The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.

-John Adams, U.S. President

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

-John Adams, U.S. President

The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.

-John Adams, U.S. President

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.

-John Adams, U.S. President

But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed.

-John Adams, U.S. President

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

-John Adams, U.S. President

The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles.

-John Adams, U.S. President

Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is.

-Jean Anouilh, French dramatist and playwright

I was born a heretic. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

-Susan B. Anthony, U.S. reformer and suffragist

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

-Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire", French author and playwright

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

-Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire", French author and playwright

Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.

-Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire", French author and playwright

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

-Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire", French author and playwright

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

-Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American author

Creationists make it sound like a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

-Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American author

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

-Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American author

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, author and former evangelist

Truth does not have to be accepted on faith. Scientists do not hold hands every Sunday, singing, "Yes gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! Amen.

-Dan Barker, former evangelist and author

Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

-Ambrose Bierce

Redemption: Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sins through the murder of their deity against whom they sinned.

-Ambrose Bierce

Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.

-Ambrose Bierce

Impiety: Your irreverence toward my deity.

-Ambrose Bierce

Infidel: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.

-Ambrose Bierce

[Religion is] the daughter of hope and fear, explaining to ignorance the nature of the unknowable.

-Ambrose Bierce

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

-Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

-Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor

All religions have been made by men.

-Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor

Vain are the thousand creeds that move men's hearts, unutterably vain, worthless as wither'd weeds.

-Emily Bronte

Religion is just mind control.

George Carlin, comedian

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, Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist

I give money for church organs in the hope the organ music will distract the congregation's attention from the rest of the service.

Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist

They came with a Bible and their religion- stole our land, crushed our spirit... and now tell us we should be thankful to the 'Lord' for being saved.

Chief Pontiac, American Indian Chieftain

You say there is but one way to worship the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it?

Chief Red Jacket, Seneca Indian Chieftain

It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him.

Arthur C. Clarke, author

Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?

Arthur C. Clarke, author

Faith is believing something you know ain't true.

-Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist

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

-Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist

It (the Bible) is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.

-Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist

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

-Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist

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.

-Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist

I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- unless he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.

-Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist

If there is a God, he is a malign thug.

-Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist

To be an atheist requires strength of mind and goodness of heart found in not one of a thousand.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet, critic, journalist, philosopher

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment, to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure.

-Clarence Darrow, American lawyer

I believe that relgion is the belief in future life and in God. I don't believe in either. I don't believe in God as I don't believe in Mother Goose.

-Clarence Darrow, American lawyer

For myself, I do not believe in any revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.

-Charles Robert Darwin, English naturalist

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

-Charles Robert Darwin, English naturalist

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

-Denis Diderot, French encyclopedist

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
Priest: "No, not if you did not know."
Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"

-Annie Dillard, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Religion is all bunk.

-Thomas Edison, American inventor

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, American inventor

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.

-Thomas Edison, American inventor

Faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction- faith in fiction is a damnable false hope.

-Thomas Edison, American inventor

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 religion than it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

-Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist

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, German-born American physicist

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

-Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

-Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist

God is inconceivable, immortality is unbelievable, but duty is peremptory and absolute.

-George Eliot, author

The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, philosopher

As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, philosopher

I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies.

-Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father and inventor

Lighthouses are more helpful then churches.

-Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, author, and inventor

Revelation indeed had no weight with me.

-Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, author, and inventor

The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.

-Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, author, and inventor

When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

-Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, author, and inventor

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

-Sigmund Freud, Austrian-born psychologist

Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.

-Sigmund Freud, Austrian-born psychologist

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, American poet

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

-Robert Frost, American poet

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

-Robert Frost, American poet

They know that it is human nature to take up causes whereby a man may oppress his neighbor, no matter how unjustly. ... Hence they have had no trouble in finding men who would preach the damnability and heresy of the new doctrine from the very pulpit.

-Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer

So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would neither be created nor destroyed it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?

-Stephen Hawking, English scientist

One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics.

