Your Favourite A&A & Religion Related Quotes

strobe

I love a good quote thread me, so let's have them...

"The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god)."

-Terry Pratchett 'Small Gods'

"A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on."

- Terry Pratchett 'The Truth'

"SCIENCE: A way of finding things out and then making them work. Science explains what is happening around us the whole time. So does RELIGION, but science is better because it comes up with more understandable excuses when it is wrong. There is a lot more Science than you think."

- Terry Pratchett 'Wings'

"My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests. "

- George Santayana

"I would like a feckless tyrant of a deity. He must have created us for his own petty reasons, he must be bitter and jealous, cruel and inconsistent! No rule too trivial, no transgression too petty, no mammal too terrified for this omnipotent space-child to devote His entire awesome and belligerent attention to it. Quick is His judgment, excessive are His punishments and eternal are their consequences.

But that's not enough!

His horror would be far too mundane were it out in the open! It cannot be enough for this sanguine sociopath to be feared, no. Like a child with a gun, He still wants to be loved. All this terror and catastrophe and death must be cloaked in the puerile rhetoric of love and duty and forgiveness. He must make it clear that he loves us as he dooms us. He must demand unconditional devotion from us while making it clear that His love for us is highly conditional. Woe be to humanity! I want a devastating chimerical combination of Stalin and Idi Amin as my God. I want all to bow in eternal night before the feet of the dread-father.

Yes my friends, I want to be a Christian."

- Zillah

Mark Hamill

The Patrician took a sip of his beer. 'I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.'

Terry Pratchett "Unseen Academicals"

Ickle Magoo

Tecumseh -

When Jesus Christ came upon the Earth, you killed Him. The son of your own God. And only after He was dead did you worship Him and start killing those who would not.

H. L. Mencken -

Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration--courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.

Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -

I refuse to prove that I exist" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing." "Oh," says man, "but the Babel Fish is a dead give-away, isn't it? It proves You exist, and so therefore You don't. Q.E.D." "Oh, I hadn't thought of that," says God, who promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

Isaac Asimov -

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.

Edmond de Goncourt -

If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.

Huang Po -

The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.

And one of my absolute favourites:

George W. Bush -

I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job.

liamw

Emo Philips wrote:

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.

:pac:

GLaDOS

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means.

Clarence Darrow

Daftendirekt

Always liked this one:

Douglas Adams wrote:

Now it is such a bizarrely impossible coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful [as the Babel fish] could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God. The arguement goes something like this:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't though of that" and promply vanishes in a puff of logic.

Genghiz Cohen

:eek::(:mad::cool::P:mad::(:rolleyes::mad::):pac:;)

J C

Dades

Any variation of:

Denis Diderot wrote:

Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

Talk about visceral!

Zillah

I got referenced

Upon being asked to renounced Satan on his deathbed Voltaire said "This is no time to make new enemies."

Also from Voltaire; "Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool."

Someone had this in their signature, don't remember who. I think it might have been Pratchet originally: "One day when I was a young boy on holiday I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."

Mark Hamill

Zillah wrote: »

Someone had this in their signature, don't remember who. I think it might have been Pratchet originally: "One day when I was a young boy on holiday I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."

It was in my signature and I got it from Pratchett (i already posted it above in post 3). Had to remove it before, as apparently it was too long, have new edited version, hopefully it will stick around longer

legspin

Zillah wrote: »

I got referenced

Upon being asked to renounced Satan on his deathbed Voltaire said "This is no time to make new enemies."

Also from Voltaire; "Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool."

Someone had this in their signature, don't remember who. I think it might have been Pratchet originally: "One day when I was a young boy on holiday I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."

It was Pterry. He put these word in the mouth of Havelock Vetinari.

mikhail

"An atheist doesn't have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that there can't be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that the evidence on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf question." - John McCarthy

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen Roberts

"The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one." - George Bernard Shaw

"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge." - Albert Einstein

iUseVi

legspin wrote: »

It was Pterry. He put these word in the mouth of Havelock Vetinari.

Ahh. I knew I recognised it. Quality stuff.

Zillah

Mark Hamill wrote: »

(i already posted it above in post 3)

I'm rarely so retarded.

Ronanc1

Christianity- the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

this always made me smile

lynski

So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you.

from the bible, but as good a source as any for humanist quotes

liah

“We atheists do not believe in gods, or angels, or demons, or souls that endure, or a meeting place after all is said and done where more can be said and done and the point of it all revealed. We don’t believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.”

Flamed Diving

Scofflaw wrote: »

The whole point is moot, of course, since these animals were mutating every 3.5 hours anyway, while trying to get from Ararat to their eventual 'destinations' quickly enough to leave no fossil traces of their passing - in the case of the koala bears, down to Australia and across the Wallace Line along with every single other marsupial, presumably carrying eucalyptus seeds. I pity them, for they had only tiny little leggies, and thousands of miles to travel.

