Religion

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

H L Mencken


I believe in Spinoza’s God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.

Albert Einstein


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


One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.

Arthur C. Clarke


I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said “Stop! don’t do it!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” he said.
I said, “Well, there’s so much to live for!”
He said, “Like what?”
I said, “Well…are you religious or atheist?”
He said, “Religious.”
I said, “Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?”
He said, “Christian.” I said, “Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?”
He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”
He said, “Baptist!” I said, “Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?”
He said, “Baptist Church of God!”
I said, “Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?”
He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God!”
I said, “Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?”
He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!”
I said, “Die, heretic scum”, and pushed him off.

Emo Phillips


For most believers, their belief is not a logical conclusion, it’s a mode of living. And the erosion of that belief will typically not, for better or for worse, be accomplished by the presentation and examination of evidence; it will be through telling a better story than the one told by religion. One that helps make sense of the world, provides a template for a fulfilling life, explains the difference between right and wrong, and brings meaning to people’s experiences.

Sean Carroll


God can’t be perfect. Everything he makes dies.

George Carlin


I speak fluent religious right with an authentic native accent.

Fred Clark


Need I mention that we've buried a succession of gods? Apollo is gone, Zeus is no more, Thor is neglected, Dionysius is scarcely remembered (although I'm sure his wake was to die for), and almost all the gods people have ever worshipped are extinct.

PZ Myers


As a Christian I'm offended by comparing unicorns, elves with angels. Unicorns and Elves are fiction, and angels are biblical.

Amazon review of TMBG—Here Comes Science


Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.

Butch Hancock, Musician, the Flatlanders


…if you believe in it, it is a religion or perhaps 'the' religion; and if you do not care one way or another about it, it is a sect; but if you fear and hate it, it is a cult.

purportedly - Leo Pfeffer


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


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 way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous.

H. L. Mencken


A scientist who believes in god suffers from schizophrenia.

Jacques Monod


Kick the shit out of him and you could bury him in a matchbox.

Christopher Hitchens about Jerry Falwell


A fundamentalist atheist would be one who believes in the inerrancy of an atheist text – perhaps The God Delusion or God Is Not Great – even in the face of results from rational inquiry. However, no such people exist.

Russell Blackford


However, I suspect I must part company with you in that I believe that science and religion actually are irreconcilable. In my view a scientific world view is one based on continuous questioning and therefore a search for more and better evidence and theories; faith in the unknowable plays no role. I think that belief systems based on faith are inherently dangerous, as they leave the believer susceptible to manipulation when skepticism and inquiry are discouraged.

Jack Szostak


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


While evolution is a robust scientific theory, it is a philosophically unsatisfactory explanation for the diversity of life.

Dr. Mark Ribben (Weston, Connecticut Intermediate School Principal!)


With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.

Steven Weinberg


I have nothing against Christianity. I wish more Christians practiced it.

John Scalzi


There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.

Stephen Hawking


If you could argue with religious people, there wouldn’t be religious people.

Dr. House


If you see “God is my partner” on marketing materials what it really means is “God is my partner, everybody else I screw”.


The World is divided into armed camps ready to commit genocide just because we can't agree on whose fairy tales to believe.

Ed Krebs


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


If the history of science shows us anything, it is that we get nowhere by labelling our ignorance ‘God’.”

Jerry A. Coyne


Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned: yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

Thomas Jefferson


I don't have a problem with people enjoying sci-fi, but church isn't the place to encourage escapism and fancy dress.

Mentone Baptist minister Murray Campbell


Atheism is the arrogant belief that the entire universe was not created for our benefit.


Atheists and skeptics now have equal access to our children as we have, which is why the number of Christian youth who believe in the fundamentals of Christianity is decreasing…

Josh McDowell


Giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible.

John Wesley


“Sophisticated” theologians who urge a non-literal reading of the Bible always put themselves in a bind. And it is this: if the Bible is not to be read as a literal account of the truth, then how do we know which parts really are true, and which parts are fiction or metaphor?

Jerry A. Coyne


The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.

Ralph Waldo Emerson


When you put a cogent and trenchant argument against the government’s economic policy, nobody would call you “intolerant” of the Tories. But when an atheist does the same against a religion, that’s intolerance.

Richard Dawkins


The only points in which I differ from all ecclesiastical teaching is that I do not believe that any man ever saw or talked with God. I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or told the historians what they say he did about woman, for all the religions on the face of the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign her, her emancipation is impossible.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton


Religion is like a penis.
It’s fine to have one.
It’s fine to be proud of it.
It’s fine to use it with other consenting adults.
But please don’t whip it out in public and start waving it around.
And please don’t try to shove it down my children’s throats.


If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse.

Atheist Foundation of Australia


Science is a belief system based on reason and evidence. Religion is a belief system based on bullshit.

Victor Stenger


Science is a belief system based on reason and evidence. Religion is a belief system based on revelation and other forms of superstition.

Jerry A. Coyne


Thus such a thing as a truly enlightened Christian is hard to imagine. Either he is enlightened or he is Christian,…

H. L. Mencken


Good arguments don’t usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people.

Dr. Gregory House


The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks he can instruct god how to put them right.

Christopher Hitchens


One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.

Steven Weinberg


If English is good enough for our lord and savior Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me.

