©2008-2012 Roedy Green, Canadian Mind ProductsQuotations are selected from this pool (and other quotation pools) in a pseudorandom way every hour and inserted at the top and bottom of some of the major pages on this website. Feel free to copy any of these quotes and paste them for whatever purpose you please.
I once heard the voice of God. It said “Vrrrrmmmmm.” Unless it was just a lawn mower.
~ Age 11
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
~ Revelation 11:18 warning the Robertsons that God will destroy them for destroying the earth.
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
~ Job 12:7
And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
~ Revelation 14:3-4
And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body ; and the young men laid hold on him:And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.
~ Mark 14:51-52
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
~ Ezekiel 16:49That describes the USA to a tee. It is insanely conceited. It consumes the lion’s share of the earth’s resources and invades other countries to steal even more. It has exported its jobs so it no longer produces anything. It is the stingiest developed country on the planet in terms of per capita foreign aid, and treats its own poor with utter contempt.
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
~ Leviticus 20:13
(literal word for word translation)
And a man who will lie down the man the woman’s naps abomination he does both-of-them death he will die their blood in them.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
~ Matthew 7:15
If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!
~ Clark Adams (born: 1969-07-23 died: 2007-05-21 at age: 37)
[God] puts an apple tree in the middle of [the Garden of Eden] and says, do what you like guys, oh, but don’t eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting “Gotcha.” It wouldn’t have made any difference if they hadn’t eaten it… Because if you’re dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won’t give up. They’ll get you in the end.
~ Douglas Adams (born: 1952-03-11 died: 2001-05-11 at age: 49) Author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Last Chance to See
A man didn’t understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box, manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. “But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?”.
~ Douglas Adams (born: 1952-03-11 died: 2001-05-11 at age: 49) Author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Last Chance to See
He hoped and prayed that there wasn’t an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn’t an afterlife.
~ Douglas Adams (born: 1952-03-11 died: 2001-05-11 at age: 49) Author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Last Chance to See
I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.
~ Douglas Adams (born: 1952-03-11 died: 2001-05-11 at age: 49) Author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Last Chance to See
Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
~ Douglas Adams (born: 1952-03-11 died: 2001-05-11 at age: 49) Author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Last Chance to See
Religion has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is “Here is an idea or notion that you are not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not. Why not? — because you’re not.” If somebody votes for a party you don’t agree with, you’re free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument, but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down, you are free to have an argument about it. But on the other hand, if somebody says “I mustn’t move a light switch on Saturday” you say, “I respect that.”Why should it be that it’s perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows — but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe… no, that’s holy?… We are used to not challenging religious ideas but it’s very interesting how much a furor Richard [Dawkins] creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you are not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is not reason why those ideas shouldn’t be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn’t be.
~ Douglas Adams (born: 1952-03-11 died: 2001-05-11 at age: 49), author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Last Chance to See
Yes, I think I use the term radical rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one…etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously.
~ Douglas Adams (born: 1952-03-11 died: 2001-05-11 at age: 49) Author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Last Chance to See
The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.
~ John Adams (born: 1735-10-30 died: 1826-07-04 at age: 90), second president of the United States, in the Treaty of Tripoli (1797)
Oh my Lord, if I worship Thee from fear of Hell, send me there;
Oh my Lord, if I worship Thee from desire for Paradise, exclude me thence;
But if I worship Thee for Thine Own sake, hide not from me Thine Eternal Beauty.
~ Rabi’a al-Adawiyya (born: 717 AD died: 801 AD at age: 84)
The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
~ Dante Alighieri (born: 1265 died: 1321-09-14 at age: 56)
Believing would be easier if God would show himself by depositing a million dollars in a Swiss bank account in my name.
~ Woody Allen (born: 1935-12-01 age: 76)
I don’t want to gain immortality through my work; I want to gain immortality through not dying.
~ Woody Allen (born: 1935-12-01 age: 76)
To you I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the Loyal Opposition.
~ Woody Allen (born: 1935-12-01 age: 76)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
~ The First Amendment (born: 1791-12-15 age: 220)This text is the source of whatever religious harmony America now enjoys. Traitors to their oath to defend the constitution, like Eric Cantor, Republican congressman from Virginia, want to ignore the constitution and prohibit Muslims from building mosques.
Mary must have been a space cadet to give her Jewish son a Mexican name.
~ Ann American (born: 1990-07-04 age: 21)
What a weird trip Mary lay on her son Jesus, giving him a swear word for a name.
