1. A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. - Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
2. Faith means not wanting to know what is true. - Friedrich Nietzsche
3. Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. - Anonymous
4. Since the Bible and the church are obviously mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going? - Anonymous
5. 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
6. The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike. - Delos B. McKown
7. Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. – Anonymous
8. All the biblical miracles will at last disappear with the progress of science. - Matthew Arnold
9. Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence. - Anonymous
10. What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. - Christopher Hitchens
11. On the first day, man created God. – Anonymous
12. You do not need the Bible to justify love, but no better tool has been invented to justify hate. - Richard A. Weatherwax
13. What's “God”? Well, you know, when you want something really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God's the guy that ignores you. - Steve Buscemi (From the movie “The Island”)
14. Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people. - Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney
15. Religion has caused more misery to all of mankind in every stage of human history than any other single idea. - Anonymous
16. Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. - Frater Ravus
17. When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. - Robert Pirsig
18. The finality of death is the coldest truth one must face. Religion makes the perfect distraction. – Anonymous
19. Religion is the opiate of the masses. - Karl Marx
20. 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
21. Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing. - Anonymous
22. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. - Francis Bacon
23. A God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God who interfered with human freedom and creativity was tyrant. If God is seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect. he becomes a being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all-knowing tyrant is not so different from earthly dictators who make everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism that rejects such a God is amply justified. - Karen Armstrong
24. It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image. - Ludwig Feuerbach
25. People ask me what I think about that woman priest thing. What, a woman priest? Women priests. Great, great. Now there's priests of both sexes I don't listen to. - Bill Hicks
26. Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. - Richard Dawkins
27. In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point. - Friedrich Nietzsche
28. It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. - George W. Foote
29. 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. - Stephen Roberts
30. 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
31. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish. - Anonymous
32. Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color. - Don Hirschberg
33. God should be executed for crimes against humanity. - Bryan Emmanuel Gutierrez
34. To say that atheism requires faith is as dim-witted as saying that disbelief in pixies or leprechauns takes faith. Even if Einstein himself told me there was an elf on my shoulder, I would still ask for proof and I wouldn't be wrong to ask. - Geoff Mather
35. I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. - Mark Twain
36. Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men. - Voltaire
37.And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence. - Bertrand Russell
38. 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
39. I'm a polyatheist - there are many gods I don't believe in. - Dan Fouts
40. If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever. - Woody Allen
41. A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it. - David Stevens
42. 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
43. I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing. - Douglas Adams
44. It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. - Mark Twain
45. 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
46. Remember, Jesus would rather constantly shame gays than let orphans have a family. - Steven Colbert
47. Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's? - Friedrich Nietzsche
48. When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life. - Sigmund Freud
49. They felt that science would be corrosive to religious belief and they were worried about it. Damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive to religious belief and it's a good thing. - Steven Weinberg
50. Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains. - Robert G. Ingersoll
51. History teaches us that no other cause has brought more death than the word of god. - Giulian Buzila
52. Atheism is a non-prophet organization. - George Carlin
53. 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
54. A believer states everything must have a creator but fail to say how he was created. - Anonymous
55. “There are no atheists in foxholes” isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes. - James Morrow
56. People will then often say, ‘But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?' This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I've been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers- behind-your- back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.) - Douglas Adams
57. Properly read, the bible is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived. - Isaac Asimov
58. If all the Christians who have called other Christians “not really a Christian” were to vanish, there'd be no Christians left. - Anonymous
59. An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. - John Buchan
60. Gods dont kill people. People with Gods kill people. - David Viaene
61. If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which He has inflicted upon men, He would kill Himself. - Alexandre Dumas
62. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma. - Sam Harris
63. I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose - Clarence Darrow
64. No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism. - Annie Wood Besant
65. I refuse to believe in a god who is the primary cause of conflict in the world, preaches racism, sexism, homophobia, and ignorance, and then sends me to hell if I'm ‘bad'. - Mike Fuhrman
66. Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o, and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have. - Penn Jillette
67. Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power but absolute power is corrupt only in the hands of the absolutely faithful. - Anonymous
68. Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense. – Chapman Cohen
69.The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it. - Robert G. Ingersoll
70. I wonder who got the shit job of scouring the planet for the 15000 species of butterfly or the 8800 species of ant they eventually took on board Noah's Ark. But at least we got that magical rainbow for all their trouble. - Azura Skye
71. I have no need for religion, I have a conscience. - Anonymous
72. Man has always required an explanation for all of those things in the world he did not understand. If an explanation was not available, he created one. - Jim Crawford
73. I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins
74. What has been Christianity' s fruits? Superstition, Bigotry and Persecution. - James Madison
75. The characters and events depicted in the damn bible are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. - Penn and Teller
76. 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
77. If God created the world, then who created god? and who created whoever created god? So somewhere along the line something had to just be there. So why can't we just skip the idea of god and go straight to earth? - Ryan Hanson
78. Atheists will celebrate life, while you're in church celebrating death. - Anonymous
79. Animals do not have gods, they are smarter than that. - Ronnie Snow
