The War On Faith - HQ

Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for
it; anything but live for it.
..........Charles Caleb Colton

"Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis."
..........Sigmund Freud, "Future of an Illusion". 1927

"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

Why do you write to me "God should punish the English"? I have no close connection to either
one or the other. I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for
their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion,
only His nonexistence could excuse Him.
..........Albert Einstein, in a letter to a friend

"Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list
of species represented changes through time. Taxonomy shows biological relationships among
species. Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice of
squeezing one's eyes shut and wailing 'does not!'"
..........Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.zl.fidonet.org

"The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H. Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation,
Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can
be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet
this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found
one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history."
..........Robert A. Heinlein

"The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood
free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and
immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a
mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in
taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the
moral level of any other con man. But it is a lovely work if you can stomach it."
..........Lazarus Long, Time enough for Love, by Robert Heinlein

"A disturbing fact continues to surface in sex abuse research. The first best predictor of abuse
is alcohol or drug addiction in the father. But the second best predictor is conservative
religiosity, accompanied by parental belief in traditional male-female roles. This means that if
you want to know which children are most likely to be sexually abused by their father, the
second most significant clue is *whether or not the parents belong to a conservative religious
group with traditional role beliefs and rigid sexual attitudes*. (Brown and Bohn, 1989;
Finkelhor, 1986; Fortune, 1983; Goldstein et al, 1973; Van Leeuwen, 1990). (emphasis in
original)
.........."Sexual Abuse in Christian Homes and Churches", by Carolyn Holderread Heggen, Herald
Press, Scotdale, PA, 1993 p. 73

"The world holds two classes of men: intelligent men without religion, and religious men
without intelligence."
..........Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri

"I should like to see, and this will be the last and most ardent of my desires, I should like to see
the last king strangled with the guts of the last priest."
..........J. Messelier of Paris, dated 1733:

Faith; noun. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of
things without parallel."
..........Ambrose Bierce

"Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner
confessedly unworthy."
..........Ambrose Bierce

Scriptures; noun. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and
profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
..........Ambrose Bierce

"We would be 1,500 years ahead if it hadn't been for the church dragging science back by its
coattails and burning our best minds at the stake."
..........Catherine Fahringer

"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, dirty thing on the face of the earth and
you should save it for someone you love."
..........Butch Hancock

"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 Haye

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

"Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so."
..........Bertrand Russell

"If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced."
..........Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792-1822)

"A believer is not a thinker and a thinker is not a believer."
..........Marian Noel Sherman, M.D. Interview, Daily Colonist, c. 1969

The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
..........Friedrich Nietzsche

"Has science ever retreated? No! It is Catholicism which has always retreated before her, and
will always be forced to retreat."
..........Emile Zola (1840-1902), French novelist, from Rufus K. Noyes, Views of Religion

"The only difference between God and Adolph Hitler is that God is more proficient at
genocide."
..........(unknown)

"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 Competition. Is this not
an absolutely anti-intellectual religion?"
..........Frank Zappa

"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"

Better to be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of all misfortune.
..........Aristotle

If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little
electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.
..........Lenny Bruce

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My
idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own,
so both of them together is certain death.
..........George Carlin

I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy
nailed to two pieces of wood.
..........George Carlin

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

"It never ceases to amaze me at how many religions depend upon circumcised penises.
..........Dawn Henderson

"It's interesting to speculate how it developed that in two of the most anti-feminist institutions,
the church and the law court, the men are wearing the dresses."
..........Flo Kennedy

"If you love God, burn a church"
..........Jello Biafra (ex-Dead Kennedys singer)

If I had been the Virgin Mary, I would have said "No."
..........Margaret Smith