~ Ann American (born: 1990-07-04 age: 21)
So revolting to my moral nature is the creed of eternal punishment that it, more than any other cause, produces the most widespread unbelief. Compared with this, all objections to Christianity fade to insignificance.
~ Loren Anderson
Dear Jesus
Please save me from your followers.
~ Anonymous
Don’t pray in my school, and I won’t think in your church.
~ Anonymous
For some reason, whenever people think about God they get a pained expression as if someone had poked a broom up their ass.
~ Anonymous
I see the doctrine of hell as being probably the major stumbling block to the return of a de-Christianized world to Christ. The doctrine of eternal damnation, more than any other teaching of the church, produces atheism. If you examine closely all the big name atheists — like Feuerback and Nietzsche — it is this teaching more than any other that offended them and turned them away. Out of these famous atheists came all the movements that have caused so much hell here and now. If God is to practice what He preaches, then it makes it hard to believe in eternal damnation.
~ Anonymous
I subscribe to shampoo theology. When a god stops working I try another one.
~ Anonymous
If abstinence-only education failed the Virgin Mary, how do you expect it to work for your daughter?
~ Anonymous
If Americans and Jews are God’s chosen people, why did He hide all their oil under Muslim soil?
~ Anonymous
If god did not make homosexuals, there would be none.
~ Anonymous
Joseph and Mary should have known better they would not be able to find accommodation. After all, its always busy near Christmas.
~ Anonymous
Prayer for the USA
May the USA be taken down a peg so that learns to treat the people of other nations as equally important as Americans.
~ Anonymous
Religion is like a penis. It’s fine to have one. It’s fine to be proud of it. But please don’t whip it out in public and start waving it around. And please don’t try to shove it down my children’s throats.
~ Anonymous
Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.
~ Anonymous
You cannot reason people out of a position they have not reasoned themselves into.
~ Anonymous
“God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve?…hmmmm…then who made Steve?
~ Anonymous
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
~ Susan B. Anthony (born: 1820-02-15 died: 1906-03-13 at age: 86) , 1896
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
~ Aristotle (born: 384 BC died: 322 BC at age: 62)
Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
~ Isaac Asimov (born: 1920-01-02 died: 1992-03-06 at age: 72) Russian-born American scientist and prolific writer
We are all atheists with the gods of others.
~ ATEA (born: 2008 age: 3) Associação Brasileira de Ateus e Agnósticos
The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.
~ Marcus Aurelius (born: 121-04-26 AD died: 180-03-17 AD at age: 58)
For first of all we must prepare a Natural and Experimental History, sufficient and good; and this is the foundation of all; for we are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do.
~ Francis Bacon (born: 1561-01-22 died: 1626-04-09 at age: 65)
In the spirit of tolerance, you should allow us to execute homosexuals.
~ David Bahati (born: 1973-08-06 age: 38) Ugandan politician promoting a kill the gays bill designed by the C-street American lobby group. He also proposes a three year prison sentence for just knowing a gay person. He believes that gays and pedophiles are one in the same. He considers execution a “beautiful loving” punishment.
People crave a conspiracy for the same reason they crave a god.
~ Grand Master Arkady Balagan in Endgame played by Shawn Doyle (born: 1960 age: 51)What could this reason be? Vanity. People like the idea that the creator of the universe or a vast group of people are fascinated with the trivial details of their lives.
Show me one of them [priests] that doesn’t do it [molest children] and I’ll show you a flying pig.
~ Lisa Bannerman fictitious character in The Commander Windows of the Soul episode.
The bible: every schoolboys’ favourite dirty book.
~ Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby (born: 1943-10-11 age: 68) played by John Nettles
Opinions differ most when there is least scientific warrant for having any.
~ Daisy Bates (born: 1914-11-11 died: 1999-11-04 at age: 84)
Remo Williams: Jesus! Chiun: Concentrate. This is no time for prayer.
~ Remo Williams, the Adventure Begins
10% of priests are pedophiles. The other 90% just like to watch and help with the coverup.
~ Amy Berg (born: 1970 age: 41) in documentary Deliver Us From EvilThe priesthood has become to the safe profession for pedophiles analogous to what hair dresser and florist are for effeminate gays.
Ocean: A body of water occupying 2/3 of a world made for man… who has no gills.
~ Ambrose Bierce (born: 1842-06-24 died: 1914 at age: 72)
Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
~ Ambrose Bierce (born: 1842-06-24 died: 1914 at age: 72)
Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question — should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favor one over another.