80. I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever. - Daniel Boorstin
81. I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake… Religion is all bunk. - Thomas Edison
82. Fundamentalism, of any type, due to its prerequisite lack of intelligent thought, could prove to be the worst weapon of mass destruction, of all. - David J. Constable
83. To really be free, You need to be free in the mind. - Alexander Loutsis
84. Most religions prophecy the end of the world and then consistently work together to ensure that these prophecies come true. - Anonymous
85. Jesus hardly made the greatest sacrifice. He knew he would be resurrected anyway. - Anonymous
86. Religion is like a virus that affects the behaviour of its host in such a way as to propagate itself further. - Jack Pritchard
87. Today's religion will be the future's mythology. Both believed at one time by many; but proved wrong by the clever. - Steven Crocker
88. The Bible - A Fairytale book of rules brainwashing millions. Obliviously used to help create war, kill, hate, judge and discriminate. - Anonymous
89. Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? - Douglas Adams
90. 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
91. 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 Shaw
92. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. - Isaac Asimov
93. I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. - Frank Lloyd Wright
94. 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
95. Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca the Younger
96. Not only is there no god, but try getting a plumber on weekends. - Woody Allen
97. 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
98. Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination. - Edward Abbey
99. 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
100. I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. - Doug McLeod
101. The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence. - Abu'l Ala al Ma'arri
102. Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies. Thomas Jefferson
103. For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope. Thomas Edison
104. Religion without science is blind. Albert Einstein
105. Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. - Frater Ravus
106. Lighthouses are more helpful than churches. — Benjamin Franklin
107. "If there is a God, he is a malign thug." Mark Twain
108. “It ain't supposed to make sense; it's faith. Faith is something that you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe.” Archie Bunker
109. "Religion is simply a community of people who gather together on a regular basis to reassure each other that it is okay to continue believing in absurdities. But for me it is far better to see the world as it really exists, rather than persist in delusion, no matter how comforting that may seem." Unknown
110. "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
-The Buddha
111. "When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion." ~Abraham Lincoln
112. Do not believe anything because it is said by an authority, or if it is said to come from angels, or from Gods, or from an inspired source. Believe it only if you have explored it in your own heart and mind and body and found it to be true. Work out your own path, through diligence.
~ Guatama Buddha
113. "All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry."
Edgar Allan Poe
114. Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool. Voltaire
115. You know you've created God in your own image when he hates all the same people you do. - unknown
116. This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. Dalai Lama
117. Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.— Blaise Pascal.
118. He who knows only his own faith knows no faith.— Anonymous
119. In comes ideology and out goes common sense. This is my experience of life — Doris Lessing
120. I've begun worshiping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It's there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, a lovely day. There's no mystery, no one asks for money, I don't have to dress up, and there's no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to God are all answered at about the same 50-percent rate.” George Carlin.
121. Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool. Mark Twain
122. God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. Richard Feynman, physicist, awarded Nobel Prize in 1965.
123. Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor - but they have few followers now. Sir Arthur C. Clarke
124. (A Mormon-related general quote): That is one of the beautiful things about Mormonism. It has always been proven true in the studies that have not been written, research that has not been conducted and archeological evidence that has not been dug. John Larsen
125. A faith which cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets. Arthur C. Clarke
126. "Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive." Albert Einstein
127. "What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary." Stephen Hawking
128. [not necessarily religious but included anyway] “It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” ― Mark Twain
129. "Faith is believing and hoping when there is little evidence for or against something. Delusion is believing when there is an abundance of evidence against something." Jeremy Runnells 2013.
130. "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." Voltaire
131. Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told regardless of what is right.
132. Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat. Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn't there. Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn't there and shouting “I found it!” - Citation found at http://www.godlessgeeks.com/; accessed 05.22.2009.
133. "A mind is like a parachute... it doesn't work if it is not open" -Frank Zappa
134. "The truth is a lot easier to see when you stop assuming you already have it." - Mike Norton
135. “The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.” -- Reinhold Niebuhr
136. “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” -- Aldous Huxley
137. "I am, of course, and have always been an atheist." Albert Einstein, to Guy H. Raner Jr., July 2, 1945, responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism.
138. "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of primitive legends which are pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."* Albert Einstein, 1954
139. "During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man's own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world." - Albert Einstein, quoted in: 2000 Years of Disbelief, James Haught
140. "A man's ethical behaviour 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, "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930
141. Heaven for the climate; hell for the company. Mark Twain
142. Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure. George Carlin
143. If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. René Descartes
144. Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. Friedrich Nietzsche
145. Another general Mormon-related quote: "It is better to have nothing to do with the Church in the first place, than to try Mormonism and fail." poster on Mormon Discussions.
146. Faith is believing something you know ain't true. Mark Twain.
147. It does not require many words to speak the truth. Chief Joseph, Nez Perce Tribe
148. The German scholar Max Muller famously said, “He who knows one, knows none” in reference to religion. If all that we ever know is our own faith, it is difficult for us to truly appreciate what we believe and be able to build a strong foundation for our faith.
149. Losing one's faith is like seeing the "magic" behind a trick - once you see it the illusion can't be unseen.
150. I have as much authority as the pope - just not as many people that believe it. - George Carlin
151. 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. Steven Hawking 1942-2018
152. Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. Voltaire
Link to: Mormon Quotes
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