Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.
-- Unknown
Don't stay away from church because there are so many hypcorites. There's always room for one more.
-- A.R. Adams
The Catholic faith is confession on Saturday. Absolution on Sunday. At it again on Monday.
-- H.G. Wells
Anybody who wants religion is welcome to it, as far as I'm concerned
-- I support your right to enjoy it. However, I would appreciate it
if you exhibited more respect for the rights of those people who do
not wish to share your dogma, rapture or necrodestination.
-- Frank Zappa, "The Real Frank Zappa Book"
"Creation
science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple
and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false,
and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What
could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious
commodity in our entire intellectually heritage -- good teaching -- than
a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by
granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but
calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an
enterprise?
-- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer",
Vol. 12, page 186
"And it came to pass that in the hands of the ignorant, the words of the bible
were used to beat plowshares into swords..."
-- Alan Watts
Any body of men who believe in hell will persecute whenever they have
the power.
-- Joseph M. McCabe (1867-1955)
And Abner said to Joab, "Let the young men come forward and play before us."
Joab answered "Yes, let them." So they came up one by one, and took their
places, twelve for Benjamin and Ishbosheth and twelve from David's men.
Each man seized his opponent by the head and thrust his sword into his
side; and thus they fell together.
-- Samuel 2,2,14-16
A preacher's wife proofread his Sunday sermon and wrote next to one paragraph: "Weak point--shout loud".
Monotheists think all gods but theirs are false.
Atheists simply don't make an exception for the last one.
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered.
Religion is answers that may never be questioned.
All things dull and ugly, All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty, The Lord God made the lot;
Each little snake that poisons, Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom, He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous, All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous, The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet, Each beastly little squid.
Who made the spikey urchin? Who made the sharks? He did.
All things scabbed and ulcerous, All pox both great and small.
Putrid, foul and gangrenous, The Lord God made them all.
-- Monty Python's Flying Circus
... And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man
-- A. E. Housman
Driving through a Swiss city one day, Alfred Hitchcock suddenly pointed out of the car window and said, "That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen." His companion was surprised to see nothing more alarming than a priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand on the child's shoulder. "Run, little boy," cried Hitchcock, leaning out of the car. "Run for your life!"
Most people think
great god will come from the sky
take away everything
and make everybody feel high
but if you know what life is worth
you will look for yours on earth
- Bob Marley
_Get up Stand up_
"Your petitioners are Atheists and they define their ideas as follows. An
Atheist loves his fellow man instead of a god. An Atheist knows that heaven is
something for which we should work now--here on earth--for all men together to
enjoy. An Atheist knows that he can get no help through prayer but that he
must find within himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to
grapple with it, to subdue it and to enjoy it. An Atheist knows that only in
a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the
understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment.
"An Atheist seeks to know himself then and his fellow rather than to know a
god. An Atheist understands that a hospital must be built instead of a church.
An Atheist knows that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist
strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease
conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand,
love and accept all of mankind. He wants an ethical way of life. He knows
that we cannot rely on a god, channel action into prayer, or hope for an end to
our troubles in a hereafter. He knows that we are not only our brother's
keepers--but keepers of our own lives foremost, that we are responsible persons
and that the job is here and the time is now."
-- Murray vs. Curlett, 374 U.S. 203 (1963)
(Atheists have to get their scripture
wherever they can find it :-)