A Texas legislator


Most of the dogmas of the church that I don’t laugh at, I despise.

Ed Brayton


We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet.

Annie Dillard


I’m an atheist, thank God.

Dave Allen


Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.

Christopher Hitchens


Christianity may be OK between consenting adults in private but should not be taught to young children.

Francis Crick


And if some of the Bible is manifestly wrong, why should any of the rest of it be accepted automatically?

Francis Crick


7.5 of the 10 commandments would be unconstitutional if made into law in this country (7.5 because the prohibition on lying is allowed in some cases but not in most).

Ed Brayton


Don’t ask God to cure cancer and world poverty. He’s too busy finding you a parking space and fixing the weather for your barbecue.

Richard Dawkins


The believer must look deep into his heart and mind and ask this question: Are there any considerations, arguments, evidence, or reasons, even hypothetically that could possibly lead me to change my mind about God? Is it even a remotely possible outcome that in carefully and thoughtfully reflecting on the broadest and most even body of evidence that I can grasp, that I would come to think that my current view about God is mistaken? That is to say, is my belief defeasible?

If the answer is no, then we’re done. There is nothing informative, constructive, or interesting to be found in your contribution to dialogue. Anything you have to say amounts to sophistry. We can’t take your input seriously.

Matt McCormick


When creationists talk about God …, they always instance hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, that’s going to make him blind. Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child’s eyeball? Because that doesn’t seem to me to coincide with a God who’s full of mercy.

David Attenborough


If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes religion.


Faith is belief despite the absence of evidence or even in the presence of contrary evidence.

Victor Stenger


I had no need of that hypothesis.

Pierre-Simon Laplace


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

Isaac Asimov


There are not different ways of knowing. There is knowing and not knowing, and those are the only two options in this world.

Mike Aus


Theology is a subject without an object. Theologians don’t study God; they study what other theologians have said about God.

Dan Barker


Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color.

Hemant Mehta


Jesus Died For Your Metaphor


To those who say they cannot imagine the possibility of God not existing, I say try a little harder.

Julian Baggini


You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

Anne Lamott


When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.

Emo Phillips


All religions are equally wrong, but not all religions are equally dangerous.


The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible.

Mark Twain


Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Penn Jillette


This is not the time to be making new enemies.

Voltaire—on his deathbed when he was asked if he was ready to renounce Satan.


…every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.

Kemal Atatürk


When Benjamin Franklin inveted the lightning rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will of God.

Bertrand Russell


All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty.

Henry Clay


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 Russell


The definition of a New Atheist: Any old atheist that the Catholic church can’t legally set on fire anymore.

PZ Myers


Dear friends in church are more often than not the equivalent of hardcore drinking buddies. Once you give up the addiction, you've no longer got a buddy.

Aram


I once defined “sophisticated theology” as the art of saying “It doesn’t matter what you believe in as long as you call it ‘God’” in as many words as possible”.

Bjarte Foshaug


We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.

Stephen Hawking


I’m an atheist, and that’s it. I believe there’s nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people.

Katherine Hepburn


What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false.

Richard Dawkins


I learn that ten percent of all the world's species are parasitic insects. It is hard to believe. What if you were an inventor, and you made ten percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only work by harnessing, disfiguring, or totally destroying the other ninety percent?

Annie Dillard


That said, those of you who are at the agnostic station, don’t feel bad for stopping there. This train goes forward if you continue asking questions.
Those of you who haven’t boarded the train yet, well, ask your religion the same hard questions you ask other religions.

Anu Garg


I go the gym religiously.
Once or twice a year around the holidays.

Demetri Martin


All right, then, I’ll GO to hell.

Huck Finn


When you die do you become closer to God because you no longer exist?


I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and : I the Lord do all these things.

Isaiah 45:7


I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

Friedrich Nietzsche


I learn that ten percent of all the world's species are parasitic insects. It is hard to believe. What if you were an inventor, and you made ten percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only work by harnessing, disfiguring, or totally destroying the other ninety percent?

Annie Dillard


Churches and carburetors are two things that were purposefully absent from my upbringing, and I am thankful for that.

DMCVegas


It’s hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.

Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes)


Now see if somebody said “the Lizard People chose Donald Trump for eight years not four,” we could treat that person as obviously insane, but if you say “God” instead of “the Lizard People” we’re not allowed to point out that you’re a delusional lunatic, because that would be disrespectful of your particular brand of delusional lunacy.

Paul Campos


There is a rumor going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.

Terry Pratchett


The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can't change your mind, because God sure isn't going to change his.

Roger Ebert


Let there be no doubt that as they are currently practiced, there is no common ground between science and religion.

Paul Kurtz


What do you swear on, the Bible? No, some of the men in it are awful, and so are the women. We’ll shake.


Pray (verb) To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

Ambrose Bierce


It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey.

Robert Green Ingersoll


“Muggletonians avoided all forms of worship or preaching, and met only for discussion and socializing. The movement was egalitarian, apolitical, and pacifist, and resolutely avoided evangelism.” Finally, I have found a religion I can get behind.

Anu Garg


A thousand thoughts and prayers amount to less than a single action.

Anu Garg


I would happily fight for the religious freedom of Christians, and I often have. But religious freedom does not mean hegemony and it doesn’t mean that the government should endorse or enforce those views.

Ed Brayton