Scofflaw, on the post-flood experience of the Arks inhabitants. From the B,C&P thread.

Stercus Accidit

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58022217&postcount=3

This Zillah post was one of my favourites, I had this linked in my sig back when it was first posted.

A very funny tear down of some hackneyed arguments.

5uspect

A couple of years ago Schulart, I think, summed up the whole debate excellently.
I've searched and yet I cannot find the post.

It went something like this:

A Christian, an Agnostic and an Atheist are sitting in a car.
The car is going nowhere but the Christian is making engine noises.
The Agnostic isn't sure if this will help and the just Atheist gets out of the car.

I haven't done it justice.

Daftendirekt

Two more well-known ones I just thought of, don't know who said them originally though.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

robindch

From the Devil's Dictionary:

Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbors.

Convent, n. A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to meditate upon the vice of idleness.

Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.

Ghoul, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead. The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class of controversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world of comforting beliefs than to give it anything good in their place. In 1640 Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence and frightened it away with the sign of the cross. He describes it as gifted with many heads and an uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in more than one place at a time. The good man was coming away from dinner at the time and explains that if he had not been "heavy with eating" he would have seized the demon at all hazards. Atholston relates that a ghoul was caught by some sturdy peasants in a churchyard at Sudbury and ducked in a horsepond. (He appears to think that so distinguished a criminal should have been ducked in a tank of rosewater.) The water turned at once to blood "and so contynues unto ys daye." The pond has since been bled with a ditch. As late as the beginning of the fourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral at Amiens and the whole population surrounded the place. Twenty armed men with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and captured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the stratagem, had transformed itself to the semblance of a well known citizen, but was nevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst of hideous popular orgies. The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed was so affected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed himself in Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.

robindch

Some Guy wrote:

If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease.

.

checkyabadself

This isn't 100% accurate, but I always loved this one "good people do good things, bad people do bad things. It takes religion for good people to do bad things"

"Religion is great for keeping common people quiet"- Napolean (again not sure of accuracy, can't get copy/paste to work on the iPhone.)

The best quote on here has to be from Zillah, he has some beauties, that should be put together in a book, or a quote of the day style calendar
His quote was in reaction to a poster on here who was facing difficulty from an American friend of his who was now an episcopalean and a lesbian criticising his atheism.

Zillah -"I loathe that woman with he heat of a thousand suns"

I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

antiskeptic

checkyabadself wrote: »

"Religion is great for keeping common people quiet"- Napolean (again not sure of accuracy, can't get copy/paste to work on the iPhone.)

You mean this Napoleon?

Well then, I will tell you. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him. . . . I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these were men, and I am a man; none else is like Him: Jesus Christ was more than a man. . . . I have inspired multitudes with such an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me . . . but to do this is was necessary that I should be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke to them, I lightened up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts. . . . Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all its powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him, experience that remarkable, supernatural love toward Him. This phenomenon is unaccountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man's creative powers. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred flame; time can neither exhaust its strength nor put a limit to its range. This is it, which strikes me most; I have often thought of it. This it is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

It's not your starting position that counts in the Kingdom of God, it's where you finish in your response to the question: "who do you say Jesus is?"


http://www.godtheoriginalintent.com/PDF%20Chapters/Napoleon%20Bonaparte.pdf

sonicthebadger*

antiskeptic wrote: »

You mean this Napoleon?




It's not your starting position that counts in the Kingdom of God, it's where you finish in your response to the question: "who do you say Jesus is?"


http://www.godtheoriginalintent.com/PDF%20Chapters/Napoleon%20Bonaparte.pdf

You mean Napoleon the megalomaniac mass murderer? At least he loved Jesus though hey?

antiskeptic

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

You mean Napoleon the megalomaniac mass murderer?

Source?

sonicthebadger*

antiskeptic wrote: »

Source?

Ha ha ha!

antiskeptic

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

Ha ha ha!

I thought as much..

sonicthebadger*

antiskeptic wrote: »

I thought as much..

You thought as much what?

Ickle Magoo

antiskeptic wrote: »

Source?

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,396485,00.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2946017

http://www.economist.com/culture/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15905807

Or perhaps one of the thousands of other google entries that a quick search of "napoleon, magalomaniac" brings back?

sonicthebadger*

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,396485,00.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2946017

http://www.economist.com/culture/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15905807

Or perhaps one of the thousands of other google entries that a quick search of "napoleon, magalomaniac" brings back?

You mean skeptic was serious? How does one carve out a military empire except by bloodshed? Why does one bother except for power?

I'm going to assume skeptic was joking cause I think he's worthy of that assumption.

Ickle Magoo

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

You mean skeptic was serious? How does one carve out a military empire except by bloodshed? Why does one bother except for power?

I'm going to assume skeptic was joking cause I think he's worthy of that assumption.

