[Georges Duhamel]
"The churches beg --and if we don't give them money, why, they take it anyway, forcibly, by means of this unjust state tax exemption."
[E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden,Not a Benefit, In Social Life"]
"EACH nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. Each god was intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. All these gods demanded praise, flattery, and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put together."
[Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872]
"Pray, and all your sins are hooked upon the sky. Pray, and the heathen lie will disappear. Prayers, they hide the saddest views, Believing the strangest things, Loving the alien."
[David Bowie]
Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours.
[Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) American author]
"Religion may in most of its forms be defined as the belief that the gods are on the side of the Government."
[Bertrand Russell]
"When you can discover where the fresh colors of the faded flower abide, or the music of the broken lyre, seek life among the dead. Such are the anxious and fearful contemplations of the common observer, though the popular religion often prevents him from confessing them even to himself."
[Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Necessity of Atheism"]
"God is an invention of Man. So the nature of God is only a shallow mystery. The deep mystery is the nature of man."
[Nanrei Kobori, Buddhist Abbot of the Temple of the Shining Dragon]
"Give the church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all ages will turn to ashes on the lips of men."
[Robert G. Inersoll, "Individuality", 1873, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 203, and from letter to Houston Post, Aug. 17, 1866]
"One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed it - they also believed the world was flat."
[Mark Twain]
"The origin of the absurd idea of immortal life is easy to discover; it is kept alive by hope and fear, by childish faith, and by cowardice."
[Clarence Darrow]
"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind."
[Donatien Alphonse Francois, le Marquis de Sade]
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction"
[Blaise Pascal, Pensees (1670)]
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