Quotes:

"A faith that cannot survive a collision with the truth is not worth many regrets." -Arthur C. Clarke

"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." -Arthur C. Clarke

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." -Thomas Jefferson

"I 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

"Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing." -Bart, "The Simpsons"

"Religion has no place in public schools the way facts have no place in organized religion." -Superintendant Chalmers, "The Simpsons"

Bart: What religion are you?
Homer: You know, the one with all the well-meaning rules that don't work out in real life. Uh... Christianity.

"Have you ever read the bible Marge? Technically, we're not allowed to go to the bathroom." -Rev. Lovejoy, "The Simpsons"

"This so called new religion is nothing but a pack of weird rituals and chants designed to take away the money of fools. Let us say the Lord's prayer 40 times, but first let's pass the collection plate." -Reverend Lovejoy on "The Simpson" in a sermon about the Movementarians

"The Church says the earth is flat, but I know that it's round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church." -Ferdinand Magellan

"I don't really miss God, but I sure miss Santa Claus." -Hole

"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

"What was it that Adam ate that he wasn't supposed to eat? It wasn't just an apple - it was the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The subtle message? Get smart and I'll fuck you over -- sayeth the Lord. God is the smartest -- and he doesn't want any competion. Is this not an absolutely anti-intellectual religion?" -Frank Zappa

"Man is forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He acts against God's command... From the standpoint of the Church, which represents authority, this is essentially sin. From the standpoint of man, however, this is the beginning of human freedom." -Erich Fromm (1900-1980)

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

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." -Napolean

"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

"If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good." -Morris Cohen

"It is usually when men are at their most religious that they behave with the least sense and the greatest cruelty." -Ilka Chase

"If the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same Infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?" -Robert G. Ingersoll

"I do not believe in a God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil." -Albert Einstein

"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." -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 egotism." -Albert Einstein

"The trouble with born again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around." -Herb Caen

"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

"At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world." -George Bernard Shaw

"Fundamentalism isn't about religion. It's about power." -Salman Rushdie

"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -Delo McKown

"Faith is a euphemism for prejudice and religion is a euphemism for superstition." -Paul Keller

"I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose." -Clarence Darrow

"The careful student of history will discover that Christianity has been of very little value in advancing civilization, but has done a great deal toward retarding it." -Matilda Joslyn Gage, "Woman, Church and State", 1893

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

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, your Christians are so unlike your Christ." -Mahatma Gandhi

"If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction." -Judith Hayes

"Faith is often the boast of the man who is too lazy to investigate." -F.M. Knowles

"You are never dedicated to do something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt." -Robert M. Pirsig, "Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

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

"You are digging for the answers, Until your fingers bleed, To satisfy the hunger, To satiate the need. They feed you on the guilt, To keep you humble and low, Some man and myth they made up, A thousand years ago." -Melissa Etheridge

"Send me money, send me green, Heaven you will meet, Make a contribution and you'll get a better seat..." -Metallica

"If god doesn't like the way I live, Let him tell me, not you." -unknown

"Imagine the ego of the human race, to consider themselves so grand, as to warrant a creator worthy of praise." -Robert Brunswick Jr.

"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." -Charles Bukowski

"In the 'bullshit department' a businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman." -George Carlin

"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 10 things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these 10 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 for ever and ever until the end of time...but he loves you." -George Carlin

"When a man ceases to believe in god, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in everything." -G.K. Chesterson

"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God." -Thomas Edison

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; 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

"The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so, cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are both able and willing. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can, but will not, than they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, then they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, how does it exist?" -Epicures, 300 B.C.

"If 50 million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing" -Anatole France

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." -Ben Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758

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

"One would like to believe that people who think of themselves as devout Christians would also behave in a manner that is in according with Christian ethics. But pastorally and existentially, I know that this is not the case, and never has been." -John Neuhaus, in San Jose Mercury News

"Which is it: is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?" -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"The last Christian died on a cross." -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time." -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"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

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

"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking." -Carl Sagan

"The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides." -Carl Sagan

"The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose." -William Shakespeare

"If the lord had meant us to have faith, he'd have given us lobotomies." -Zlatko

"If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be... a Christian." -Mark Twain

"Most people can't bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere very similar to it for eternity?" -Mark Twain

"Blasphemy? No, it is not blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if He is as little as that, He is beneath it." -Mark Twain

"What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer: he gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell. It's a business almost indistinguishable from that of a seller of snake-oil for rheumatism." -H.L. Mencken

"--So you don't believe we have souls I guess?" and Legs laughed and said, "Yeah probably we do but why's that mean we're gonna last forever? Like a flame is real enough, isn't it, while it's burning? -- even if there's a time it goes out?" -FOXFIRE