~ Michael Bloomberg (born: 1942-02-14 age: 70) mayor of New York City. 2010-08-03Bloomberg’s speech on religious tolerance for Muslims wanting to build a mosque in New York City is a classic. It is all the more amazing knowing Bloomberg is a Republican, a group not known for religious tolerance.
Do you see faith-based reasoning as a larger problem? Bigger than just whether someone is a good person or not?
Oh absolutely. It affects our public policy today. You see it with the treatment of homosexual individuals. This is real. These are real people. These are people who are being denied civil rights on the basis of a book that was written in the freakin’ Bronze Age. The creator of the world actually cares about where people put their penises? Just think about that from an objective point of view: We go to some planet and we see these green blobs. And half the green blobs have a celery stalk and the other half don’t. Some of these green blobs start sticking their celery stalks in some other holes and everybody’s up in arms. The creator of the universe doesn’t want the celery stalk in this hole. How do you respond to that? That is outside the bounds of reason. The only thing you can say is “go to the children’s table.“ Those are the sorts of things that come up when we as a society don’t value critical rationality.
~ Dr. Peter Bogghossian Portland State University
Faith: Pretending to know things you don’t know.
~ Dr. Peter Bogghossian Portland State University
You often speak out against faith, calling it a delusion and a cognitive sickness. How come?
Because enough is enough. A lot of people are sick and tired of being held hostage to the delusions of others, and I’m one of those people. I think that people are hungry for a frank, honest discussion about things — particularly about faith. To profess things you don’t know for certain, and then claim the reason for your justification is faith? That doesn’t contribute to the conversation. That’s the end of the conversation.
~ Dr. Peter Bogghossian Portland State University
A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses it is an idea that possesses the mind.
~ Robert Oxton Bolt (born: 1924-08-15 died: 1995-02-21 at age: 70)
I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get.
~ Napoléon Bonaparte (born: 1769-08-15 died: 1821-05-05 at age: 51)
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
~ Napoléon Bonaparte (born: 1769-08-15 died: 1821-05-05 at age: 51)
There is no place in a fanatic’s head where reason can enter.
~ Napoléon Bonaparte (born: 1769-08-15 died: 1821-05-05 at age: 51)
To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy.
~ David Marshall Brooks
If God had wanted us to fly, he would gave given us tickets.
~ Mel Brooks (born: 1926-06-28 age: 85)
I’m there to support them [soldiers] in their mission, you know, winning a war, and that means taking lives.
~ Lt. Col. Lyn Brown US Army chaplainI heard Brown on NPR (National Public Radio) This American Life explaining that his job essentially was convincing soldiers reluctant to kill that God approved and wanted the soldier to kill people and win the war. You can listen to the interview as he confesses his revolting crimes twisting the bible to justify murder on the grounds Jesus healed the daughter of a soldier, implying Jesus must thus have approved of what the soldier did. That is so sick. Even doctors treat war criminals, which does not in the least imply approval. I could imagine a Nazi chaplain giving this exact same pep talk to encourage a soldier to fight in a similar illegal aggressive war. This chaplain is more immoral than the sleasiest lawyer. In traditional Christian theology, it is the devil’s work to trick someone into committing a mortal sin. What motivates this piece of shit? It can't be defending the USA. He knows full well the USA attacked Afghanistan and Iraq not the reverse and neither country has the means to mount an attack. Perhaps a vicarious thrill thinking about the killing and child suffering he cheerleads? He can’t claim ignorance. He admits he thoroughly thought over the morality of what he was doing and decided for evil.
Atheism, the arrogant belief that the universe — wasn’t created for us.
~ Bruce 2008-07-07 Quoted by Michael Nugent in his address Arrogant atheists and not collecting stamps at the World Atheist Convention in Dublin.
I have seldom met an intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and distorted by religion.
~ James Buchanan (born: 1791-04-23 died: 1868-06-01 at age: 77), fifteenth president of the United States.
Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings — that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
~ Gautama Buddha (born: 563 BC died: 483 BC at age: 80)
Faith is believing in stuff that nobody in their right mind would believe.
~ Archie Bunker
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
~ Edmund Burke (born: 1729-01-12 died: 1797-07-09 at age: 68)Scoundrels invented religion to lull people into apathy, leaving it up to a god to oppose the evildoers, who of course does nothing at all.
Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
~ Samuel Butler (born: 1835-12-04 died: 1902-06-18 at age: 66)
Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one.
~ Samuel Butler (born: 1835-12-04 died: 1902-06-18 at age: 66)
Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.
