... the swindle of life and the treachery of a God that can create disease and misery and crime – create things that men would be condemned for creating – that men would be ashamed to create. Mark Twain, cited Isabel Lyon journal 2nd February 1906
Leaving out the gamblers, the burglars, and the plumbers, perhaps we do put our trust in God after a fashion. But, after all, it is an over-statement.
If the cholera or black plague should come to these shores, perhaps the bulk of the nation would pray to be delivered from it, but the rest would put their trust in The Health Board. Mark Twain, Education and Citizenship speech
The best minds will tell you that when a man has begotten a child he is morally bound to tenderly care for it, protect it from hurt, shield it from disease, clothe it, feed it, bear with its waywardness, lay no hand upon it save in kindness and for its own good, and never in any case inflict upon it a wanton cruelty. God’s treatment of his earthly children, every day and every night, is the exact opposite of all that, yet those best minds warmly justify these crimes, condone them, excuse them, and indignantly refuse to regard them as crimes at all, when he commits them. Your country and mine is an interesting one, but there is nothing there that is half so interesting as the human mind. Mark Twain, Letter from the Earth
Man is a marvellous curiosity … he thinks he is the Creator’s pet … he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn’t it a quaint idea? ibid.
O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them – in spirit – we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen. Mark Twain, The War Prayer
If there is a God, he is a malign thug. Mark Twain
Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. Mark Twain
When nonbelievers look carefully at stories in the Old Testament about God’s relationship with his ‘children’, it can be difficult to avoid the conclusion that the relationship looks an awful lot like those which characterize abusive families.
The behavior, attitude, and demands of God in the Old Testament are very similar to the behavior, attitude, and demands made by abusive fathers and husbands. Austin Kline, board post 26th September 2007, ‘God as an Abusive Father’
If God is somehow guiding evolution and the development of the Earth and the planets, could He not have guided it in a way that had a little bit less famine and didn’t have Motor Neurone disease and cancer and all these other things? Kate Smurthwaite, The Big Questions: Is There Evidence for God?
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr 10th August 1787
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July, 1816
The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs. Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Smith 8th December 1822
God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed. Luis Bunuel
The process of non-thinking called faith. I’m a scientist and I believe there is a profound contradiction between Science and religious belief. There is no well demonstrated reason to believe in God. And I think the idea of a divine creator belittles the elegant reality of the universe. Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil? The God Delusion, Channel 4 2006
How do we explain the mysteries of life? Science has steadily overturned old religious myths about how all this came to be. Yet those who adhere to Judaism, Christianity or Islam still prefer to ignore reason, and have faith in their for ever unprovable omniscient creator. I had thought Science was rolling back religious belief but I was wrong. Far from being beaten, militant faith is on the march all across the world with terrifying consequences. As a scientist I am increasingly worried about how Faith is undermining Science; it’s something we must resist. Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil? The Virus of Faith
If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them? Who is God trying to impress? ibid.
They half-believe in the Bible. But how do they decide which parts to believe literally and which parts are allegorical? ibid.
Darwin removed the main argument for God’s existence. Richard Dawkins, interview Professor Richard Blakemore, Christianity: A History: God and the Scientists
The suggestion is that God in deciding to create life chose to do it in precisely the way that made it look as if He wasn’t there. ibid.
The Darwinian theory raises our consciousness to the fact that any God worthy of the name would have to be ... particularly demanding of the explanation he purports to provide. Richard Dawkins, interviewing Professor Steven Weinberg
I believe unlike some of my scientific colleagues that the question of the existence of God or gods – supernatural beings – is a scientific question. Whereas other scientists will say it’s nothing to do with science; science and religion occupy two quite separate majesteria and don’t overlap. I think they do overlap. Richard Dawkins v Alister McGrath, Oxford Literary Festival 2007
Why would He choose the one way which makes it look as though He doesn’t exist, which makes his own role completely superfluous? ibid.
The God theory is not just a bad theory, it turns out to be in principle incapable of doing the job required of it. Richard Dawkins, lecture An Atheist’s Call to Arms
I believe in God to exactly the same extent as I believe in fairies and unicorns. I can’t disprove any of them. But there’s no reason positively to believe in any of them. Richard Dawkins, interview Have Your Say
The first thing I might say is, Which God are you? ... The next question I would ask would be, Why did you conceal yourself so adequately? Did you deliberately go out of your way to make it look you didn’t exist? ibid.
I think people are getting a bit fed up with other people thrusting their imaginary friends down their throat. Richard Dawkins, interview Bill Maher 11th April 2008
I care passionately about the question whether there is a supernatural designer in the universe. Richard Dawkins, interviewing P Z Myers, 2008
Stein: So the Hebrew God, the God of the Old Testament, he doesn’t exist in your view?
Dawkins: Certainly, that would be a very unpleasant prospect. cited Professor Richard Dawkins, American Atheists Conference 2009
You cannot have complexity to build a computer, to build a second-life software to run us, unless the creatures that built that computer evolved ... Sooner or later regresses of that kind have to be terminated. You cannot suddenly invent complexity and intelligence. The only way to do it is to start from primeval simplify and work up gradually. Richard Dawkins, American Atheists Conference 2009
The God of the Gaps – the idea that if we find a place in science where science doesn’t have the knowledge to fill in the gap – then there is a tendency to say, Oh God must have done it. Richard Dawkins, Minnesota Radio 2008
It would be very surprising if this is the only planet in the entire universe where there’s life. And I think it would also be surprising if this is the only planet in the universe where there is intelligent life ... There could well be alien beings elsewhere in the universe that are so far ahead of us we would treat them as gods. ibid.