7akeem Web - Quotes

قالوا عن الدين

The Raving Atheist هذه الاقوال مقتبسة من أحد المواقع الانجليزية ---
حكيم

These quotes are atheistic in nature, although the people who said them may be agnostics and a few are theists. Sometimes we have to speculate if someone is an atheist from what they say alone because they to not advertise their lack of faith for whatever reason. I think Galileo is a good example. Read his “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina” and it will be obvious that he is an atheist; he leaves little doubt because he touches upon so many facets of atheistic thinking, and only does so subtly enough not to immediately be called into question… but I digress.

Enjoy the quotes (from mostly well-known people) and do mention if any of them are off somehow. I have found some errors before and corrected them, and this made me hesitant to post these for a long time, but I think I’ve seen most of these either multiple times or from reputable sources. Have fun.

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires." ~Susan B. Anthony

“It is a heretic that makes the fire, not she which burns in it.” ~Shakespeare

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." ~Thomas Jefferson

"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies." ~Thomas Jefferson

"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man." ~Thomas Jefferson

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." ~Thomas Jefferson

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." ~James Madison

"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity." ~John Adams

"Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1500 years." ~John Adams

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." ~John Adams

“No falsehood is so fatal as that which is made an article of faith.” ~Thomas Paine

"My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them." ~Abraham Lincoln

"I do not believe in the divinity of Christ, and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe." ~William Howard Taft

“Politics is not religion and we should govern on the basis of evidence, not theology.” ~Bill Clinton

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." ~Karl Marx

"Faith is believing something you know ain't so." ~Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." ~Mark Twain

"Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of." ~Mark Twain

"Our Bible reveals to us the character of our god with minute and remorseless exactness... It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light and leading by contrast" ~Mark Twain

"If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be -- a Christian." ~Mark Twain

“The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.” ~Mark Twain

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” ~Mark Twain

"A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows." ~Mark Twain

"O Lord our God, help us 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 their 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 . . ." ["The War Prayer"] ~Mark Twain

"Man is a marvelous 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." ~Mark Twain

"So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk." ~Thomas Edison

"I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul.... No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life... our desire to go on living... our dread of coming to an end." ~Thomas Edison

"The idea of God was not a lie but a device of the unconscious which needed to be decoded by psychology. A personal god was nothing more than an exalted father-figure: desire for such a deity sprang from infantile yearnings for a powerful, protective father, for justice and fairness and for life to go on forever. God is simply a projection of these desires, feared and worshipped by human beings out of an abiding sense of helplessness. Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity. It had promoted ethical values which were essential to society. Now that humanity had come of age, however, it should be left behind." ~Sigmund Freud

"Neither in my private life nor in my writings, have I ever made a secret of being an out-and-out unbeliever. " ~Sigmund Freud

"It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be." ~Sigmund Freud

"Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis." ~Sigmund Freud

"The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life." ~Sigmund Freud

"I don't believe in God, so I'm not afraid of dying." ~B.F. Skinner

“Gods are children's blankets that get carried over into adulthood.” ~James Randi

"Nostradamus himself confessed that the vague manner in which he wrote his "prophecies" was so that 'they could not possibly be understood until they were interpreted after the event and by it.'" ~James Randi

“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.” ~Saul Bellow

"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means." ~George Bernard Shaw

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." ~Albert Einstein

"Thus I came...to a deep religiosity, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached a conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true.... Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience...an attitude which has never left me." ~Albert Einstein

"I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it." ~Albert Einstein

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism." ~Albert Einstein

"All thinking men are atheists." ~Ernest Hemingway

"I do not believe in a personal God." ~Stephen Hawking

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” ~Steven Weinberg (physicist and Nobel Laureate)

When asked how he would explain a "genuine mystical experience," Carl Sagan responded: "Your question presupposes the existence of a genuine mystical experience and I'm not sure what that is. People have vivid hallucinations. How do you distinguish between altered states of consciousness?"

"It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but rather that the Gods are the dreams of men." ~Carl Sagan

“Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science?” ~Carl Sagan

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." ~Carl Sagan

"The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window." ~Stephen King

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." ~Benjamin Franklin

"No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter ... than you and I; and all religion ... is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry." ~Edgar Allen Poe

“The pioneers and missionaries of religion have been the real cause of more trouble and war than all other classes of mankind.” ~Edgar Allan Poe

"Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men." ~Voltaire

"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." ~Voltaire

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." ~Voltaire

"The first clergyman was the first rascal who met the first fool" ~Voltaire

"Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror." ~Voltaire

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

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~Epicurus

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca “the Younger”