I think skeptic has a bit of a thing about sources when stumped for an actual reply, this isn't the first thread I've seen him demanding sources for something that is common knowledge in lieu of response...

sensibleken

Though not specifically derogatory, from Tom Lehrer's amazing song 'The Vatican Rag'

'Two! Four! Six! Eight! Time to transubstantiate!'


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f72CTDe4-0

kiffer

asking for source is ok, even for things that are common knowledge... Simply because common knowledge can be wrong.
Though now I'd like a source on why anyone would think he wasn't a megalomaniac...

Ickle Magoo

kiffer wrote: »

asking for source is ok, even for things that are common knowledge... Simply because common knowledge can be wrong.
Though now I'd like a source on why anyone would think he wasn't a megalomaniac...

Asking for sources, fine. Asking for sources as way of responding to a post without responding to the points made within...bit obvious.

kiffer

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Asking for sources, fine. Asking for sources as way of responding to a post without responding to the points made within...bit obvious.

yeah... Looks like abit dodge alright...

antiskeptic

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

You thought as much what?

I thought that when asked to undergird your statement in some way that you wouldn't do it. Napoleon isn't recognised as a mass murderer which means that there is a bit more onus on you to support yourself than the case where I quoted Pol Pot or Jack the Ripper.

antiskeptic

kiffer wrote: »

asking for source is ok, even for things that are common knowledge... Simply because common knowledge can be wrong.
Though now I'd like a source on why anyone would think he wasn't a megalomaniac...

Aren't we losing sight of the original point: an atheist quotes an admirer of Jesus as a way of underlining the atheist position regarding Christ/Religon.

Hole-in-foot territory that

sonicthebadger*

antiskeptic wrote: »

I thought that when asked to undergird your statement in some way that you wouldn't do it. Napoleon isn't recognised as a mass murderer which means that there is a bit more onus on you to support yourself than the case where I quoted Pol Pot or Jack the Ripper.

How is it, do you suppose, that he created his empire? Just interested to know how you think he might have managed it.

antiskeptic

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,396485,00.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2946017

http://www.economist.com/culture/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15905807

Or perhaps one of the thousands of other google entries that a quick search of "napoleon, magalomaniac" brings back?

Did you actually read that Time article? Is that what you call a "source" for the position held? It says virtually nothing about the subject under discussion and quotes a single sentence from Napoleon himself.

Or did you simply do a quick google and post the first couple of hits?

antiskeptic

sonicthebadger* wrote: »

How is it, do you suppose, that he created his empire? Just interested to know how you think he might have managed it.

The device utlilised was "war". Going to war doesn't make you a mass murder. Ask any general.

Dades

Unless there is to be a wholesale cleanup - people better get back to favourite quotations. Bickering about the intent of quotations/utterers is going to become yawn very soon.

Or if there is to be a debate, let it be by referenced quotation only.
i.e. A quotation fight.

Fair thee be warned.

sonicthebadger*

antiskeptic wrote: »

The device utlilised was "war". Going to war doesn't make you a mass murder. Ask any general.

Source?


Back on topic...

Kiss the feet of Popes provided their hands are tied.

Napoléon Bonaparte.

Obni

A quick round of applause for Seth McFarlane for having the courage to go where so many other comedians won't dare.

From Family Guy, Mayor Adam West berates Brian for being an atheist:
"I'd rather have a terrorist living in our midst. At least they believe in a God. Even if it's a smelly brown god."

I nearly did permanent damage to myself laughing at that.....

checkyabadself

antiskeptic wrote: »

You mean this Napoleon?




It's not your starting position that counts in the Kingdom of God, it's where you finish in your response to the question: "who do you say Jesus is?"


http://www.godtheoriginalintent.com/PDF%20Chapters/Napoleon%20Bonaparte.pdf

It's just a religion related quote that I liked, I never claimed it was said by an atheist, I just liked how short and sweet it was.

Ickle Magoo

Douglas Adams:

"I don’t accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me “Well, you haven’t been there, have you? You haven’t seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid” - then I can’t even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we’d got, and we’ve now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don’t think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don’t think the matter calls for even-handedness at all. "

Malari

A zoology-themed favourite of mine from Jared Diamond:

"If the Creator had indeed lavished his best design on the creature he shaped in his own image, creationists would surely have to conclude that God is really a squid"

Mark Hamill

Malari wrote: »

A zoology-themed favourite of mine from Jared Diamond:

"If the Creator had indeed lavished his best design on the creature he shaped in his own image, creationists would surely have to conclude that God is really a squid"

A quote reminicent of that:

Haldane was engaged in discussion with an eminent theologian. 'What inference,' asked the latter, 'might one draw about the nature of God from a study of his works?' Haldane replied: 'An inordinate fondness for beetles.'

Malari

Mark Hamill wrote: »

A quote reminicent of that: 'An inordinate fondness for beetles"

Same as myself

sonicthebadger*

Texas BoE chairman Don McLeroy wrote:

Somebody's gotta stand up to experts.

Says it all really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzrUt9CHtpY