terrible self-abasement at their repeated and inevitable failure to keep the rules."--Christopher Hitchens, god is not great, ch. 15.

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find my self in - an interesting hole I find my self in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for." - Douglass Adams

"Find me some ghost sperm and show me how one survives rigor mortis and I will become a believer. I'm sure you'll have that evidence in short order" - Brian 37

"don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't. - Jules Renard

The Bible is a book that has been read more, and examined less, than any book that ever existed. - Thomas Paine [one of my personal faves]

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing/ all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. - Gene Roddenberry

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. - Anonymous

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. - Steven Weinberg

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - Richard Dawkins

All the biblical miracles will at last disappear with the progress of science. - Matthew Arnold 

As far as I can tell from studying the scriptures, all you do in heaven is pretty much just sit around all day and praise the Lord. I don’t know about you, but I think that after the first, oh, I don’t know, 50,000,000 years of that I’d start to get a little bored. - Rick Reynolds

A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it. - David Stevens

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a God superior to themselves. Most Gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. - Robert A Heinlein

He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave. - William Drummond

Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people. - Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney

“There are no atheists in foxholes” isn’t an argument against atheism, it’s an argument against foxholes. - James Morrow

Properly read, the bible is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived. - Isaac Asimov

Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. - Frater Ravus

If god is the alpha and the omega. The begining and the end, knows what has passed and what is to come, like it states in the bible, why do people pray and think it will make any difference. - Mark Fairclough

If we expect God to subscribe to one religion at the exclusion of all the others, then we should expect damnation as a matter of chance. This should give Christians pause when expounding their religious beliefs, but it does not. - Sam Harris 

"We would be 1,500 years ahead if it hadn't been for the church dragging science back by its coattails and burning our best minds at the stake." - Catherine Fahringer

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes - James K. Feibleman

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

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. - Thomas Paine

"Everything is what it is because it got that way." -D'arcy Thompson

"We may conclude, therefore, that, in all nations, which have embraced polytheism, the first ideas of religion arose not from a contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears, which actuate the human mind." -Hume, The Natural History of Religion

"We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice and good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us."--Hume, TNHR

"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." --Abraham Lincoln

"Those to whom his word was revealed were always alone in some remote place, like Moses. There wasn't anyone else around when Mohammed got the word either. Mormon Joseph Smith and Christian Scientist, Mary Baker Eddy, had exclusive audiences with God. We have to trust them as reporters---and you know how reporters are. They'll do anything for a story." --Andy Rooney 

"Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy." - Ambroce Bierce

In a dangerous world, there will always be more people around whose prayers for their own safety have been answered than those whose prayers have not." -Nicholas Humphrey's Law of the Efficacy of Prayer

"Cults and prophets proclaiming the imminent end of the world have been with us for several millenia, and it has been another sour sort of fun to ridicule them the morning after, when they discover that their calculations were a little off. But, just as with Marxists, there are some among them who are working hard to 'hasten the inevitable,' not merely anticipating the End Days with joy in their hearts, but taking political action to bring about the conditions they think are the prerequisites for that occasion." -Dennett, Breaking the Spell, pg 338

When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together. -- Isaac Asimov

From the point of view of a tapeworm, man was created by God to serve the appetite of the tapeworm. -- Edward Abbey

Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, "Yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it. -- Dan Barker

Faith is the fatigue resulting from the attempt to preserve God's integrity instead of one's own. -- Matt Berry

As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys. -- William Blake

"Religion is not fate, religion is fake, spirituality comes from the heart not from the pages of some out dated book written by mere men" -Madd Maxxx

"Religion is a group of scam artists that sell the calming idea that your body is a temple of God, while your mind belongs to them." -Jose Carrillo

Creationists make it sound like a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night — Isaac Asimov

All thinking men are atheists. — Ernest Hemingway

Lighthouses are more helpful then churches. — Benjamin Franklin

Faith means not wanting to know what is true. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. — George Bernard Shaw

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile. — Kurt Vonnegut

A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. — Samuel Clemens

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

"Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs." - Howard Zinn

"This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it." - John Adams

"Lighthouses are more useful than Churches." - Benjamin Franklin

"Chritianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man." - Thomas Jefferson

"Religion can never reform mankind, because Religion is slavery." - Robert G. Ingersoll

"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies. - Thomas Jefferson

"Religion is the opium of the masses." - Karl Marx

"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."