"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence." ~Bertrand Russell

“Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do.” ~Bertrand Russell

“It is impossible to exaggerate the evil work theology has done in the world.” ~Lydia Maria Child

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness". ~James K. Galbraith

“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.” ~Eric Hoffer

"The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation." ~Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none." ~Charlie Chaplin

“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." ~Christopher Hitchens, in Mommy Dearest

"You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, intelligent enough." ~Aldous Huxley

"I don’t believe in God. My god is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life." ~Andrew Carnegie

"The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic." ~Charles Darwin

“I don't have anything against organized religion per se. We all need something in our lives. I personally just have not accepted that belief. But I'm one of the few.” ~Lance Armstrong, seven-time Tour de France winner

“Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, "yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it.” ~Dan Barker, ex-preacher

“Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits.” ~Dan Barker

"I'm glad some people have that faith. I don't have that faith. If there is a God, a caring God, then we have to figure he's done an extraordinary job of making a very cruel world." ~Dave Matthews

"If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine- but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you've been bad or good- and CARES about any of it- to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working." ~Frank Zappa

"The Bible is not the Word of God. If God exists, I believe he would take less offense at my not believing in his existence than to believe that he/she performed the atrocities ascribed to him by the authors of the Bible." ~Kyle Kelly

“Peace on Earth? Not as long as there are religions.” ~Judith Hayes

“Imagine there's no heaven; it's easy if you try
No hell below us, above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today ...
Imagine there's no countries; it isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace....”
~John Lennon (Imagine)

“The man hates superstition but he believes in God.
I think that's inconsistent, I think that's really odd.
When you believe in things that you don't understand then you suffer.
Superstition ain't the way.”
~Stevie Wonder (Superstition)

“Superstition applies to the faith in the supernatural. Christians, Jews and Islamics don't want to acknowledge that they are superstitious but there's simply no way around it. They are superstitious by the very meaning of the word.” ~Spatch Pentameter

“Religion is the original pseudo-science.” ~David Rand

“The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.” ~Delos B. McKown

“The creationists have this creator who is evil, who is small-minded, who is malevolent, and who is not very bright and can't even get his science right. Creationists have made their creator in their own image, in my view.” ~Professor Ian Plimer

“Reason and faith are opposites, two mutually exclusive terms: there is no reconciliation or common ground. Faith is belief without, or in spite of, reason.” ~George H. Smith

“All propositions of faith--regardless of their specific content--are irrational. To believe on faith is to believe in defiance of rational guidelines, and this is the essence of irrationalism.” ~George H. Smith

“It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” ~William Kingdon Clifford

“No theologian could ever be a historian. History is essentially disinterested. The historian has only one concern: art and truth, ...whereas the theologian has something else at stake- his dogma.” ~Joseph Ernest Renan

“The Bible is not the verbally inspired, inerrant word of God; it is just a collection of contradictory, discrepant books that were written by superstitious ethnocentrics who thought that the hand of God was directing the destiny of the Hebrew people.” ~Farrell Till (former minister and missionary for the Church of Christ)

“If faith cannot be reconciled with rational thinking, it has to be eliminated as an anachronistic remnant of earlier stages of culture and replaced by science dealing with facts and theories which are intelligible and can be validated.” ~Erich Fromm

“A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.” ~James Feibleman

“We would be 1,500 years ahead if it hadn't been for the church dragging science back by its coattails and burning our best minds at the stake.” ~Catherine Fahringer

“The faithful just don't seem to realize the possibility that when they get no answers to their prayers, or when things turn out contrary to their prayers, that perhaps, just perhaps, there is no god to answer them.” ~Ignots Pistachio

“Nothing kills religion better than peace. It's no wonder why religious leaders honor war.” ~Ignots Pistachio

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." ~Freidrich Nietzsche

"All religions bear traces of the fact that they arose during the intellectual immaturity of the human race – before it had learned the obligations to speak the truth. Not one of them makes it the duty of its God to be truthful and understandable in his communications." ~Freidrich Nietzsche

“Gods always behave like the people who created them.” ~Zora Neale Hurston

"By the year 2000, we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God." ~Gloria Steinam

“Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Give a man a religion and he'll starve to death praying for a fish.” ~Judith Bandsma

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile." ~Kurt Vonnegut

“How on earth can religious people believe in so much arbitrary, clearly invented balderdash?....The acceptance of a creed, any creed, entitles the acceptor to membership in the sort of artificial extended family we call a congregation. It is a way to fight loneliness. Any time I see a person fleeing from reason and into religion, I think to myself, There goes a person who simply cannot stand being so goddamned lonely anymore.” ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