-Stephen Hawking, English scientist

History does not record anywhere or at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unkonwn without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

-Robert A. Heinlen, American science-ficiton author

Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proven innocent.

-Robert A. Heinlen, American science-ficiton author

All thinking men are atheists.

-Ernest Hemingway, American author

Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name. Thy kingdom nada, thy will be nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.

-Ernest Hemingway, American author

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, author

That it is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can provide evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts and in my opinion, is all that is essential to agnosticism.

-Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist

With soap, baptism is a good thing.

-Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer

The inspiration of the Bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it.

-Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer

Fear believes--courage doubts. Fear falls up the earth and prays--- courage stands erect and thinks. Fear is barbarism---courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, devils and ghosts. Fear is religion, courage is science.

-Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer

Hands that help are far better then lips that pray.

-Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer

Ministers say that they teach charity. That is natural. They live on hand-outs. All beggars teach that others should give.

-Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer

For the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. We are molded and fashioned by our surroundings.

 

Environment is a sculptor -- a painter.

 

If we had been born in Constantinople, then most of us would have said: 'There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.' If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana.

As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother is good enough for them.

-Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer

The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know.

-Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer

All who doubted or denied would be lost. To live a moral and honest life -- to keep your contracts, to take care of wife and child -- to make a happy home -- to be a good citizen, a patriot, a just and thoughtful man, was simply a respectable way of going to hell.

 

God did not reward men for being honest, generous and brave, but for the act of faith. Without faith, all the so-called virtues were sins. and the men who practiced these virtues, without faith, deserved to suffer eternal pain.

 

All of these comforting and reasonable things were taught by the ministers in their pulpits -- by teachers in Sunday schools and by parents at home. The children were victims. They were assaulted in the cradle -- in their mother's arms. Then, the schoolmaster carried on the war against their natural sense, and all the books they read were filled with the same impossible truths. The poor children were helpless. The atmosphere they breathed was filled with lies -- lies that mingled with their blood.

-Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer

Question with boldness even the existance of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

-Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat

Religions are all alike ­ founded upon fables and mythologies.

-Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

-Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat

Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man.

-Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat

The Christian God can be easily pictured as virtually the same as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, evil and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed, beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of the people who say they serve him. The are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites.

-Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat

On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.

-Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat

We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication.

-Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

-Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being of 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, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat

I wasn't raised Catholic, but I used to go to Mass with my friends, and I viewed the whole business as a lot of very enthralling hocus-pocus. There's a guy hanging upon the wall in the church, nailed to a cross and dripping blood, and everybody's blaming themselves for that man's torment, but I said to myself, 'Forget it. I had no hand in that evil. I have no original sin. Theres no blood of any sacred martyr an my hands. I pass on all of this.'

-Billy Joel, American musician

I believe that all important matters have to be settled here, not in the clouds somewhere after we kick off.

-Billy Joel, American musician

The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie-deliberate, contrived, and dishonest-but the myth-persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.

-John F. Kennedy, U.S. President

There is so much in the bible against which every insinct of my being rebels, so much so that I regret the necessity which has compelled me to read it through from beginning to end. I do not think that the knowledge I have gained of its history and sources compensates me for the unpleasant details it has forced upon my attention.

-Helen Keller, American lecturer

All contemporary religions and churches, all and every kind of religious organization, Marxism has always viewed as organs of bourgeois reaction, serving as a defense of exploitation and the doping of the working-classes.

-Nikolai Lenin, Russian revolutionary

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

-John Lennon, British songwriter and member of "The Beatles"

I don't believe in Jesus.

-John Lennon, British songwriter and member of "The Beatles"

The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.

-Abraham Lincoln, U.S. President

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.

-James Madison, U.S. President

In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.

-James Madison, U.S. President

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.

-James Madison, U.S. President

The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church.

-Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese and Spanish explorer

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, South African rock musician

The wretchedness of religion is at once an expression and a protest against real wretchedness. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people.