"How come when it's us is an abortion and when it's a chicken is an omelet?" - George Carlin

" Why is it often that, when someone points out the lies of another person, the person who lied gets angry, rather than abashed. Never is this more apparent than when the lie pointed out is a lie to oneself, and the anger never more fierce than when the lie is one of religion." ~ G. Scott Wells

"If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people" - Gregory House

"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'Oh, Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' and God granted it." - Voltaire

"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein

"When you understand why you don't believe in other people's gods, you will understand why I don't believe in yours."- Albert Einstein

"Just because you believe in something does not mean that it is true."- Albert Einstein

"Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth." - Albert Einstein

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." - Albert Einstein

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled 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 harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms." - Albert Einstein

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can change this." - Albert Einstein

"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." - Albert Einstein

"If we are to believe the Bible, god created a flood that nearly wiped out all of mankind, taking genocide to epic proportions. Why then is god worshiped and Hitler, who committed genocide on a smaller scale, labeled evil for similar acts?" - Scott Williams 

ALSO SEE: "Positive Atheism's Big List of Quotations"  

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/qframe.htm

And another: http://www.quotedb.com/categories/anti-religion

Keywords for this post: atheist atheism agnostic science history religion god non-believer skeptic humanist 


peppermint
Superfan
peppermint's picture
Posts: 539
Joined: 2006-08-14
User is offlineOffline
gregfl wrote:I am a big fan

gregfl wrote:
I am a big fan of Thomas Jefferson's religious statements.

Jefferson had some great quotes. Very eloquent. I like to shove these in people who claim our country was founded on Christian principles' faces. Smiling

Actually, I really like Marilyn Manson's "The Fight Song": I'm not a slave to a god that doesn't exist/I'm not a slave to a world that doesn't give a shit

Pretty much anything ever said on the topic by Dawkins, like:

"Science offers us an explanation of how complexity (the difficult) arose out of simplicity (the easy). The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile explanation for anything, for it simply postulates what we are trying to explain. It postulates the difficult to explain, and leaves it at that."

"Thus the creationist's favourite question "What is the use of half an eye?" Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. Half an eye is just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye, which is already better than 48 per cent, and the difference is significant."

And of course, I like these too:

The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages—as if the savages weren’t dangerous enough already.

Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination.

- Edward Abbey

If, in any culture, children are taught, We are all equally unworthy in the sight of God—

If, in any culture, children are taught, You are born in sin and are sinful by nature—

If children are given a message that amounts to Don’t think, don’t question, believe

If children are given a message that amounts to Who are you to place your mind above that of the priest, the minister, the rabbi?—

If children are told, If you have value it is not because of anything you have done or could ever do, it is only because God loves you—

If children are told, Submission to what you cannot understand is the beginning of morality—

If children are instructed, Do not be willful, self‐assertiveness is the sin of pride—

If children are instructed, Never think that you belong to yourself—

If children are informed, In any clash between your judgement and that of your religious authorities, it is your authorities you must believe,—

If children are informed, Self‐sacrifice is the foremost virtue and the noblest duty—

then consider what will be the likely consequences for the practice of living consciously, or the practice of self‐assertiveness, or any of the other pillars of healthy self‐esteem.

― Nathaniel Branden, in The Six Pillars of Self‐Esteem

 

 

 

*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*

"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby


mort_346 (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
Many apologies if these have

Many apologies if these have already been said but I have a few douglas Adams quotes I'd like to share:

"I don’t accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me “Well, you haven’t been there, have you? You haven’t seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid” - then I can’t even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we’d got, and we’ve now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don’t think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don’t think the matter calls for even-handedness at all. "
 

"Sometime around my early thirties I stumbled upon evolutionary biology, particularly in the form of Richard Dawkins’s books The Selfish Gene and then The Blind Watchmaker and suddenly (on, I think the second reading of The Selfish Gene) it all fell into place. It was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day."