“I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.” ~George Carlin

“But I want you to know, I want you to know something, this is sincere, I want you to know, when it comes to believing in god -- I really tried. I really, really tried. I tried to believe that there is a god who created each one of us in his own image and likeness, loves us very much and keeps a close eye on things. I really tried to believe that, but I gotta tell you, the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize -- something is FUCKED-UP. Something is WRONG here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is NOT good work. If this is the best god can do, I am NOT impressed. Results like these do not belong on the resume of a supreme being. This is the kind of shit you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently run universe, this guy would have been out on his all-powerful-ass a long time ago.” ~George Carlin

“When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself.” ~Peter O'Toole

“Evolution: Observation -> Hypothesis -> Testing -> Debate
Creationism: Fiction -> Asserting -> Insisting -> Twisting Facts -> Torturing”
~Penn & Teller's "Bullshit" on Showtime

“I'm sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don't think there's any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock.” ~Howard Stern

"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet." ~Napoleon Bonaparte

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

"All religions have been made by men." ~Napoleon Bonaparte

“Men willingly believe what they wish.” ~Julius Caesar

“Religion is a disease promoted by starvation, because hungry people hallucinate, and then pray for food. This is why so many religions encourage fasting: it weakens the mind.” ~Arthur C. Clarke

"I don't think we're here for anything, we're just products of evolution. You can say 'Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don't think there's a purpose' but I'm anticipating a good lunch." ~James Watson (Discoverer of DNA)

“The biggest advantage to believing in God is you don't have to understand anything, no physics, no biology... I wanted to understand.” ~James Watson

“Science improves with time. Religion improves by dying out.” ~Quandong Loonata

"Science is the record of dead religions." ~Oscar Wilde

“The world holds two classes of men- intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.” ~Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the same extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." ~H.L. Mencken

"Since the early days, [the church] has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was an apologist for the divine right of kings." ~H.L Mencken

"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable . . . A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass: he is actually ill." ~H.L. Mencken

"God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters." ~H.L. Mencken

"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration--courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth." ~H.L. Mencken

“We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.” ~Gene Roddenberry

“This doctrine of the material efficacy of prayer reduces the Creator to a cosmic bellhop of a not very bright or reliable kind.” ~Herbert J. Muller

“The Romans killed Jesus on the cross. His death on the cross saved us from our sins. Therefore, we should worship the Romans.” ~Earle Jones

“One man's religion is another mans' belly laugh.” ~Isaac Asimov

“Anger is the common substitute for logic among those who have no evidence for what they desperately want to believe.” ~Isaac Asimov

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other gods you will understand why I dismiss yours.” ~Stephen F. Roberts

“The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.” ~Matthew Arnold

"My mission is to see things as they are. Exactly contrary of a mission." ~Emile Mihai Cioran

"The inspiration of the Bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it." ~Robert G. Ingersol

"Hands that help are far better then lips that pray." ~Robert G. Ingersol

“Human love is generous and noble. The love of God is selfish, because man does not love God for God's sake, but for his own.” ~Robert G. Ingersoll

“If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory of mankind, nothing of value would be lost.” ~Robert Ingersoll

“Every fact is an enemy of the church. Every fact is a heretic. Every demonstration is an infidel. Everything that ever really happened testifies against the supernatural.” ~Robert G. Ingersoll

“A believer is a bird in a cage. A freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.” ~Robert Ingersoll

“No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.” ~Karl Popper

“You do not reason a man out of something he was not reasoned into.” ~Jonathan Swift

“He who will not reason, is a bigot; He who cannot, is a fool;
And he who dares not, is a slave.” ~William Drummond

“Every man, who reasons, soon becomes and unbeliever.” ~Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

“The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short circuit destroying the mind.” ~Ayn Rand

“People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.” ~Dave Barry

“My mother's best argument for being confirmed was, 'what if you want to marry a catholic, and he wants a real church wedding?' As if I could fall in love with and marry a Christian! There is no way that I could respect a man who fell for superstition and blind faith in a violent, awful deity enough to marry him. And children? As if I could willingly raise my children to be that way... it would be like intentionally retarding them.” ~Michelle Roberts

"When engaged in discussion with an eminent theologian. "What inference," asked the theologian, "might one draw about the nature of God from a study of his works?" biochemist John Haldane replied: "An inordinate fondness for beetles." ~John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

“Coincidence and numerology exert an eerie fascination upon us, in large part because so many people so thoroughly misunderstand probability. “ ~Stephen Jay Gould

“We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a higher answer -- but none exists.” ~Stephen Jay Gould

“Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof.” ~Ashley Montague

“Nothing fails like prayer.” ~Annie Laurie Gaylor

"I turned to speak to God, about the world's despair; But to make bad matters worse, I found God wasn't there." ~Robert Frost

"Forgive, O Lord, my little joke on Thee and I'll forgive Thy great big one on me." ~Robert Frost

“The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue, are complete skeptics in religion.” ~John Stuart Mill

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

"The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good." ~Some Guy

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

"The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good." - ~Some Guy

"Whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." ~Jesus Christ

I've recently noticed "as if for the first time" that when people pray they always look "upward" -- i.e. perpendicular to whatever place they're standing -- or kneeling or groveling. I deduce that they conceive of their "god" as topologically isomorphic to a huge donut, about a thousand miles wider than Earth. ~R.A. Wilson

"A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." ~Fred Hoyle (British astrophysicist)

"Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word." ~George Ellis (British astrophysicist)

"There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming". ~Paul Davies (British astrophysicist)

"The laws [of physics] ... seem to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design... The universe must have a purpose". ~Paul Davies

"I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing." ~Alan Sandage (winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy)

"We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in." ~John O'Keefe (astronomer at NASA)

"As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?" ~George Greenstein (astronomer)

"The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory." ~Arthur Eddington (astrophysicist)

Arno Penzias (Nobel prize in physics): "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say 'supernatural') plan."

"I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance." ~Roger Penrose (mathematician and author)

"When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it's very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it." ~Tony Rothman (physicist)

"The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine." ~Vera Kistiakowsky (MIT physicist)

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." ~Robert Jastrow (self-proclaimed agnostic)

"Then we shall… be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God." ~Stephen Hawking (British astrophysicist)

"When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics." ~Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics)

"We know that nature is described by the best of all possible mathematics because God created it." ~Alexander Polyakov (Soviet mathematician)

"Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God – the design argument of Paley – updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one.... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument." ~Ed Harrison (cosmologist)

"As to the cause of the Universe, in context of expansion, that is left for the reader to insert, but our picture is incomplete without Him [God]." ~Edward Milne (British cosmologist)

"Who created these laws? There is no question but that a God will always be needed." ~Barry Parker (cosmologist)

"This type of universe, however, seems to require a degree of fine tuning of the initial conditions that is in apparent conflict with 'common wisdom'." ~Drs. Zehavi, and Dekel (cosmologists)

"It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious. . . . I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life." ~Arthur L. Schawlow (Professor of Physics at Stanford University, 1981 Nobel Prize in physics)

"The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, 'So that's how God did it.' My goal is to understand a little corner of God's plan." ~Henry "Fritz" Schaefer (Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia)

"I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science." ~Wernher von Braun (Pioneer rocket engineer)

"Life in Universe - rare or unique? I walk both sides of that street. One day I can say that given the 100 billion stars in our galaxy and the 100 billion or more galaxies, there have to be some planets that formed and evolved in ways very, very like the Earth has, and so would contain microbial life at least. There are other days when I say that the anthropic principal, which makes this universe a special one out of an uncountably large number of universes, may not apply only to that aspect of nature we define in the realm of physics, but may extend to chemistry and biology. In that case life on Earth could be entirely unique." ~Carl Woese (microbiologist from the University of Illinois)

"It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design." ~Antony Flew (Professor of Philosophy, former atheist, author, and debater)

It should not be believed that all beings exist for the sake of the existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of something else." ~Maimonides

"It is no accident that the symbol of a bishop is a crook, and the sign of an archbishop is a double-cross." ~Gregory Dix

"Life should be lived so vividly and so intensely that thoughts of another life, or of a longer life, are not necessary." ~Marjory Stoneham Douglas

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts." ~Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"That natural reality is assumed rather than explained, is not proof for the existence of a creator. Introducing god as an explanatory notion only shifts the focus of the question: why would such a god exist? And, it is possible that the universe just happens to exist, without explanation." ~Willem B. Drees

"Assure a man that he has a soul and then frighten him with old wives' tales as to what is to become of him afterward, and you have hooked a fish, a mental slave." ~Theodore Dreiser

"Sincerity is all that counts. It’s a widespread modern heresy. Think again. Bolsheviks are sincere. Fascists are sincere. Lunatics are sincere. People who believe the earth is flat are sincere. They can’t all be right. Better make certain that you’ve got something to be sincere about and with." ~Tom Dribert

"I learned how valuable our Constitution is and how valuable the separation of church and state is." ~Cynthia Dwyer ( American hostage held in Iran 444 days)

"The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nature does all things spontaneously, by herself, without the meddling of the gods." ~Lucretius

"Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived." ~Oscar Wilde

"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned." ~George Bernard Shaw

"A theologian is like a blind person in a dark room searching for a black cat which isn't there -- and finding it!" ~George Bernard Shaw

"The Bible was written by the same people who said the Earth was flat." ~George Bernard Shaw

"The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality." ~George Bernard Shaw

"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand." ~Bertrand Arthur William Russell

"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today." ~Isaac Asimov

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

"If the Prodigal Son's a parable, and if Adam and Eve are metaphors, then maybe God is just figure of speech." ~Dan Barker

"If the answers to prayer are merely what God wills all along, then why pray?" ~Dan Barker

"The next time believers tell you that 'separation of church and state' does not appear in our founding document, tell them to stop using the word 'trinity.' The word 'trinity' appears nowhere in the bible. Neither does Rapture, or Second Coming, or Original Sin. If they are still unfazed (or unphrased) by this, then add Omniscience, Omnipresence, Supernatural, Transcendence, Afterlife, Deity, Divinity, Theology, Monotheism, Missionary, Immaculate Conception, Christmas, Christianity, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Methodist, Catholic, Pope, Cardinal, Catechism, Purgatory, Penance, Transubstantiation, Excommunication, Dogma, Chastity, Unpardonable Sin, Infallibility, Inerrancy, Incarnation, Epiphany, Sermon, Eucharist, the Lord's Prayer, Good Friday, Doubting Thomas, Advent, Sunday School, Dead Sea, Golden Rule, Moral, Morality, Ethics, Patriotism, Education, Atheism, Apostasy, Conservative (Liberal is in), Capital Punishment, Monogamy, Abortion, Pornography, Homosexual, Lesbian, Fairness, Logic, Republic, Democracy, Capitalism, Funeral, Decalogue, or Bible." ~Dan Barker

"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?" ~Dan Barker

"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?" ~Ernest Gaines

“Life arose here on earth from inanimate matter, by some kind of evolutionary process, about four billion years ago. This is not a statement of demonstrable fact, but an assumption almost universally shared by specialists as well as scientists in general. It is not supported by any direct evidence.” p. 236. ~From evolutionist Franklin Harold’s book, The Way of the Cell.

“It is important to acknowledge the degree to which this field of inquiry is founded on surmise. The reasons for the general consensus are, first, the lack of a more palatable alternative; and second, that absent the presumption of a terrestrial and natural genesis there would be no basis for scientific inquiry into the origin of life.” p. 237. ~From evolutionist Franklin Harold’s book, The Way of the Cell.

“It bears repeating that we know very little for certain, and that it is seldom possible to formulate hypotheses that can be falsified by experiment; the opinions of scholars are, therefore, colored by personal beliefs about what should have happened, and even by what is meant by life.” p. 239. ~From evolutionist Franklin Harold’s book, The Way of the Cell.

“A historical theory must account for historical events, and in truth there is not (and perhaps cannot be) convincing evidence that there was ever a rich broth of organic substances, or that it played the role assigned to it by the theory.” p. 244. ~From evolutionist Franklin Harold’s book, The Way of the Cell.

“Creation myths lie at the heart of all human cultures, and science is no exception; until we know where we came from, we do not know who we are. The origin of life is also a stubborn problem, with no solution in sight … Biology textbooks often include a chapter on how life may have arisen from non-life, and while responsible authors do not fail to underscore the difficulties and uncertainties, readers still come away with the impression that the answer is almost within their grasp.” p. 235-236. ~From evolutionist Franklin Harold’s book, The Way of the Cell.

“What is life? How we answer that question must eventually impinge on the practice of medicine and law, influence what we teach our children, nudge the direction of economics and public policy, and color our attitude to man, God, and all ultimate concerns.” p. 253.From evolutionist Franklin Harold’s book, The Way of the Cell.

"I feel that since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them, and since God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, they have a choice." ~Doxology on bibleforums.org, in response to the question, "Will Amazon natives burn in hell?"

And what if we picked the wrong religion? Every week, we're just making God madder and madder! ~Homer Simpson

God: Thou hast forsaken My Church!
Homer: [in fear] Uh, kind-of... b-but...
God: But what!
Homer: I'm not a bad guy! I work hard, and I love my kids. So why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell?
God: [pause] Hmm... You've got a point there.
~The Simpsons

"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." ~John Lennon

Well, even the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. ~Shakespeare

"Everyone knows the best bands are affiliated with Satan." ~Bart Simpson

'If the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls sports, such as hot oil wrestling, foxy boxing, and such and such.' ~Homer Jay

"Everyone knows the best bands are affiliated with Satan." ~Bart Simpson