~ Samuel Butler (born: 1835-12-04 died: 1902-06-18 at age: 66)
Christ: I dislike him very much. Still, I can stand him. What I cannot stand is the wretched band of people whose profession is to hoodwink us about him.
~ Samuel Butler (born: 1835-12-04 died: 1902-06-18 at age: 66)
God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
~ Samuel Butler (born: 1835-12-04 died: 1902-06-18 at age: 66)
If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
~ Samuel Butler (born: 1835-12-04 died: 1902-06-18 at age: 66)
Man is God’s highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.
~ Samuel Butler (born: 1835-12-04 died: 1902-06-18 at age: 66)
As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion.
~ Thelma Butterfly McQueen (born: 1911-01-08 died: 1995-12-22 at age: 84)
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded. That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
~ Lord George Gordon Byron (born: 1788-01-22 died: 1824-04-19 at age: 36)
As a rule, men worry more about what they can’t see than about what they can.
~ Julius Gaius Caesar (born: 100-07-13 BC died: 44-03-15 BC at age: 55)
Men freely believe that which they desire.
~ Julius Gaius Caesar (born: 100-07-13 BC died: 44-03-15 BC at age: 55)
Christians have been expecting the imminent end of the world for millennia.
But it keeps not ending.
So far, so good.
~ Orson Scott Card (born: 1951-08-24 age: 60), Ender’s Shadow
We could live forever, if we were willing to be stupid the whole time.
Surely you’re not saying that God had to choose between long life and intelligence for human beings! It’s there in your own Bible, Carlotta. Two trees — knowledge and life. You eat of the tree of knowledge, and you will surely die. You eat of the tree of life, and you remain a child in the garden forever, undying.
~ Orson Scott Card (born: 1951-08-24 age: 60), Ender’s ShadowCould it be the Christians got their metaphor right? Our too-rapidly-evolved intelligence is all but certain to result in our early extinction. Was Christianity a flat-footed attempt to dumb down humanity?
I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don’t have as many people who believe it.
~ George Carlin (born: 1937-05-12 died: 2008-06-22 at age: 71)
I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.
~ George Carlin (born: 1937-05-12 died: 2008-06-22 at age: 71)
If churches want to play the game of politics, let them pay admission like everyone else.
~ George Carlin (born: 1937-05-12 died: 2008-06-22 at age: 71)
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 (born: 1937-05-12 died: 2008-06-22 at age: 71)
I’ve begun worshipping the Sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the Sun. It’s there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, a lovely day. There’s no mystery, no one asks for money, I don’t have to dress up, and there’s no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to God are all answered at about the same 50% rate.
~ George Carlin (born: 1937-05-12 died: 2008-06-22 at age: 71)
Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you!
~ George Carlin (born: 1937-05-12 died: 2008-06-22 at age: 71)
Religion is just mind control.
~ George Carlin (born: 1937-05-12 died: 2008-06-22 at age: 71)
We created god in our own image and likeness!
~ George Carlin (born: 1937-05-12 died: 2008-06-22 at age: 71)
All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher.
~ Titus Lucretius Carus (born: 94 BC died: 55 BC at age: 39)
Fear is the mother of all gods.
~ Titus Lucretius Carus (born: 94 BC died: 55 BC at age: 39)
The nature of the universe has by no means been made through divine power, seeing how great are the faults that mar it.
~ Titus Lucretius Carus (born: 94 BC died: 55 BC at age: 39)
By simple common sense I don’t believe in God, in none.
~ Sir Charles Spencer Charlie Chaplin (born: 1889-04-06 died: 1977-12-25 at age: 88)
All Religions have this in common, that they are an outrage to common sense for they are pieced together out of a variety of elements, some of which seem so unworthy, sordid and at odds with man’s reason, that any strong and vigorous intelligence laughs at them.
~ Pierre Charron (born: 1541 died: 1603-11-16 at age: 62) Catholic theologian.
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only one you have.
~ Emilé-Auguste Chartier (born: 1868-03-03 died: 1951-06-02 at age: 83)
The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.
~ Noam Chomsky (born: 1928-12-07 age: 83)
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
~ Winston Churchill (born: 1874-11-30 died: 1965-01-24 at age: 90)
On the subject of the nature of the gods, the first question is “Do the gods exist or do the not?” It is difficult you may say to deny that they exist. I would agree if we were arguing the matter in a public assembly, but in a private discussion of this kind, it is perfectly easy to do so.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (born: 106-01-03 BC died: 43-12-07 BC at age: 63)
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
~ Arthur C. Clarke (born: 1917-12-16 died: 2008-03-19 at age: 90)
Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn’t killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?