 

In the years I’d spent learning History, Physics, Latin, Math, I’d learnt (the hard way) something about standards of argument, standards of proof, standards of logic, etc. In fact we had just been learning how to spot the different types of logical fallacy, and it suddenly became apparent to me that these standards simply didn’t seem to apply in religious matters. In religious education we were asked to listen respectfully to arguments which, if they had been put forward in support of a view of, say, why the Corn Laws came to be abolished when they were, would have been laughed at as silly and childish and - in terms of logic and proof -just plain wrong.


mort_346 (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
Oh I'm very sorry but there

Oh I'm very sorry but there is one more that I forgot about, incidentally it's my favourite. It is also a very good illustration of the problem of gllobal warming. it is however a little long, and I apologise but I sincerely doubt that you will regret reading the whole thing. it really is one of those quotes that makes you think "thats exactly what I would say, if I knew how to say it...Smiling

"Where does the idea of God come from? Well, I think we have a very skewed point of view on an awful lot of things, but let's try and see where our point of view comes from. Imagine early man. Early man is, like everything else, an evolved creature and he finds himself in a world that he's begun to take a little charge of; he's begun to be a tool-maker, a changer of his environment with the tools that he's made and he makes tools, when he does, in order to make changes in his environment. To give an example of the way man operates compared to other animals, consider speciation, which, as we know, tends to occur when a small group of animals gets separated from the rest of the herd by some geological upheaval, population pressure, food shortage or whatever and finds itself in a new environment with maybe something different going on. Take a very simple example; maybe a bunch of animals suddenly finds itself in a place where the weather is rather colder. We know that in a few generations those genes which favour a thicker coat will have come to the fore and we'll come and we'll find that the animals have now got thicker coats. Early man, who's a tool maker, doesn't have to do this: he can inhabit an extraordinarily wide range of habitats on earth, from tundra to the Gobi Desert - he even manages to live in New York for heaven's sake - and the reason is that when he arrives in a new environment he doesn't have to wait for several generations; if he arrives in a colder environment and sees an animal that has those genes which favour a thicker coat, he says “I'll have it off him”. Tools have enabled us to think intentionally, to make things and to do things to create a world that fits us better.Now imagine an early man surveying his surroundings at the end of a happy day's tool making. He looks around and he sees a world which pleases him mightily: behind him are mountains with caves in - mountains are great because you can go and hide in the caves and you are out of the rain and the bears can't get you; in front of him there's the forest - it's got nuts and berries and delicious food; there's a stream going by, which is full of water - water's delicious to drink, you can float your boats in it and do all sorts of stuff with it; here's cousin Ug and he's caught a mammoth - mammoth's are great, you can eat them, you can wear their coats, you can use their bones to create weapons to catch other mammoths. I mean this is a great world, it's fantastic. But our early man has a moment to reflect and he thinks to himself, 'well, this is an interesting world that I find myself in' and then he asks himself a very treacherous question, a question which is totally meaningless and fallacious, but only comes about because of the nature of the sort of person he is, the sort of person he has evolved into and the sort of person who has thrived because he thinks this particular way. Man the maker looks at his world and says 'So who made this then?' Who made this? - you can see why it's a treacherous question. Early man thinks, 'Well, because there's only one sort of being I know about who makes things, whoever made all this must therefore be a much bigger, much more powerful and necessarily invisible, one of me and because I tend to be the strong one who does all the stuff, he's probably male'. And so we have the idea of a god. Then, because when we make things we do it with the intention of doing something with them, early man asks himself , 'If he made it, what did he make it for?' Now the real trap springs, because early man is thinking, 'This world fits me very well. Here are all these things that support me and feed me and look after me; yes, this world fits me nicely' and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.

This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise."

 


I AM GOD AS YOU
Superfan
Posts: 4793
Joined: 2007-09-29
User is offlineOffline

Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16424
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
How about adding board

How about adding board member's quotes too.

