1719 "To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature." [Diderot]

2248 "I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not." [Robert G. Ingersoll]

3054 "Two recent surveys rate the United States at the top among Western nations in belief in God and at the bottom among six major countries in school kids' understanding of science and math. This could be dismissed as chance, but it shouldn't be. While our economic competitors' schools are teaching students advanced math and science, many of our schools are wasting energy debating whether to teach evolution or creationism, which maintains that God created the universe over a six-day period about 6,000 years ago." [Bill Mandel, San Francisco Examiner, 12 February 1989]

2894 "The old faiths light their candles all about, but burly Truth comes by and puts them out." [Lizette Reese]

517 "Ethernet: Something used to catch the EtherBunny."

1596 "So, if the Bible is our sole source of knowledge about God's will, we have no way of knowing what to do in many moral situations." C. Stephen Layman, The Shape of the Good: Christian Reflections on the Fondation of Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1991), p. 42.

2237 "An honest god is the noblest work of man. ... God has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume." [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Gods", 1879]

372 "Skepticism -- Reasonable doubt!"

548 "Todays UNIX command: "EXSOP" = Execute System Operator."

1312 "There is no religious experience which guarantees that our experience is an experience of God. This can be asserted without for a moment doubting that some people have religious experiences. The psychological reality of such experience is one thing, that these experiences are actually experiences of God is another." Kai Nielsen, Philosophy and Atheism (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1985) p. 46.

5 "Faith means not wanting to know what is true." -- Nietzsche

3580 "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

2895 "The `wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned." [Chief Justice William Rehnquist]

98 "The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." -- W. Churchill, Nov 21, 1943

1934 "How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?" [Woody Allen]

2479 "Even if I knew nothing of the atoms, I would venture to assert on the evidence of the celestial phenomena themselves, supported by many other arguments, that the universe was certainly not created for us by divine power: it is so full of imperfections." [Lucretius, "On the Nature of the Universe"]

2588 "If any person shall Blaspheme the name of God, the Father, Sonne or Holie Ghost, with direct, expresse, Presumptious or high handed blasphemie, or shall curse God in the like manner, he shall be put to death. Lev. 24:15,16" [Massachusetts' "Body of Liberties" of 1641, Section 94]

1573 "In physics terms, creation ex nihilo appears to violate both the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics is equivalent to the principle of conservation of energy: the total energy of a closed system is constant; any energy change must be compensated by a corresponding inflow or outflow from the system. Einstein showed that mass and energy are equivalent, by E = mc^2. So, if the universe started from 'nothing,' energy conservation would seem to have been violated by the creation of matter. Some energy from outside is apparently required." Victor J. Stenger

291 "If you can't Imagine a better world, you can't change this one."

307 "In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." -- Bertrand Russell