~ Arthur C. Clarke (born: 1917-12-16 died: 2008-03-19 at age: 90)
The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
~ Arthur C. Clarke (born: 1917-12-16 died: 2008-03-19 at age: 90)
In reality, there are no biblical literalists, only selective literalists. By abolishing slavery and ordaining women, millions of Protestants have gone far beyond biblical literalism. It’s time we did the same for homophobia.
~ William Sloane Coffin Jr. (born: 1924-06-01 died: 2006-04-12 at age: 81)
Cruel persecution and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.
~ Morris Raphael Cohen (born: 1880-07-25 died: 1947-01-28 at age: 66)
The number of people who describe themselves as generically Protestant went from approximately 17 million in 1990 to 5 million in 2009.
~ researchers at Trinity College reported in the Washington Post
I don’t believe in angels, no… But I do have a wee parking angel. It’s on my dashboard and you wind it up. The wings flap and it’s supposed to give you a parking space. It’s worked so far.
~ Billy Connolly (born: 1942-11-24 age: 69)
It seems to me that Islam and Christianity and Judaism all have the same god, and he’s telling them all different things.
~ Billy Connolly (born: 1942-11-24 age: 69)
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
~ Joseph Conrad (born: 1857-12-03 died: 1924-08-03 at age: 66)
I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil.
~ Clarence Darrow (born: 1857-04-18 died: 1938-03-13 at age: 80)
By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, — and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible the miracle become; — that the men at the time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, — that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, — that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses, — by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.
~ Charles Darwin (born: 1809-02-12 died: 1882-04-19 at age: 73)The evidence for Christianity is very weak, nowhere near the quality that would be needed in a court of law to even convict a pickpocket, much less to substantiate so grandiose a claim.
I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.
~ Charles Darwin (born: 1809-02-12 died: 1882-04-19 at age: 73)
I had gradually come, by this time [1839-01], to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc., etc., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.
~ Charles Darwin (born: 1809-02-12 died: 1882-04-19 at age: 73)
The more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become, — that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, — that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, — that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses; — by such reflections as these… I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.
~ Charles Darwin (born: 1809-02-12 died: 1882-04-19 at age: 73)When Darwin started his journey on the Beagle, he had been studying for the clergy, and had no doubts about the absolute truth of every line of the bible. It was having a deep look at nature that shattered his belief.
A delusion that encourages belief where there is no evidence is asking for trouble. Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. Instead, disagreements are settled by other means which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent. Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71), 2005-04-25, Salon
A good example of the colouring of religious agendas is the whole heart-warming legend of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, followed by Herod’s massacre of the innocents. When the gospels were written many years after Jesus’ death, nobody knew where he was born. But an Old Testament prophesy (Micah 5:2 ) had led Jews to expect that the long-awaited Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. In the light of this prophesy, John’s gospel specifically remarks that his followers were surprised that he was not born in Bethlehem; “Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh out of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?”Matthew and Luke handle the problem differently, by deciding that Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem after all. But they get him there by different routes.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71), The God Delusion page 93.
From a biological point of view, there are lots of different theories about why we have this extraordinary predisposition to believe in supernatural things. One suggestion is that the child mind is, for very good Darwinian reasons, susceptible to infection the same way a computer is. In order to be useful, a computer has to be programmable, to obey whatever it’s told to do. That automatically makes it vulnerable to computer viruses, which are programs that say, “Spread me, copy me, pass me on.” Once a viral program gets started, there is nothing to stop it.Similarly, the child brain is preprogrammed by natural selection to obey and believe what parents and other adults tell it. In general, it’s a good thing that child brains should be susceptible to being taught what to do and what to believe by adults. But this necessarily carries the down side that bad ideas, useless ideas, waste of time ideas like rain dances and other religious customs, will also be passed down the generations. The child brain is very susceptible to this kind of infection. And it also spreads sideways by cross infection when a charismatic preacher goes around infecting new minds that were previously uninfected.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71), 2005-04-25, Salon
God of the Gaps
Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71)These temporary and feeble salvos. When science fills in the gap, that argument for God evaporates. Even when Christians argue a god-like being must be invoked, there is no reason whatsoever to think the god had to be Jehovah rather than say, Zeus or any of the thousand of other gods man has or does worship, or even yet another yet undiscovered.