Mine,

"Find me some ghost sperm and show me how one survives rigor mortis and I will become a believer. I'm sure you'll have that evidence in short order"

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


MattShizzle
Posts: 7966
Joined: 2006-03-31
User is offlineOffline
One of my best was "Saying

One of my best was "Saying the Bible is without errors is about as accurate as saying shit tastes good. "

Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team


FreeThinker2012
Posts: 45
Joined: 2008-06-28
User is offlineOffline
There may be some here that

There may be some here that have already been posted, but I tried to get some that haven't. The ones that are presumably posted by other members, are from:
http://atheistblogger.com/2008/02/15/101-atheist-quotes/

I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't. - Jules Renard

The Bible is a book that has been read more, and examined less, than any book that ever existed. - Thomas Paine [one of my personal faves]

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing/ all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. - Gene Roddenberry

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. - Anonymous

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. - Steven Weinberg

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - Richard Dawkins

All the biblical miracles will at last disappear with the progress of science. - Matthew Arnold [I whole-heartedly hope he's right (my '2 cents')].

As far as I can tell from studying the scriptures, all you do in heaven is pretty much just sit around all day and praise the Lord. I don’t know about you, but I think that after the first, oh, I don’t know, 50,000,000 years of that I’d start to get a little bored. - Rick Reynolds

[Who can forget the Epicurean riddle? (still, a classic imho)]

A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it. - David Stevens

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a God superior to themselves. Most Gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. - Robert A Heinlein

He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave. - William Drummond

Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people. - Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney

“There are no atheists in foxholes” isn’t an argument against atheism, it’s an argument against foxholes. - James Morrow

Properly read, the bible is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived. - Isaac Asimov

Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. - Frater Ravus

If god is the alpha and the omega. The begining and the end, knows what has passed and what is to come, like it states in the bible, why do people pray and think it will make any difference. - Mark Fairclough

If we expect God to subscribe to one religion at the exclusion of all the others, then we should expect damnation as a matter of chance. This should give Christians pause when expounding their religious beliefs, but it does not. - Sam Harris

Most religions prophecy the end of the world and then consistently work together to ensure that these prophecies come true. - Anonymous

Jesus didn't ride a donkey don't ya know, he rode an Apotasaurus!
www.flickr.com/photos/58362611@N00/431306643/


TheAtheistGod! (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
Tantum religio potuit

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. I have this tattooed o my chest.

To such heights of evil are men driven by religion.

Lucretius, De Rerum Natura

Dated during the first years o BC


TheMadPhilosopher
Posts: 2
Joined: 2008-10-05
User is offlineOffline
I'm not sure if this has

I'm not sure if this has been posted but I like it.

"We would be 1,500 years ahead if it hadn't been for the church dragging science back by its coattails and burning our best minds at the stake." - Catherine Fahringer


Shooter420 (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
I thought that was Lenin?

I could be wrong but I read that same line in Lenin's book on Religion.

 

 


tj671
Posts: 5
Joined: 2008-05-18
User is offlineOffline
Prayer is a great way to

Prayer is a great way to pretend you are doing something about a problem, when you're not. - 'Manda


butterbattle
ModeratorSuperfan
butterbattle's picture
Posts: 3945
Joined: 2008-09-12
User is offlineOffline
Oh, cool thread. My favorite

Oh, cool thread.

My favorite quote is in my signature. 

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes - James K. Feibleman

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

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. - Thomas Paine

It blows my mind that so many of the Founding Fathers were agnostic or skeptics. 

 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


Archeopteryx
Superfan
Archeopteryx's picture
Posts: 1037
Joined: 2007-09-09
User is offlineOffline
"Faith is like virginity.

"Faith is like virginity. You'll never understand how truly annoying it is until you actually give it up." --Anonymous

 

"Everything is what it is because it got that way." -D'arcy Thompson

 

"We may conclude, therefore, that, in all nations, which have embraced polytheism, the first ideas of religion arose not from a contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears, which actuate the human mind." -Hume, The Natural History of Religion

 

"We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice and good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us."--Hume, TNHR

 

"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." --Abraham Lincoln

 

"Those to whom his word was revealed were always alone in some remote place, like Moses. There wasn't anyone else around when Mohammed got the word either. Mormon Joseph Smith and Christian Scientist, Mary Baker Eddy, had exclusive audiences with God. We have to trust them as reporters---and you know how reporters are. They'll do anything for a story."
--Andy Rooney

 

"Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy." - Ambroce Bierce

In a dangerous world, there will always be more people around whose prayers for their own safety have been answered than those whose prayers have not." -Nicholas Humphrey's Law of the Efficacy of Prayer

