It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon the book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do. And yet there are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemnly decide that this is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon the infamous laws of Jehovah. Robert G Ingersoll
It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge.
Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.
While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie. Robert G Ingersoll
In every religion the priest insists on five things. First, there is a God. Second, he has made known his will. Third, he has selected me to explain this message. Fourth, we will now take up a collection; and Fifth, those who fail to subscribe will certainly be damned. Robert G Ingersoll
The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down. Robert G Ingersoll
What has religion to do with facts? Nothing. Robert Ingersoll
If people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish – if a little more enlightened, religion would perish. Robert G Ingersoll
First, it is important to recognize of these theologies and ideologies are rooted in fear. The desire to define doctrines, erect barriers, establish borders, and segregate the faithful in a sacred enclave where the law is stringently observed springs from that terror of extinction which has made all fundamentalists, at one time or another, believe that the secularists were about to wipe them out. The modern world, which seems so exciting to a liberal, seems Godless, drained of meaning, and even satanic to a fundamentalist. If a patient brought such paranoid, conspiracy-laden, and vengeful fantasies to a therapist, he or she would undoubtedly be diagnosed as disturbed. Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God p368
The basis of the Northern Ireland state for 50 years has been religious hatred. By deliberately fostering a loathing for Catholics among the Protestant working class, the big landowners, industrialists and their British backers have clung to popular support.
Protestants have been given marginal privileges to distract them from unemployment and slum housing. They have been organised into bodies like the Orange Order, which every few years launches murderous attacks upon Catholic areas. Paul Foot & Brian Trench & Jimmy Grealy & Christ Harman, article August 1971 ‘Army Reign of Terror’
I remain an utter disbeliever in almost all that you consider the most sacred truths. I will pass over as utterly contemptible the oft-repeated accusation that sceptics shut out evidence because they will not be governed by the morality of Christianity ... I am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions. To the mass of mankind religion of some kind is a necessity. But whether there be a God and whatever be His nature; whether we have an immortal soul or not, or whatever may be our state after death, I can have no fear of having to suffer for the study of nature and the search for truth, or believe that those will be better off in a future state who have lived in the belief of doctrines inculcated from childhood, and which are to them rather a matter of blind faith than intelligent conviction. Alfred Russel Wallace, letter to brother-in-law 1861
The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief. Sigmund Freud
When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life. Sigmund Freud
7Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion. Arthur C Clarke, Credo 1991
You don’t believe in organized religion, yet a major theme in so many of your works seems to be a quest for God. Arthur C Clarke
You will find men like him in all of the world’s religions. They know that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy a religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistance of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now. Arthur C Clarke, Childhood’s End
Science is the only religion of mankind. ibid.
Religion’s in the heart, not in the knees. Douglas Jerrold, The Devil’s Ducat, 1830
Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest. Emile Zola
It is a mistake to suppose that God is only, or even chiefly, concerned with religion. William Temple
The time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all to make their dissent from religion known. John Stuart Mill
Religion to me has always been the wound, not the bandage. Dennis Potter, interview Melvyn Bragg 4th March 1994
In their religion they are so uneven,
That each one goes his own by-way to heaven. Daniel Defoe, 1660-1731, The True-Born Englishman
And all the plagues with which mankind are curst,
Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. ibid.
For that again is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency. Albert Ellis
The land had once enfranchised herself from this impertinent yoke of prelaty, under whose inquisitorious and tyrannical duncery no free and splendid wit can flourish. John Milton, The Reason of Church Government, 1642
To be still searching what we know not, by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we find it (for all her body is homogeneal and proportional), that is the golden rule of theology as well as in arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony in a church. John Milton, Areopagitica 1644
For it is with the mysteries of religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect. Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679, Leviathan
The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion. Denis Diderot
See this egg: it is with this that all the schools of theology and all the temples of the earth are to be overturned. Denis Diderot, Le Reve de l’Alembert
And [with] the guts of the last priest
Let’s shake the neck of the last king. Denis Diderot, Dithrambe Sur Fête de Rois
cf.
I remember, on this matter, the wish made once by an ignorant, uneducated man … He said he wished … that all the great men in the world and all the nobility could be hanged, and strangled with the guts of the last priest … I wish I could have the strength of Hercules to purge the world of all vice and sin, and to have the pleasure of destroying all those monsters of error and sin [priests] who make all the peoples of the world groan so pitiably. Jean Meslier
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. Jonathan Swift
Religion is the frozen thought of men out of which they build temples. Jiddu Krishnamurti cited Observer 22nd April 1928
The old beliefs will be brought back to honour again. The whole secret knowledge of nature, of the divine, the demonic. We will wash off the Christian veneer and bring out a religion peculiar to our race. Adolf Hitler
National Socialism is more than a religion; it is the will to create superman. Adolf Hitler
He who has seen National Socialism as only a political movement has seen nothing. For it is a religion. Adolf Hitler
I am constructing my religion from Parzival. Without any submissive posture only when one takes on the mantle of hero is it possible to serve God. Adolf Hitler