Having a debate with a modern Christian is like punching a sponge.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71)
Luke [the gospel writer] screws up his dating by tactlessly mentioning events that historians are capable of independently checking. There was indeed a census under Governor Quirinius — a local census, not one decreed by Caesar Augustus for the Empire as a whole — but it happened too late in 6 AD, long after Herod’s death.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71), The God Delusion page 94.In other words Luke’s story is historically impossible and internally inconsistent. He lied to fudge the fulfillment of Micah’s prophesy and to provide a villain to play off Jesus in his fictitious drama.
Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Some people find that thought disturbing. I find the reality thrilling.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71)
One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71)It is a virtue to admit ignorance when you don’t know, but not to wallow in ignorance as an end in itself.
People who do not know the Bible well have been gulled into thinking it is a good guide to morality. This mistaken view may have motivated the “millionaire Conservative party donors”. I have even heard the cynically misanthropic opinion that, without the Bible as a moral compass, people would have no restraint against murder, theft and mayhem. The surest way to disabuse yourself of this pernicious falsehood is to read the Bible itself.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71) Why I want all our children to read the King James Bible 2012-05-19 source, 2005-04-25, Salon
Religion is nothing more than a useless, and sometimes dangerous, evolutionary accident. Religious behavior may be a misfiring, an unfortunate byproduct of an underlying psychological propensity which in other circumstances is, or once was, useful.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71)
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71), The God Delusion chapter 2, page 31
The point is well known to biblical scholars and not disputed by them. The Hebrew word in Isaiah is almah, which undisputedly means “young woman”, with no implication of virginity. If virgin had been intended, bethulah could have been used instead (the ambiguous English word maiden illustrates how easy it can be to slide between the two meanings). The translation occurred with the pre-Christian Greek translation known as the Septuagint rendered almah into παρθενος (parthenos), which really does mean virgin. Matthew (not of course the apostle and contemporary of Jesus, but the gospel-maker writing long afterwards), quoted Isaiah in what seems to be a derivative of the Septuagint version (all but two of the fifteen Greek words are identical) when he said “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel” (Authorised English translation). It is widely accepted among Christian scholars that the story of the virgin birth of Jesus was a late interpolation, put in presumably by Greek-speaking disciples in order that the (mistranslated) prophesy should be seen to be fulfilled. Modern versions of the New English Bible correctly give “young woman” in Isaiah. They equally correctly leave virgin in Matthew, since they are translating from his Greek.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71), The Selfish Gene , endnotes on chapter 2Matthew, the writer of the allegedly inerrant bible, is caught red-handed lying to make his tale sound more impressive. How can anyone possibly trust that this man did not tell other serious lies is the rest of his account?
To illustrate the vain conceit that the universe must be somehow pre-ordained for us, because we are so well-suited to live in it, he [Douglas Adams] mimed a wonderfully funny imitation of a puddle of water, fitting itself snugly into a depression in the ground, the depression uncannily being exactly the same shape as the puddle.
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71) Lament for Douglas 2001-05-14
Who will say with confidence that sexual abuse is more permanently damaging to children than threatening them with the eternal and unquenchable fires of hell?
~ Dr. Richard Dawkins (born: 1941-03-26 age: 71)
I have a feeling that not that many people actually believe in God. Many people believe in belief in God. That is, they think it is a Good Thing™, and they try to believe in God, they hope to believe in God, they wish they could believe in God, they go through all the motions, they try very hard to be devout. Sometimes they succeed, and for some periods of their life they actually do, in some sense, believe there is a God, and they think they are the better for it. Otherwise, they behave like people who probably don’t believe in God. Very few people behave as if they really believe in God. A lot of people behave as if they believe they should believe in god. How would you behave if you believed in God? You would, perhaps — and some people do this — be prepared to take what other people would consider suicidal risks because you believe God is going to be there to save you. You would be prepared to give away everything you owned because God commanded you to do it, and so forth.
~ Daniel C. Dennett (born: 1942-03-28 age: 70)
Reasons for declaring belief is not are not the same as reasons for believing in god.
~ Daniel C. Dennett (born: 1942-03-28 age: 70)
The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight — that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything [that] a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. That God must either be turned into a symbol for something less concrete or abandoned altogether.
~ Daniel C. Dennett (born: 1942-03-28 age: 70)
We have had plenty of atheist presidents; they just wouldn’t admit it.
~ Daniel C. Dennett (born: 1942-03-28 age: 70)
You can’t get through seminary and come out believing in God!
~ Daniel C. Dennett (born: 1942-03-28 age: 70)
Reality is that which doesn’t go away when you change your mind.