"Cults and prophets proclaiming the imminent end of the world have been with us for several millenia, and it has been another sour sort of fun to ridicule them the morning after, when they discover that their calculations were a little off. But, just as with Marxists, there are some among them who are working hard to 'hasten the inevitable,' not merely anticipating the End Days with joy in their hearts, but taking political action to bring about the conditions they think are the prerequisites for that occasion." -Dennett, Breaking the Spell, pg 338

 

When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
-- Isaac Asimov

 

From the point of view of a tapeworm, man was created by God to serve the appetite of the tapeworm.
-- Edward Abbey

 

Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, "Yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it.
-- Dan Barker

 

Faith is the fatigue resulting from the attempt to preserve God's integrity instead of one's own.
-- Matt Berry

 

As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
-- William Blake

 

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


Sarah247
Sarah247's picture
Posts: 30
Joined: 2008-11-03
User is offlineOffline
This one isn't really

This one isn't really "anti-religious" but it makes me laugh Smiling

This is a little prayer dedicated to the separation of church and state.  I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in schools they might as well have a nice prayer like this:  Our Father who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, thy kingdom come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day as we forgive those who so proudly we hail.  Crown thy good into temptation but deliver us from the twilight's last gleaming.  Amen and Awomen. ~George Carlin

And good 'ol Mark Twain pointing out an irony:

But who prays for Satan?  Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?  ~Mark Twain

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words.  I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.  ~Isaac Asimov, I.  Asimov:  A Memoir

Geology shows that fossils are of different ages.  Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time.  Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species.  Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together.  Creationism is the practice of squeezing one's eyes shut and wailing "Does not!"  ~Author Unknown

Religion supports nobody.  It has to be supported.  It produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests.  It is a perpetual mendicant.  It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver.  ~Robert G. Ingersoll

I think that's good for today!

 

- Sarah

"I’m a polyatheist - there are many gods I don’t believe in." - Dan Fouts


nigelTheBold
atheist
nigelTheBold's picture
Posts: 1868
Joined: 2008-01-25
User is offlineOffline
Bumped for Roy.

Bumped for Roy.


DonaldJ
Posts: 1
Joined: 2008-12-15
User is offlineOffline
Potential A-R quotes...

If you had any clues about Life, you wouldn't need to try to define it...

You define what you do not know...

When you define what you do not know, you have pushed beyond your reach...
Applying labels to it, is to force yourself to believe you understand what you cannot.. somewhat like "jerking-off, believing it is the act of "making-love"... Now install two rings on one finger... I now pronounce you "man and strife"...
By applying a label to that which is greater than thou little chunk of poop, you have thus applied your restrictions to all of Life's truths.. having coated Life's truths into your lies, to reflect your present state christinsanity-level of infection and inflammation...
Take one carl jung tablet, and call me in the morning...

If you had any clue of Life you would be in it, not outside it trying desperately to define it by defiling it with your lies...

Me thinks someone with a functional brain and mind could fashion a few fun anti-religious quotes out of that off the top stuff...


aiia
Superfan
aiia's picture
Posts: 1923
Joined: 2006-09-12
User is offlineOffline
DonaldJ wrote:If you had any

DonaldJ wrote:
If you had any clues about Life, you wouldn't need to try to define it... You define what you do not know... When you define what you do not know, you have pushed beyond your reach... Applying labels to it, is to force yourself to believe you understand what you cannot.. somewhat like "jerking-off, believing it is the act of "making-love"... Now install two rings on one finger... I now pronounce you "man and strife"... By applying a label to that which is greater than thou little chunk of poop, you have thus applied your restrictions to all of Life's truths.. having coated Life's truths into your lies, to reflect your present state christinsanity-level of infection and inflammation... Take one carl jung tablet, and call me in the morning... If you had any clue of Life you would be in it, not outside it trying desperately to define it by defiling it with your lies... Me thinks someone with a functional brain and mind could fashion a few fun anti-religious quotes out of that off the top stuff...

 

??????????????????

What are you talking about and why did you post this here???

People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.


butterbattle
ModeratorSuperfan
butterbattle's picture
Posts: 3945
Joined: 2008-09-12
User is offlineOffline
Ooooohhh, it's a theist

Ooooohhh, it's a theist troll saying that we can't argue against god because he's better than us. 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


Zaq
atheist
Zaq's picture
Posts: 269
Joined: 2008-12-24
User is offlineOffline
Nice Topic

Don't know who to attribute this to, but I found it on a friend's Facebook

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."