-Karl Marx, German economist and political philosopher

The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, humility, in a word all the qualities of the canaille.

-Karl Marx, German economist and political philosopher

Sunday school: A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

-H. L. Mencken, American publisher

Theology: The effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

-H. L. Mencken, American publisher

God is the...refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find no sanctuary in His arms, but...a kind of superiority, soothing to their...egos: He will set them above their betters.

-H. L. Mencken, American publisher

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

-H. L. Mencken, American publisher

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

O senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm and yet will make Gods by the dozen!

-Michel Eyqyem de Montaigne, French essayist

Faith means not wanting to know what is true.

-Freidrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

So long as the priest, that professional negator, slanderer and poisoner of life, is regarded as a superior type of human being, there cannot be any answer to the question: What is truth?

-Freidrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice: the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit; it is at the same time subjection, a self-derision, and self-mutilation.

-Freidrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

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, German philosopher

The most serious parody I have ever heard was this: In the beginning was nonsense, and the nonsense was with God, and the nonsense was God.

-Freidrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

There is no devil and no hell. Thy soul will be dead even sooner than thy body: fear therefore nothing any more.

-Freidrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call 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.

-Thomas Paine, American revolutionary

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

-Thomas Paine, American revolutionary

The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.

-Thomas Paine, American revolutionary

It is fear that first brought Gods into the world.

-Gallus Petronius, 1st Century Roman courtier

Faith is the commitment of one's consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof. A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is the equation of feeling with knowledge.

-Ayn Rand, Russian-born author

I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will--and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.

-Gene Roddenberry, Creator of Star Trek

Religion is based . . . mainly on fear . . . fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. . . . My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.

-Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, educator, mathemetician, and social critic

Fear is the parent of cruelty, therefore it is no wonder if religion and cruelty have gone hand-in-hand.

-Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, educator, mathemetician, and social critic

I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is none the less true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.

-Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, educator, mathemetician, and social critic

There is something feeble and contemptible about a man who cannot face life without the help of comfortable myths.

-Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, educator, mathemetician, and social critic

The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind.

-Marquis de Sade, French libertine

My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn't believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I'm agnostic.

-Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

-Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author

No gods, no masters.

-Margaret Sanger

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

-George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born English playwright

At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world.

-George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born English playwright

Why should we take advice on sex from the Pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't.

-George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born English playwright

If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced?

-Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet

God is the Asylum of Ignorance.

-Baruch Spinoza, Dutch-Jewish philosopher

The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstitions of the Christian religion.

-Elizabeth Cady-Stanton

The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation.

-Elizabeth Cady-Stanton

The bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire...Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up.

-Elizabeth Cady-Stanton

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

-Gloria Steinam, women's rights activist

It's an incredible con job when you think of it, to believe something now in exchange for life after death. Even corporations with all their reward systems don't try to make it posthumous.

-Gloria Steinam, women's rights activist

This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: The freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: Any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.

-John Steinbeck, American novelist

All religion is dumb. It's one big story they're feeding you so you'll behave on Earth. If there is a god, then he's a prick.

-Howard Stern, American radio personality

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, U.S. President

To regard Christ as God, and to pray to him, are to my mind the greatest possible sacrilege.

-Leo Tolstoy, Russian revolutionary

When we talk to god, it's prayer. When god talks to us, it's schizophrenia.

-Lily Tomlin, American actress

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

-Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter

The introduction of a Creator has done our independence no good.

-Gore Vidal, author

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

-Kurt Vonnegut, American author

The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.".

-George Washington, Revolutionary War General and U.S. President

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.

-George Washington, Revolutionary War General and U.S. President

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.

-Dr. James Watson, American biologist

Science is the record of dead religions.

-Oscar Wilde

A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say at the age of eighteen.

-Oscar Wilde

Truth in matters of religion is simply the opinion that has survived.

-Oscar Wilde

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.

-Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect

Cult: A religion with no political power.

-Tom Wolfe, American author

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, American musician