"Quantum mechanics is so counter-intuitive, physicists have never been able to come up with a comfortable picture of how it works." Taner Edis, Is Anybody Out There?

"It is important to distinguish between the moral witness of religious people who speak out strongly about an issue that offends their moral conscience, and the use of religion as a strategic means to advance the fortunes of a particular party or candidate." Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore, "Is God a Republican?" The American Prospect September-October 1996.

"If we have that basic core and we have identified people, this was the power of every machine that has ever been in politics. You know, the Tammany Halls and Hague and the Chicago machine and the Byrd machine in Virginia and all the rest of them. They have identified a core of people who have bought into their values whatever they were, and they worked the election and brought out people to vote. The other people were diffuse and fragmented and they lost and the people that had the core won." Pat Robertson, Sept 13, 1997

"Physicists use 'God' as a metaphor more often than other scientists---especially in popular writing, but in the technical literature as well. Of course, this is just a metaphor for order at the heart of confusion. A rational or aesthetic pattern underlying reality is far from a theistic God." Taner Edis, Is Anybody Out There?

"Religion is a terrific meme. That's right. But that doesn't make it true and I care about what's true. Smallpox virus is a terrific virus. It does it's job magnificently well. That doesn't mean it's a good thing. It doesn't mean that I don't want to see it stamped out." -- Richard Dawkins

"The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!" -- Bill Watterson's Calvin.

"To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man." [Michael Servetus]

Jesus loves you all, and can't wait to control you like a small household pet

"The fruits of Christianity were religious wars, butcheries, crusades, inquisitions, extermination of the natives in America, and the introduction of African slaves in their place." -- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

"Everywhere in the world there are ignorance and prejudice, but the greatest complex of these, with the most extensive prestige and the most intimate entanglement with traditional institutions, is the Roman Catholic Church." -- H.G. Wells

"One does well to put on gloves when reading the New Testament. The proximity of so much uncleanliness almost forces one to do this." [Fredrich Nietzsche]

"As an active Humanist for almost fifty years, I am astonished at the wild statements of LaHaye and Wine. Humanists have unfortunately remained a minority in the United States. The American Humanist Association has never had more than 6,000 members, and that number at present is aproximately 3,000. The AHA has no more than half a hundred small chapters throughout the country. Of course, there is quite a large number of Humanists who do not belong to the AHA, and multitudes more who do not realize they are Humanists and multitudes more who do not even know the word. Our philosophy (or religion) does wield considerable does wield considerable influence throughout the civilized world; Humanists would indeed rejoice if it possessed the powers ascribed to it by the Moral Majority." Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism (Seventh ed., New York: Continuum, 1990), p. x.

"The army that will defeat terrorism doesn't wear uniforms, or drive Humvees, or calls in air-strikes. It doesn't have a high command, or high security, or a high budget. The army that can defeat terrorism does battle quietly, clearing minefields and vaccinating children. It undermines military dictatorships and military lobbyists. It subverts sweatshops and special interests.Where people feel powerless, it helps them organize for change, and where people are powerful, it reminds them of their responsibility." -- unknown _ "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pense'es, #894.

"The state (the U.S. Constitution) has not the right to leave every man free to profess and embrace whatever religion he may desire." [Pope Pius IX]

"To Believe without evidence and demonstration is an act of ignorance and folly." [Volney]

The only mortals who ever entered Barad-dur and came back unharmed in body and soul were a pair of Iluvatar's Witnesses. Only days after their visit Sauron realized that the "Minas Tirith" he had bought from them was only a pamphlet.

"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane." -- Robert G. Ingersoll

"There is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a power independent of and superior to nature, and that is by breaking, if only for one moment, the continuity of cause and effect. Pluck from the endless chain of existence one little link; stop for one instant the grand procession and you have shownbeyond all contradiction that nature has a master. Change the fact, just for one second, that matter attracts matter, and a god appears.

The rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always demanded the evidence of miracle. The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine -- cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. In times of ignorance this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle -- that is to say, a violation of nature -- that is to say, a falsehood.

No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of nature.

The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one of its intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. We are told that nature has a superior. Let this superior, for one single instant, control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertions." [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872]

"Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life." - Terry Pratchett

At a recent PTL convention, the hotel reported that over 80% of the conventionites watched at least one x-rated movie on the hotel's ppv cable...