From Homer Simpson:  "You see, god is powerful, but insecure..."

And some I came up with:

"Let my god be the power set of your god..." (look into a Set Theory concept called Cardinality and this will make more sense)

"Show me a proof of God's existence and I will show you a piece of Swiss cheese."

"Stop believing and start thinking."

 

EDIT:  No clue why there's a bunch of random formatting stuff in this.  Must be residual from MS Word copy/paste

Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}



Normal
0






MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}

Questions for Theists:
http://silverskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/03/consistent-standards.html

I'm a bit of a lurker. Every now and then I will come out of my cave with a flurry of activity. Then the Ph.D. program calls and I must fall back to the shadows.


Timothy Viau (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
Anti-religion quote

 

" Religion is not fate, religion is fake, spirituality comes from the heart not from the pages of some out dated book written by mere men "

-Madd Maxxx

 

It's an underground rapper who tends to rap about religion allot.


gill (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
A Religious war is like

A Religious war is like children fighting over , who  has the strongest imaginary friend .

i dont know who said it .


Anonymous215 (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
Good quotes

· Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people.
Doris Egan, House M.D., The Right Stuff, 2007


· The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible.
George Burns (1896 - 1996)


· "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."
 


Cory_The_Ration...
Posts: 49
Joined: 2009-02-12
User is offlineOffline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsjVw2k1c_8

 

Lyrics:
[verse]:[1]
I keep seeing a repeating, scene in my dreams,
I'm weeping peacefully, in a green pasture of sheep
who breathe deeply, relaxed on the grass, asleep when
I see these factions, of masked men, with axes, creepin

I can see, that we're captured, but when I scream, the assassins
begin laughing, and the sheep don't even seem to gather
the fact that their masters are grabbin and smashing their backs in
in a graphic fashion and draggin the cadavers past em

the sadness from those savage actions I had to fathom
never passes, even though, they were so overtly imagined
they show, actual patterns of what can happen to those trapped in
the rapture of the Holy Ghost if they don't open their lashes

and focus on what matters most... before they cash in
choke and pass and go in a casket, or blow in the passing
wind over the ocean as scattered ashes and bone fragments
just hopin their pastor was accurate


[hook]:
[bow down and] - pray
pray to your god
[now, bow down and] -pray
pray to your god


[verse]:[2]
what kinda creator would make a race of people
and make em act a certain way or else He deems 'em evil?
HOW can You give a living being the freedom to breathe
and then lead em into sea of decievers who greet em, see,

it's not a miracle, when you beat a disease [please]
it's not a miracle, when you breed and receive
a baby from a lady, it's nature, you can pray to a tree
it don't mean the seasons are changing cuz you believe in the leaves

faith is a crazy made up way to explain, what you can't explain
in way that you can't debate it, it's insane that we live in a nation,
that's innovative enough to create a station in space
but we still praise the pages of an ancient publication

considered great.... in the motherfuckin middles ages,
I'm sick of the way this civilization blames their hatred
on a simple fictional basis such as Satan it makes me
sick to my stomach, it's just disgusting aint it?


[hook]


[verse]:[3]
and I'm sick of censorship committees, grippin the dicks of Christian Ministries
who are admittingly, just letting any priest get a piece,
of greased little boy keester and get away free
while they celebrate Easter... Jesus, it's un-fuckin-believable

that you people still worship invisible entities, I mean,
who seriously wants to live for infinity? are you kidding me?
if you guys wanna censor a bigger lie, try the validity
of a city sittin in the sky, where everybody who died is now living

better yet, convince me that the visceral presence
of an invincible peasant will some-how better my fuckin intelligence
and gimme some evidence, heaven exists, besides some lessons
written by guys who couldn't technically give any relevant tips

except that I should be a celibate twit who cries like a bitch
to a timeless spirit everytime that I'm fearing some shit
the entire idea of religion's been queer since it was twisted
to it's limit, now it's a just mere hindrance


A_Nony_Mouse
atheist
A_Nony_Mouse's picture
Posts: 2880
Joined: 2008-04-23
User is offlineOffline
The quote is indeterminate but the act is the test

My favorite antireligious act was by L. Ron Hubbard founding Scientology. It fits somewhat in that there are several versions of a "quote" before he did it saying to the effect that the way to make a fortune is to start a religion. He directly copied the modern con game of psychoanalysis to make his fortune.