~ Phillip K. Dick (born: 1928-12-16 died: 1982-03-02 at age: 53)
“The universe,” he observed, “makes rather an indifferent parent, I am afraid.”
~ Charles Dickens (born: 1812-02-07 died: 1870-06-09 at age: 58) Bleak House
A man had been betrayed by his children, by his wife, and by his friends; some disloyal partners had ruined his fortune, and had plunged him into poverty. Pervaded with a profound hatred and contempt for the human race, he left society and took refuge alone in a cave. There, pressing his fists into his eyes, and contemplating a revenge proportional to his grievances, he said: “Evil people! What shall I do to punish them for their injustice and to make them all as unhappy as they deserve? Ah! if it were possible to imagine it — to intoxicate them with a great fantasy to which they would attach more importance than to their lives, and about which they would never be able to agree!” Instantly he rushed out of the cave, shouting, “God! God!” Echoes without number repeated around him, “God! God!” This fearful name was carried from pole to pole, and heard everywhere with astonishment. At first men prostrated themselves, then they got up again, asked each other, argued with each other, became bitter, cursed each other, hated each other, cut each other’s throats, and the fatal wish of the misanthropist was fulfilled. For such has been in the past, such will be in the future, the story of a being at all times equally important and incomprehensible.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher Addition to the Philosophical Thoughts
A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence scepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one’s innocence with the loss of one’s prejudices.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice. Those who have money will display it in every imaginable way. If their ostentation does not exceed their fortune, all will be well. But if their ostentation does exceed their fortune they will ruin themselves. In such a country, the greatest fortunes will vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Those who don’t have money will ruin themselves with vain efforts to conceal their poverty. That is one kind of affluence: the outward sign of wealth for a small number, the mask of poverty for the majority, and a source of corruption for all.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
Mme La Maréchale: Are you not Monsieur Crudeli?
Crudeli: Yes, Madame
Mme La Maréchale: Then you’re the man who doesn’t believe in anything.
Crudeli: In person, madame.
Mme La Maréchale: Yet your moral principles are the same as those of a believer?Crudeli: Why should they not be — as long as the believer is an honest man?
Mme La Maréchale: And do you act upon your principles?
Crudeli: To the best of my ability.
Mme La Maréchale: What? You don’t steal? You don’t kill people? You don’t rob them?
Crudeli: Very rarely.
Mme La Maréchale: Then what do you gain by not being a believer?
Crudeli: Nothing at all, madame. Is one a believer from motives of profit?
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher, Conversation with a Christian Lady 1774
Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and… people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
There is not a Musselman[Muslim] alive who would not imagine that he was performing an action pleasing to God and his Holy Prophet by exterminating every Christian on earth, while the Christians are scarcely more tolerant on their side.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster!
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
~ Denis Diderot (born: 1713-10-05 died: 1784-07-31 at age: 70) French philosopher
An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?” No, said the priest, “not if you did not know”. “Then why”, asked the Inuit earnestly, “did you tell me?”
~ Annie Dillard (born: 1945 age: 66) Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Religion is all bunk.
~ Thomas Alva Edison (born: 1847-02-11 died: 1931-10-18 at age: 84)
A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions, and the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything chosen about them.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76) from a letter to Eric Gutkind, translated from German.
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76) in a column for The New York Times 1930-11-09
I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
It was of course a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal god, and I have never denied this, but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything chosen about them.In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolisation. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.
Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e. in our evaluations of human behaviour. What separates us are only intellectual props and rationalisation in Freud’s language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.
With friendly thanks and best wishes.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76) from a letter to Eric Gutkind, translated from German.
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellow-humans — in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other people, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76)
The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.
~ Havelock Ellis (born: 1859-02-02 died: 1939-07-08 at age: 80).
There is a very intimate connection between hypnotic phenomena and religion.
~ Havelock Ellis (born: 1859-02-02 died: 1939-07-08 at age: 80)
Death is absolutely safe. It is like taking off an old shoe.
~ Emmanuel channeled by Pat Rodegast
One of the central teachings of the Reformed Pastafarian Church is that 50 to 1 is balanced. There is no greater gift that parents can give their children than the gift of faith in Pastafariansim. To give this gift, the best and indeed most balanced education should have for every 50 hours of religious instruction, praising FSM, one hour of criticism of heathen and heretical faiths, some atheist and agnostic bashing should also take place. Then the children will grow into well rounded young adults and they will see the truth in the Pastafarian Gospel.
