God is Imaginary!

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

NOTE: Updates are in bold. Latest update: May 7, 2008

PRAYER

“Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.” –Author Unknown

“The savage prays to a stone that he calls a god, while the Christian prays to a god he calls a spirit, and the prayers of both are equally useful.” –Robert G. Ingersoll

PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION

“All religions are the same. Religion is basically guilt with different holidays.” –Cathy Ladman

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
–Bertrand Russell

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” –Blaise Pascal

“Organized religion is like organized crime; it preys on peoples’ weaknesses, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost impossible to eradicate.” –Author Unknown

“You know you have created God in your own image, when you find that your God hates the same people that you do.” –Lois Wilson

BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIANS

“Why do born-again people so often make you wish they’d never been born the first time?” –Katherine Whitehorn

RATIONAL THINKERS

“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

“When I became convinced that the Universe is natural—that all the ghosts and gods are myth, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bards, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave.” –Robert G. Ingersoll

“Our society is in the grip of a perverse mindset. Those who uncritically accept unproven supernatural mythologies are revered as having reached the highest levels of morality. Those who courageously apply the faculties of reason and logical thought are looked upon as immoral and as embodying ultimate evil. The conscientious nonbeliever, incredibly noble in courage and in willpower to follow reason through to its ineluctable conclusions, is shunned rather than lauded.” –Edward Tabbash

“I have no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my reason; no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my heart; and, no matter how old it is, no matter how many have believed it, no matter how many have died on account of it, no matter how many live for it, I have no reverence for that book, and I am glad of it.” –Robert G. Ingersoll

“My young son asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth that most of us go to Hell and burn eternally but I didn’t want to upset him.” –Jack Handey

“Faith is a euphemism for prejudice and religion is a euphemism for superstition.” –Paul Keller

“God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That sir, is not free will. It would be akin to a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we call him a psychopath and cry out for his imprisonment/execution. When god says the same we call him “loving” and build churches in his honor.” –William C. Easttom II

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” –Bertrand Russell

“It is terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer needlessly while alive. That so much of this suffering can be directly attributed to religion—to religious hatreds, religious wars, religious delusions, and religious diversions of scarce resources—is what makes atheism a moral and intellectual necessity. It is a necessity, however, that places the atheist at the margins of society. The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.” –Sam Harris

THE BIBLE

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.” –Thomas Paine

“Citing the Bible as evidence for anything is like saying that the sun is in fact a chariot of fire that races across the sky because we read about it in Greek mythology.” –Stephen Ban

“What was it that Adam ate that he wasn’t supposed to eat? It wasn’t just an apple. It was the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The subtle message? ‘Get smart and I’ll fuck you over,’ sayeth the Lord. God is the smartest, and he doesn’t want any competition. Is this not an absolutely anti-intellectual religion?” –Frank Zappa

“All in all, I can’t say I believe in god. If, in fact, I ever find out that he does indeed exist, I think I’ll stay away from him, because if he’s responsible for half the things he gets credit for, he’s got to be one mean son of a bitch.” –Peter Gether

“The Bible is the greatest hoax in all history. The leading characters of the Old Testament would today be in the penitentiary and those of the New would be under observation in psychopathic wards.” –Charles Smith (1887-1964, U.S. attorney, author)

JESUS

“The Christian Mythologists tell us, that Christ died for the sins of the world, and that he came on purpose to die. Would it not then have been the same if he had died of a fever or of the small-pox, of old age, or of anything else?” –Thomas Paine

INTELLIGENT DESIGN

“Intelligent Design is a remarkably uncreative theory that abandons the search for understanding at the very point where it is most needed. If Intelligent Design is really a science, then the burden is on its scientists to discover the mechanisms used by the Intelligent Designer. And if those mechanisms turn out to be natural forces, then no supernatural force is necessary, and they can simply change their name to evolutionary scientists and get to work.” –Michael Shermer

APOLOGETICS

“To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy.”
–David Brooks

FAITH

“Faith is often the boast of the man who is too lazy to investigate.” –F.M. Knowles

“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

“The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance called ‘faith.’” –Robert G. Ingersoll

RELIGION IS DANGEROUS

“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 Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.” –Mark Twain

“During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after doing its duty in but a lazy and indolent way for 800 years, gathered up its halters, thumbscrews, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.” –Mark Twain

“Religious wars are basically people killing each other over who has the better imaginary friend.” –Author Unknown

“The fruits of Christianity were religious wars, butcheries, crusades, inquisitions, extermination of the natives of America, and the introduction of African slaves in their place.” –Arthur Schopenhauer

“A disturbing fact continues to surface in sex abuse research. The first best predictor of abuse is alcohol or drug addiction in the father. But the second best predictor is conservative religiosity, accompanied by parental belief in traditional male-female roles. This means that if you want to know which children are most likely to be sexually abused by their father, the second most significant clue is whether or not the parents belong to a conservative religious group with traditional role beliefs and rigid sexual attitudes.” –from Sexual Abuse in Christian Homes and Churches by Carolyn Holderread Heggen