The problem with the quote is that no one can find it yet it was being "quoted" in the late 50s. It is usually attributed to a letter to the editor in Astounding Science Fiction but no one can find such a letter.

Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.

www.ussliberty.org

www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html

www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml


Damon Fillman
Posts: 21
Joined: 2009-02-16
User is offlineOffline
Unknown: "A man who ceases

Unknown:

 

"A man who ceases to believe in God doesn't believe in nothing, he believes in everything."


wkirby
Posts: 69
Joined: 2009-04-12
User is offlineOffline
Not exactly anti-religious but great quote!

"Don't make me come down there!" - God


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13234
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
"Bring it, bitch!" - Me.  

"Bring it, bitch!" - Me.

 

 

Sticking out tongue

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


Stray Voltage
Stray Voltage's picture
Posts: 1
Joined: 2009-05-19
User is offlineOffline
Deliberate stupidity

 Religion is self-induced delusion - J. von Kodar


Harry Seaward (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
"Religion is a group of scam

"Religion is a group of scam artists that sell the calming idea that your body is a temple of God, while your mind belongs to them."
-Jose Carrillo


AntiReligious India (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
AntiReligious(Interesting news)

Anti religious means "love your neighbour in christianity", but they hate their wife, and not believe near country like russia.


"Live and let live" in jainism. but they dont' live another community and live rich with their community.


Eli (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
quotes

http://www.quotedb.com/categories/anti-religion

 

A lot of great anti-religion quotes from credible people.


Gap Olivar (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
re: source off the quote

Here's the full quote:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it 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."   -Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate in Physics

Hope this helped

Gap Olivar, Philippines


Crimson (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
Now MY personal favorite is

Now MY personal favorite is "Properly read, the bible is the most potent force for atheism ever convceived." - Isacc Asimov


Crimson (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
If you think that bible quote is a great anti-religous quote...

Genesis 3:5

"For god knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like god, knowing good and evil"    (on the eating of the apple)

apparently when we ate the apple we became god like, which is probably why religon trys to prevent the spread of knowledge and education... XD


Konrad Schwoerke
Posts: 3
Joined: 2009-11-16
User is offlineOffline
Faith

If God were not exactly as you are absolutely sure He is,
Man might be as hogs are.
Snorting and grunting at the trough,
Backing away only when nothing is left.
Belching and farting as if in praise,
Content to roll in filth.
And when He comes to lead them to slaughter,
It must be great comfort knowing heaven awaits.

 

If there are no gods, where do those voices in my head come from?


Atheistextremist
atheist
Atheistextremist's picture
Posts: 5134
Joined: 2009-09-17
User is offlineOffline
This goes out to my mum....

 

There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer. - Gertrude Stein

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


Fred Zimmerman (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
A bumper sticker quote I came up with.

When you die, you're dead.

Get over it.

                -Fred Zimmerman


bullyspecialprize (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
bible

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for
atheism ever conceived.
—Isaac Asimov


skeptiform5
skeptiform5's picture
Posts: 21
Joined: 2010-01-17
User is offlineOffline
I've got some

Creationists make it sound like a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night — Isaac Asimov

All thinking men are atheists. — Ernest Hemingway

Lighthouses are more helpful then churches. — Benjamin Franklin

Faith means not wanting to know what is true. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. — George Bernard Shaw

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile. — Kurt Vonnegut

 A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. — Samuel Clemens

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

 


ZuS
atheist
ZuS's picture
Posts: 562
Joined: 2009-02-22
User is offlineOffline
One of the most important

One of the most important anti-religious quotes ever made:

"Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs."

- Howard Zinn

Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.


Sapient
High Level DonorRRS CO-FOUNDERRRS Core MemberWebsite Admin
Posts: 7587
Joined: 2006-04-18
User is offlineOffline
 This is a very popular

 This is a very popular thread.  In the last three months it has had 8,000 visitors hit it after a google search.  With it's popularity allow me to suggest you add more quotes.  


