The following quotations are from a wonderful collection by J. Eric Harrington that I found at . The page no longer exists, and J. Eric, blessed be his name, seems to have disappeared as well. "Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night." "I believe the spreading of Catholicism to be the most horrible means of political and social degradation left in the world." "We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing, all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes." "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish." "Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy." "Faith is to the human what sand is to the ostrich." "Religious experiences are like those induced by drugs, alcohol, mental illness, and sleep deprivation: They tell no uniform or coherent story, and there is no plausible theory to account for discrepancies among them." Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven. What a weapon! Religious faith deserves a chapter to itself in the annals of war technology, on an even footing with the longbow, the warhorse, the tank, and the hydrogen bomb. Mystical explanations are considered deep. The truth is that they are not even superficial. Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That sir, is not free will. It would be akin to a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we call him a psychopath and cry out for his imprisonment/execution. When god says the same we call him loving and build churches in his honor. Prayers never bring anything They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy — but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world is just as base as to use force. Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Doubt everything. Find your own light. I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! No actual tyrant known to history has ever been guilty of one-hundredth of the crimes, massacres, and other atrocities attributed to the Deity in the Bible. The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don't like that statement, but few can argue with it. The fruits of Christianity were religious wars, butcheries, crusades, inquisitions, extermination of the natives of America, and the introduction of African slaves in their place. If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it — the life of that man is one long sin against mankind. It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good, and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring. Jesus' last words on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?", hardly seem to be the words of a man who planned it that way. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure there is something wrong here. Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis. [when asked by Napoleon why he had not mentioned God in his Mecanique Celeste] The Belief that man is outfitted with an immortal soul, differing altogether from the engines which operate the lower animals, is ridiculously unjust to them. The difference between the smartest dog and the stupidest man — say a Tennessee Holy Roller — is really very small, and the difference between the decentest dog and the worst man is all in favor of the dog. The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church. They came with a Bible and their religion — stole our land, crushed our spirit and now tell us we should be thankful to the 'Lord' for being saved. What, me worry about the historical Jesus? The gospel writers made up their story; the church fathers invented the virgin birth on the winter solstice; the pope thought up the immaculate conception; so I can imagine any damn thing I please about Jesus, or the Spook, or about the big guy himself. You say there is but one way to worship the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? All this [Paul the Apostle's writing] is nothing better than the jargon of a conjurer who picks up phrases he does not understand to confound the credulous people who come to have their fortune told. Christianity: Safer than a lobotomy, but just as effective. Could a being create the fifty billion galaxies, each with two hundred billion stars, then rejoice in the smell of burning goat flesh? Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan, the Fascisti, and Mr. Winston Churchill? Really I am not much impressed with the people who say: "Look at me: I am such a splendid product that there must have been design in the universe." I am not very impressed by the splendor of those people. Therefore I think that this argument of design is really a very poor argument indeed. To command the professors of astronomy to confute their own observations is to enjoin an impossibility, for it is to command them not to see what they do see, and not to understand what they do understand, and to find what they do not discover. If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction. 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. The decline in American pride, patriotism, and piety can be directly attributed to the extensive reading of so-called 'science fiction' by our young people. This poisonous rot about creatures not of God's making, societies of 'aliens' without a good Christian among them, and raw sex between unhuman beings with three heads and God alone knows what sort of reproductive apparatus keeps our young people from realizing the true will of God.