"The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost their power of reasoning." [Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, 1764]

"God seems to have left the receiver off the hook and time is running out." [Arthur Koestler]

"Nobody has ever taken notable pains to locate the legendary heaven; but probably that is because nobody ever thought seriously of going to a heaven." [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"]

"What a queer thing is Christian salvation! Believing in firemen will not save a burning house; believing in doctors will not make one well, but believing in a savior saves men. Fudge!" [Lemuel K. Washburn, _Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays_]

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

"We will find you, we will try you, and we will execute you. I mean every word of it." [Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, at the Aug 8, 1995 U.S. Taxpayers Alliance Banquet in Washington DC, talking about doctors who perform abortions and volunteer escorts]

"Humans share 98.4 per cent of their DNA with the chimpanzee species."

"It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions , during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey." -- Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899), "Individuality"

"The glass, being topologically equivalent to a finite flat sheet, can be neither 'full' nor 'empty' : it may or may not have some beer balanced on it."

"The devil is only a convenient myth invented by the real malefactors of our world." [Robert Anton Wilson]

"What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer." [Bertrand Russell]

"In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides." [Heinrich Heine, Gedanken und Einfalle, Volume 10]

"The influences that have lifted the race to a higher moral level are education, freedom, leisure, the humanizing tendency of a better-supplied and more interesting life. In a word, science and liberalism- the two forces, fundamentally skeptical, that we have seen continuously at work in human progress- have accomplished the very things for which religion claims the credit." [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Outline of Bunk"]

"We are told that "all things are possible with God," and yet God cannot boil an egg in cold water." [Lemuel K. Washburn, _Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays_, 1911]

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." -- Denis Diderot, Dithyrambe sur la fête des rois

"If you're looking for a little background reading on scientific creationism, it's best not to take the word scientific too seriously. A three-year database search of 4,000 scientific publications -- focusing on the names of people associated with the Institute for Creation Research and on phrases and keywords such as 'creationism' -- didn't turn up a single paper. A follow-up study of 68 journals found that only 18 of 135,000 total manuscript submissions concerned scientific creationism, and all 18 were rejected. Reasons cited included 'flawed arguments,' 'ramblings,' and 'a high-school theme quality'." [Science 85 6(7):11, September 1985]

"If God dropped acid, would he see people?" [Steven Wright]

"However, they have not acquired a perfect mastery of the art of lying; they lie so clumsily and ineptly that anyone who is just a little observant can easily detect it. But for us Christians they stand as a terrifying example of God's wrath." [Martin Luther,"On the Jews and Their Lies",1543]

"Are there any heinous sins being committed today that could again fan the flames of God's righteous anger to the scorching point? Is there any need in today's world for men of the stamp of Phinehas? Could the bold daring of Cozbi and Zimri in parading before Moses as he wept over sin have any modern parallels? The righteous zeal of Phinehas did not permit him to stay his hand long enough to even ask Moses or the church leaders of the wisdom of his action. If any similar zeal be found among us today, occasion to exercise it will not be lacking." [Paul J. Hill, _Should We Defend Born And Unborn Children With Force?_, 1993, Defensive Action, Pensacola, FL, p. 4]

"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that *we* are the ones that need help?" -- Jon Stoll