1403 "Life can be beautiful, profound, and awe-inspiring, even without an irate god threatening us with eternal torment." Judith Hayes, In God We Trust: But Which One? (Madison, WI: FFRF, 1997), p.

3239 "Why is it when we talk to God, we're said to be praying - but when God talks to us, we're schizophrenic?" [Lily Tomlin (b. 1939) American comedy actress]

3119 "I do not consider it a sign of divine love to consign to hell people who live good lives but make an honest mistake in belief" [Moshe Shulman]

3578 "Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law." -- Thomas Paine

2021 "i don't think evolution should be taught as a fact but as a theory that some people believe in. i don't really know about this though, i haven't thought about it really but there's no way it should be taught as the truth." [Mark Goodwin, on talk.origins, 10/17/1994]

248 "The elevation of PRIDE to the status of a sin was not a happenstance in Catholic theology, but rather a cold blooded calculated move that was necessary to enable the Church to control people. In order to bind them to Church authority, first it had to deprive them of their self respect."

390 "I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose." -- Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), from a speech given in Toronto, 1930

2882 "...if devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.... the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind." [Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged]

1501 "Justifying the claim that something does not exist is not quite the same as proving or having arguments that it doesn't, but it is what we are talking about. That is, we need not have a proof that God does not exist in order to justify atheism. Atheism is obligatory in the absence of any evidence for God's existence." Michael Scriven, "God and Reason" Critiques of God (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1997) p. 105.

2020 "'God works in many ways his wonders to perform.' But He's not a skillful mechanic. A man drives over a cliff and 'by a miracle' he only breaks his back. It would be more divine if he were a better driver and stayed on the road." [Paul Goodman]

1694 "In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka" and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!" [Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"]

2351 "It can therefore be said that, from the viewpoint of the doctrine of the faith, there are no difficulites in explaining the origin of man, in regard to the body, by means of the theory of evolution." [Pope John Paul II, April 16, 1986]

3217 "There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds." [Tennyson]

2262 "Ministers say that they teach charity. That is natural. They live on hand-outs. All beggars teach that others should give." [Robert G. Ingersoll]

850 "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."

1991 "Hey brother christian with your high and mighty errand, You're actions speak so loud I can't hear a word you're saying..." [Bad Religion]

589 "At the height of rush hour, people on the London underground actually say 'excuse me.' Imagine what would happen if you tried an insane stunt like that on the New York City subway. The other passengers would take it as a sign of weakness, and there'd be a fight over who got to keep your ears as a trophy." - Dave Barry

473 "Tinnitus is a pain in the neck"

1201 "There could hardly be a more unbearable--and more irrational-- world than one in which the most eminent specialists in each field were allowed to proceed unchecked with the realization of their ideals." --Friedrich Hayek in The Road to Serfdom

2857 "The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it." [Terry Pratchett, "Diggers"]