Jeffrick
High Level DonorRational VIP!SuperfanGold Member
Jeffrick's picture
Posts: 2446
Joined: 2008-03-25
User is offlineOffline
Okay, eh?

 

 

 

               "The first commandment states 'have no other god but me' that's plural form in any language;  now what other egomaniacle, blood thirsty gods is your god worried about?"     J.E.Frederick

 

 

                "What irrisponsible family puts a pragnent teenage girl on a donkey and marches her 160 kilometers over the rocky hills of central Palastine just to pay taxes. Then what asshole of a religio expects me to believe it?"      J.E.Frederick

 

 

               "Religion is believing something you know ain't true."       Mark  Twain

 

 

              "I will think about life after death the exact same way I thought about the billions of years that happened before  I was born."    Mark Twain

"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."

VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"

If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?


Derek Faircloth (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
Who created Who?

"god is man's worst creation" - Hernan Hemida

This is my favorite anti-religion quote. I just found it tonight.

 

 


JurgenDoe (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
Anti religion Quotes

Here are my favorite quotes Smiling

 

"This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it." - <b>John Adams</b>
"Lighthouses are more useful than Churches." - <b>Benjamin Franklin</b>
"Chritianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man." - <b>Thomas Jefferson</b>
"Religion can never reform mankind, because Religion is slavery." - <b>Robert G. Ingersoll</b>
"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies. - <b>Thomas Jefferson</b>
"Religion is the opium of the masses." - <b>Karl Marx</b>


zeeshan66
Posts: 2
Joined: 2010-03-29
User is offlineOffline
 where do i start?! i

 where do i start?! i joined this form for this specific thread and love the quotes here. Here's a few sites with TONS of good quotes. 

 

http://smack.accesscard.org/index/misc/atheist/

QuoteAuthorRatingRate 
"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 Gates4.11428571428571 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"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."Steven Weinberg4.67241379310345 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"What a queer thing is Christian salvation! Believing in firemen will not save a burning house; believing in doctors will not make one well, but believing in a savior saves men. Fudge!"Lemuel Washburn3.76923076923077 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned."Author Unknown4.66304347826087 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality."George Bernard Shaw4.61904761904762 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes."James Feibleman4.13333333333333 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"In Heaven all the interesting people are missing."Friedrich Nietzsche4.61538461538461 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"Ocean: A body of water occupying 2/3 of a world made for man...who has no gills."Ambrose Bierce4.59375 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"I viewed my fellow man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape."Desmond Morris3.76470588235294 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."Blaise Pascal4.6551724137931 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."Abraham Lincoln4.08 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."Thomas Jefferson4.06521739130435 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church."Thomas Paine4.86111111111111 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"We must repsect 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 are smart."Henry Mencken4.2962962962963 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"Puritanism - the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."Henry Mencken4.71428571428571 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."Bertrand Russell4.71428571428571 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"Where knowledge ends, religion begins."Benjamin Disraeli4.85915492957746 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by Homo Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the sacharrine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not recieve this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history."Robert Heinlein4.05172413793103 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion is anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it."Bertrand Russell4.11111111111111 avg (0 votes)Rate this Quote
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."Napoleon Bonaparte

http://www.quotedb.com/categories/anti-religion


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16424
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Saying that god is real is

Saying that god is real is like saying you can fart a Lamborghini out of your ass. It might sound nice until you have to prove it to others.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Anonymous an hungry (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
god

 

 

"There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism; it's an argument against foxholes.  ~James Morrow

 

the Second part of that is that if there was a fox  hole and you where getting shelled a sane man knows to Stay Out of The Hole its where the shells are targeted Eye-wink

 

 

 


Think Floyd (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
That was said by Khrushchev

That was said by Khrushchev about Gagrin's space flight.


A_Nony_Mouse
atheist
A_Nony_Mouse's picture
Posts: 2880
Joined: 2008-04-23
User is offlineOffline
.

I am not going through all these posts to see if it is new or not. This is presently attributed the the scriptwriters of the TV show House.

If you could reason with religious people there would be no religious people.

 

Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.

www.ussliberty.org

www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html

www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml


Kapkao
atheistSuperfan
Kapkao's picture
Posts: 4121
Joined: 2010-01-12
User is offlineOffline