Quote of the Day

[Star Stuff]

There's no reason, in theory, why god's presence couldn't be measured or detected in some way. The only reason that believers claim that god can't be detected in this way is because god isn't detected, and so a vast and intricate rationale has to be devised to explain this vast, loving, eternal, all-powerful "something" which is, in every external, objective respect, indistinguishable from nothing.

[Star Stuff]

Most religions prophecy the end of the world and then consistently work together to ensure that these prophecies come true.

[Star Stuff]

The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance called faith.  (Robert Ingersoll)

[Star Stuff]

Q: How can you tell that your god is man-made?
A: If he hates all the same people you do.

[Star Stuff]

Christianity still practices virtual cannibalism by eating their god's body and drinking his blood during their rituals. They also venerate his execution by placing its depiction in a prominent position in their sanctuaries. Worshipers even go so far as to wear a miniature of the murder weapon as a necklace. Then, they have the temerity to complain about the violence depicted on television.

[Star Stuff]

Christian reference to 'God the Father' also poses a problem. Show me a father who wants his children prostrate before him, praying, pleading for mercy, worshiping him, and who then doles out rewards to the chosen submissive ones, and I'll show you a bad father.  (Sherwood Goozee)

[Star Stuff]

Why should I allow that same god to tell me how to raise my kids, who drowned his own?  (Robert Ingersoll)

[Star Stuff]

Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.  (Susan Ertz)

[Star Stuff]

He, who begins by loving Christianity better than truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.  (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

[Star Stuff]

And it is in his own image, let us remember, that man creates god.  (Havelock Ellis)

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If a man would follow today, the teachings of the old testament he would be a criminal.  If he would strictly follow the teachings of the new, he would be insane.  (Robert Ingersoll)

[Star Stuff]

Religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disorders; it is the mother of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind.  (Voltaire)

[Star Stuff]

Faith in the supernatural is a desperate wager made by man at the lowest ebb of his fortunes.  (George Santayana)

[Star Stuff]

The religious interpretations that compel Muslim women to wear the veil in secular countries where church and state have long been separated and where equality of the sexes is firmly established, reveals a mentality that is not content merely with veiling women, but seeks to shroud man, society, and life in general, to pull the veil over the eyes of reason itself.  (Adonis)

[Star Stuff]

Three quarters of the American population the truly believes in religious miracles. The numbers who believe in the devil, in resurrection, god does this and that – astonishing! These are numbers that you have nowhere else in the industrial world.  (Noam Chomsky)

[Star Stuff]

It seems to me that Christians worship the incredible shrinking god.  I mean at one time it was supposedly capable of flinging thousands of billions of galaxies into existence with a mere thought.  By the time of Noah, it was reduced to flooding an insignificant speck in the cosmos.  By the time of Moses, its best trick was moving a tiny portion of a minor sea aside for a short while.  By the time of Jesus, it has to send a delegate on its behalf who leaves behind only rumors that he was able to turn water into another beverage, or render himself extra buoyant. Now it counts as a miracle if a water stain grows mold that kind of looks like a bearded face which could be claimed to resemble this supposed delegate.

How much more pathetic can this god get?  How do Christians manage to sing praises of its glory and greatness without feeling like fools, or at best, like new parents gushing over their toddler's ability to make a pee.  (Kronk)

[Star Stuff]

I think I do understand god.  I actually think a good working definition of "atheist" is "one who understands what a god is".  It is like magic; once you understand how the trick is done it is no longer magic.  Understanding destroys faith.  (Mark Richardson)

[Star Stuff]

I live in a culture that wholeheartedly embraces the idea that man is inherently evil, and that human beings will not behave themselves unless they live their short lives under the constant threat of immanent and eternal agony.  Such a premise affects me very much; I have to live with these people, who one way or another are in constant fear of (not for) their own souls.  I don't want my children associating with people who are trained from birth to loathe themselves. It strikes me as very unhealthy.  (Elf Sternberg)

[Star Stuff]

If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

[Star Stuff]

A sacrifice is not a sacrifice by definition if you get back what you supposedly sacrificed.  At best, Jesus can be considered to have been inconvenienced for your sins.

[Star Stuff]

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)

[Star Stuff]

From what we now know about the cosmos, to think that all this was created for just one species among tens of millions of species who live on one planet circling one of a couple of hundred billion stars that are located in one galaxy among hundreds of billions of galaxies, all of which are in one universe among perhaps an infinite number of universes all nestled within a grand cosmic multiverse, is provincially insular and anthropocentrically blinkered.  Which is more likely: that the universe was designed just for us, or that we think the universe was designed just for us?  (Michael Shermer)

[Star Stuff]

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.  (Eric Hoffer)

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Faith does not give you the answers; it just stops you asking the questions.  (Frater Ravus)

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When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer.  (Stevie Wonder)

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Let me get this straight, you have "faith" in the existence of the most powerful being you can imagine, who's your best bud and who you can ask to do favors, and further, you have "faith" that when you die you don't actually cease to exist and become worm food, but your magical buddy invites you to come live with him in the most wonderful place you can imagine, and yet we are the ones for whom truth has become "whatever works for you" or "whatever makes you feel good"?  (Bob Enweiven)

[Star Stuff]

In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken”, and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it, it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that has happened in politics or religion.  (Carl Sagan) 

[Star Stuff]

I missed yesterday, so here's two:


I have endeavored to dissipate these religious superstitions from the minds of women, and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at last that peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church.  (Elizabeth Cady Stanton)


Faith is believing what you know ain't so.  (Mark Twain)

[Star Stuff]

Men create the gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.  (Aristotle)