atheostic reblogged
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 ten things he does not want you to do.. And if you do any of these ten 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 forever and ever 'til the end of time! ..But He loves you... and HE NEEDS MONEY!
George Carlin
In the early 19th century, church attendance in Western Europe started sliding down very, very sharply, and people panicked. They asked themselves the following question. They said, where are people going to find the morality, where are they going to find guidance, and where are they going to find sources of consolation?
And influential voices came up with one answer: They said culture. It's to culture that we should look for guidance, for consolation, for morality. Let's look to the plays of Shakespeare, the dialogues of Plato, the novels of Jane Austen. In there, we'll find a lot of the truths that we might previously have found in the Gospel of Saint John.
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
Benjamin Franklin
“If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them.”
Paul Henri Thierry d'Holbach
"To judge from the notions expounded by theologians, one must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to crowding hell."
Marquis de Sade
"I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose."
Orson Welles
Orson, buddy, this may quite possibly be the first ever quote of yours I don’t agree with.
And mainly because you don’t seem to understand that agnostic and atheist are not mutually exclusive terms (or agnostic and theist, for that matter!)
That’s okay, it’s a common enough misconception. I still love you.
I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.
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