"Whatever we cannot easily understand we call God; this saves much wear and tear on the brain tissues. --Edward Abbey"

True, in the case of people who have a primitive, anthropomorphic understanding of "God", as they choose to call it.

"All thinking men are atheists. --Ernest Hemingway"

Patently and grossly untrue. But Hemingway wasn't perfect.

"When I think of all the harm [the bible] has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it. --Oscar Wilde"

Yeah, I can certainly sympathize with that.

"Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have no imagination? --George Bernard Shaw"

Hmm. I don't know. Must one? I have no answer to that.

"Faith is when you believe in something that no one in their right mind would believe. --Archie Bunker"

No, faith is when you believe in something you cannot yet prove, and MANY in their right mind may believe similarly as you about it...or not...depends what it is, and who they are.

"She was a good Christian woman with a large respect for religion, though she did not, of course, believe any of it was true. --Flannery O'Connor"

For sure. She was concerned about fitting in to the society at the time. People are like that.

"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities. --Voltaire"

Yeah, that sounds very likely to me too.

"It is a curious thing...that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste. -- Evelyn Waugh"

That's amusing! ;-) It's witty. But it's not necessarily true. Some creeds promise reincarnation. Others promise a return to not a paradise, but a featureless void where all individuality ceases to be. Others promise no return whatsoever, but focus on life HERE and NOW.

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. --Blaise Pascal"

Sounds good, but it is equally true of men with extreme political convictions (like Pol Pot or Mao Tse Tung) AND men who are after a whole lot of fast MONEY! Al Capone was cheerful in his convictions too.

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

For awhile......! But not forever.

"In some awful, strange, paradoxical way, atheists tend to take religion more seriously than the practitioners. --Jonathan Miller"

That's true! Good point, Jonathan.

"The religions of mankind must be classed among the mass-delusions of this kind. No one, needless to say, who shares a delusion ever recognizes it as such. --Sigmund Freud"

Yeah. Freud had a few delusions of his own too...he had some truly weird ideas about male and female motivations. "Penis envy" is one that merits a good laugh, I think.

"I prayed for freedom twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. --Frederick Douglass"

Well, Duh! Ever heard the expression, "God helps those who help themselves."?

"I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of ever religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." --Barry Goldwater"

Good for you, Barry. I'm right with you on that.

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. --George Bernard Shaw"

This depends on what the believer believes IN, doesn't it? Someone who believes he's going to hell is NOT happy! (p.s. I don't believe in Hell).

"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe. --Carl Sagan"

True. That's the trouble with George Bush. Well, it's one of the troubles with George Bush. ;-)

"When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday--cash me out. --Frank Sinatra"

I cashed Sinatra out a long time ago. But I'd have to agree with him on that one 100%.

"The churches have no confidence in each other. Why? Because they are acquainted with each other. --Robert Green Ingersoll"

Ha! LOL! Devastating. I agree wholeheartedly.

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. --Richard Francis Burton"

Sounds about right to me. ;-)

"If ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, knowledge of nature is made for their destruction. --Percy Bysshe Shelley"

That's an interesting one. I'm sure that any god someone made could also be destroyed, all right.

"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. --Clarence Darrow"

BLOODY RIGHT! Children should question EVERYTHING.

"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? --Mark Twain"

I'll agree with Mark Twain on that. Good point.

"Accustom a people to believe that priests, or any other class of men, can forgive sins, and you will have sins in abundance. --Thomas Paine"

DAMN BLOODY RIGHT!!!!!!

"With soap, baptism is a good thing. --Robert Green Ingersoll"

Yeah, I guess....but I have no concerns about the practice of baptism one way or another. Them as wants it can have it, I guess.

"In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist. --Albert Camus"

Yes..........and?

"Certainty about the next life is simply incompatible with tolerance in this one. --Sam Harris"

Who's certain about it??????

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

Possibly, depending on who you look at it, I guess. Personally, I can say that it definitely had that effect on me more than once when I read this or that passage. There's some totally weird stuff in the Bible, and I do not consider it my spiritual guidebook.

"All gods are dead except the god of war. --Eldredge Cleaver"

Not true. The God of Money is alive and well, as are a whole bunch of other Gods that I listed a couple of days ago. The God of nationalism is another. Then there are the Gods of fame, youth, good looks, and being seen as a "winner". They're all very much alive.

"Once miracles are admitted, every scientific explanation is out of the question. --Johannes Kepler"

There are no miracles, only certain natural events as yet not understood.

"Religion provides the solace for the turmoil it creates. --Byron Danelius"

For some, that is true.

"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. --George Santayana"

Yeah. Observe Bush in Iraq. But HAS he forgotten his aim? That's the question.

"Its hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. --Bill Watterson"

Ha! No, it isn't. It's just hard to be satisfied when they aren't.

"If triangles made a god, they would give him three sides. --Montesquieu"

Yes! And if rabbits made a god, he'd have big floppy ears, and no one would nibble on Sunday.

"We are punished by our sins, not for them. --Elbert Hubbard"

Eloquently put. I agree entirely.

"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. --James Baldwin"

Most people do tend to deny death. I don't. I expect to die, probably within the next 10 to 15 years, and maybe sooner. I don't particularly mind dying when the time comes. It's one of the most obvious eventualities I can possibly name, and I have no doubt that it's going to happen.

"One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it. --Bertrand Russell"

LOL! Ever the wit, Bertrand. Nice one. ;-)

"Let me alone. Good day. --Thomas Paine on his deathbed when asked by a clergyman if he would like to confess before Christ"

Right on. I can definitely relate to Tom Paine on that one.

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See? I agreed with most of that too. Whatcha gonna do now?