My most disturbing/funniest quotes:
The most merciful thing in the world ... is the inability of the human
mind to correlate all its contents.
-H. P. Lovecraft
Who is more responsible, the tyrant who oppresses the people, or the
people who produce the tyrant?
-Praxedis Guerrero
WHITE SUPERIORITY, n. The fond dream of those whose existence is the
strongest evidence against it.
-Robert Tefton
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
-Marcus Aurelius
One two three four Every night we pray for war. Five six seven eight
Rape. Kill. Mutilate.
-U.S. Marine Corps training chant, Camp Pendelton, 1989
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is
but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was
yesterday.
-Alexander Pope
Is god willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and
willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then
why call him god?
-Epicurus
There is no god; there is only the real world with its ugliness and
beauty and violence and peace and happiness and pain. If the world is to
be made beautiful and peaceful and happy, "God" won't do it. We will.
-Fred Woodworth
We should always be disposed to believe that which appears white is
really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides.
-St. Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises
The Bible is one of 27 books for which divine origin is claimed.
Christians deny the divinity of all bibles but their own. We [atheists]
deny the divinity of only one more than they do.
-Charles Smith
Little children who have begun to live in their mother's womb and have
their died, or who, having just been born, have passed away from the
world without the sacrament of holy baptism, must be punished by the
eternal torture of undying fire.
-St. Fulgentius
We preach peace, forgiveness, tolerance and love. We practice vengeance,
persecution, hatred and domination. My personal beliefs are supported
and validated by my convictions. Oh, and never forget .... my religion
is truth, yours is a lie.
-Paraphrased Defintition of Religion
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt
up after being drunk all night.
-Isaac Asimov
I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea
is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both
of them together is certain death.
-George Carlin
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.
-William C. Easttom II,
skeptic@icon.net
Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not
committing them?
-Jules Feiffer
Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a
monotheism can believe anything... just give him time to rationalize it.
-Robert A. Heinlein, JOB: A Comedy of Justice
...your belief in God is merely an escape from your monotonous, stupid
and cruel life.
-Krishnamurti
I thought, if I murdered them all, my family would all go to heaven, and
at least later on, I would have a chance to go to heaven; however, if I
committed suicide, it would be 100% automatic that I would go to hell.
-John List, who murdered his mother, wife and three children
The major contribution of Protestant thought to the knowledge of mankind
is its massive proof that God is a bore.
-H.L. Mencken
Jesus' last words on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?" hardly seem like the words of a man who planned it that way. It
doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure there is something wrong here.
-Rev. Donald Morgan
There is something feeble and a little contemptable about a man who
cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.
Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that
he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face
this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his
opinions are not real, he becomes furious when they are disputed.
-Bertrand Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics
More than half the college students polled in three states, including
California, said they are creationists who believe that God created Adam
and Eve, while about one-third believe in aliens, Big Foot and the lost
city of Atlantis. ...The poll results, released yesterday by Texas
researchers, also indicated that students who believe in creationism are
less likely to read books, tend to be more politically conservative and
have a lower grade-point average than students who dispute that God
created Earth in six days. ...Last fall, about 1000 students attending
colleges in Texas, Connecticut and California filled out detailed
questionnaire on their beliefs. ...In Texas, 71 percent of students said
they believe in the story of Adam and Eve, while 51 percent in
Connecticut and 47 percent in California said they believed in the
biblical first couple. An average of 44 percent of the students in the
three states said the story of Noah's Ark is true. About one-third of
all the students surveyed believed that Big Foot, a hairy man- like
creature reputed to live in the mountains of northwest America, actually
exists. An equal number believed in the lost city of Atlantis, a
legendary island of advanced civilization that supposedly sank into the
ocean. Thirty percent of the students responding to the survey said
aliens from outer space visited Earth in ancient times. Overall, 37
percent said they believed in ghosts, and 39 percent said it is possible
to communicate with the dead.
-San Francisco Chronicle, 3 November 1986 (UPI)
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
Prayer has no place in the public schools, just like facts have no place
in organized religion.
-School Superintendent on "The Simpsons" episode #100, 1994
Among mammals, a virgin birth (parthenogenesis) can only produce female
offspring, for chromosomal reasons. Messiahs are mammals. Therefore,
Jesus was... On the other hand, among turkeys, the chromosomal situation
is such that all products of virgin birth are males. So if Jesus was a
male, he might also have been... (Zindler's own punctuations)
-Frank Zindler, in a note to the debate Does god exist? with John Koster
Frisbeetarianism, n.: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up
on the roof and gets stuck.
Lieberman's Law: Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody
listens.
The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish
child, was propounded to me by my father: "What is it that hangs on the
wall, is green, wet -- and whistles?" I knit my brow and thought and
thought, and in final perplexity gave up. "A herring," said my father.
"A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!" "So hang it
there." "But a herring isn't green!" I protested. "Paint it." "But a
herring isn't wet." "If its just painted its still wet." "But -- " I
sputtered, summoning all my outrage, "-- a herring doesn't whistle!!"
"Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it hard."
-Leo Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that
procession but carrying a banner.
-Mark Twain
"Who is it laughing at man? Ivan! For the last time, once and for all,
is there a God or not? I ask for the last time." "And for the last time
I say there is no God." "Who is laughing at mankind, Ivan?" "It must be
the devil," answered Ivan smiling. "And the devil? Does he exist?" "No,
there's no devil either."
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
[Enterprise] is a level of quality science fiction we haven't seen since Flesh Gordon.
-Walter Sochack
As an obvious outsider, what is your opinion on the human race?
I can communicate with 2-year olds. I can communicate with dogs. I can
even communicate with ants. There are some fine points I can't get
across to an ant. For example, if I try to discuss orbital mechanics
with an ant, it's not going to follow the conversation. It wouldn't be
interested, anyhow. But roll a dead caterpillar over to an ant and it
gets their attention. The situation with transcendantly advanced god-beings
trying to communicate with mere humans would be similar.
-Bob Jenkins