20 "By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none." -- Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1931), actor and comedian

1265 "The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and the empiricist world views?" "No, unfortunately, there is not. Furthermore, a choice between them is unlikely to remain arbitrary forever. The assumptions underlying the two world views are being tested with increasing severity by cumulative verifiable knowledge about how the universe works" Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, (First edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 264.

2988 "We may define "faith" as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups, substitute different emotions." [Bertrand Russell]

2320 "When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to ensure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. He divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers and unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people who will be glorified and people who are damned." [Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why"]

1849 They found Noah's ark, but there was a sign on it: 'Made in Hong Kong' "

1635 "If there is a God, he is a malign thug." [Mark Twain]

2102 "We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me." [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"]

3182 "The religious superstitions of women perpetuate their bondage more than all other adverse influences." [Elizabeth Cady Stanton]

807 "He concluded the old coffee table was not really a coffee table at all, but rather the sacred Ark of the Covenant described in the Old Testament. How it got to New Jersey," he remarked, "God only knows."

1425 "The major argument going on among paleontologists dealing with the reptile/mammal transition is, where the hell do you draw the line? These things grade in sensibly into each other." Eugenie Scott in "Resolved: That evolutionists should acknowledge creation" _Firing Line_, 4 December 1997, p. 20.

533 "Press any key to continue or any other key to quit."

2676 Oh Lord please don't burn us don't kill or toast your flock Don't put us on the barbeque or simmer us in stock, Don't bake or baste or boil us or stir-fry us in a wok." Monty Python]

1281 "Possession of books denounced as heretical was made a criminal offense. Copies of such books were burned and destroyed. But in Upper Egypt, someone, possibly a monk from a nearby monastery of St Pachomius, took the banned books and hid them from destruction -- in the jar where they remained buried for almost 1,600 years." Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, (New York: Vintage, 1989), pp. xviii-xix.

1510 "... This brings us to our familiar resting place. The 'goodness' of God is different in kind from goodness as we comprehend it. To say that God's 'goodness' is compatible with the worst disasters imaginable, is to empty this concept of its meaning. By human standards, the Christian God cannot be good. By divine standards, God may be 'good' in some unspecified, unknowable way - but this term no longer makes any sense. And so, for the last time, we fail to comprehend the Christian God." George Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1989), p. 87.

94 " From whence, then, could arise the solitary and strange conceit that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependant on His protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die in our world, because, they say, one man and one woman had eaten an apple?" -- Thomas Paine

990 "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick

1020 "Why be born again, when you can just grow up?"

1106 "In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty; he is always in allegiance to the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own." -- Thomas Jefferson

235 "Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business." -- Norman Vincent Peale

619 "There is a theory which states that if anyone ever discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. There is another theory that states that this has already happened..."- Douglas Ad