~ Wikiality, the Truthiness Encyclopedia
The Riddle of Epicurus
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 (born: 341 BC died: 270 BC at age: 71)
Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?
~ Epicurus (born: 341 BC died: 270 BC at age: 71) Greek philosopher.
On the perfection of Jesus:
Yes, Jesus masturbated, but he didn’t come.
~ N. Errantiste (born: 1897 died: 1911 at age: 14)
I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things; by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose — which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.
~ Richard P. Feynman (born: 1918-05-11 died: 1988-02-15 at age: 69)
Jesus is a powerful guy in Hollywood. Not quite as powerful as Vin Diesel, but powerful.
~ Christian Finnegan (born: 1973-01-01 age: 39) 1965-10
Men have had the vanity to pretend that the whole creation was made for them, while in reality the whole creation does not suspect their existence.
~ Camille Flammarion (born: 1842 died: 1925 at age: 83) French astronomer
I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies.
~ Benjamin Franklin (born: 1706-01-17 died: 1790-04-17 at age: 84)
To Follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.
~ Benjamin Franklin (born: 1706-01-17 died: 1790-04-17 at age: 84)
At bottom God is nothing more than an exalted father.
~ Sigmund Freud (born: 1856-05-06 died: 1939-09-23 at age: 83)
Neither in my private life nor in my writings, have I ever made a secret of being an out-and-out unbeliever.
~ Sigmund Freud (born: 1856-05-06 died: 1939-09-23 at age: 83)
Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.
~ Sigmund Freud (born: 1856-05-06 died: 1939-09-23 at age: 83)
The whole thing [religion] is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life.
~ Sigmund Freud (born: 1856-05-06 died: 1939-09-23 at age: 83)
~ From the Hadith [commentary on the Qur’an] collections of Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi and Bayhaqui
- God has no mercy on one who has no mercy for others.
- None of you truly believes (in God) until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.
- He who eats his fill while his neighbour goes without food is not a believer (in God).
- The truthful and trustworthy businessman is associated with the prophets, the saints and the martyrs.
- Powerful is not he who knocks the other down, indeed powerful is he who controls himself in a fit of anger.
- God does not judge according to your bodies and appearances but He scans your hearts and looks into your deeds.
- A man walking along a path felt very thirsty. Reaching a well he descended into it, drank his fill, and came up. Then he saw a dog with its tongue hanging out, trying to lick up mud to quench its thirst. The man saw that the dog was feeling the same thirst that he had felt so he went down to the well again and filled his shoe with water and gave the dog a drink. God forgave his sins for this action.
- The prophet was asked: “Messenger of God, are we rewarded for kindness towards animals?” He said, “There is a reward for kindness to every living thing.”
I seem to be a verb —
an evolutionary process —
an integral function of the universe,
and so are you.
~ Richard Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller (born: 1895-07-12 died: 1983-07-01 at age: 87)
In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the reasoning of a single individual.
~ Galileo (born: 1564-02-15 died: 1642-01-08 at age: 77)
To command their professors of astronomy to refute their own observations is to command them not to see what they do see and not to understand what they do understand.
~ Galileo (born: 1564-02-15 died: 1642-01-08 at age: 77)
A god whose creation is so imperfect that he must be continually adjusting it to make it work properly seems to me a god of relatively low order, hardly worthy of any worship.
~ Martin Gardner (born: 1914-10-21 died: 2010-05-22 at age: 95)
If God creates a world of particles and waves, dancing in obedience to mathematical and physical laws, who are we to say that he cannot make use of those laws to cover the surface of a small planet with living creatures?
~ Martin Gardner (born: 1914-10-21 died: 2010-05-22 at age: 95)
When someone’s neural network in unbalanced, they are ripe for conquest by a belief system they feel is going to bring about homeostasis. The brain craves homeostasis. So when the neural network is in a condition of severe disharmony, the person will be drawn toward extreme beliefs and practices that promise a small amount of relief from the imbalance.
~ Lee Gerdes brainStateTech.com.No wonder religions find the best prospecting among drug addicts, alcoholics and the down and out.
How many of you think it is time for American to stop pretending we are not Christian? If there’s people in King, North Carolina who don’t like that, there’s lots of places you can move to.
~ Dr. David Gibbs III Christian Law Association
Research suggests that people are typically unaware of the reasons why they are doing what they are doing, but when asked for a reason, they readily supply one.
~ Daniel Todd Gilbert (born: 1957-11-05 age: 54), Professor of Psychology at Harvard
Everything you read signed God is just somebody putting their words in My mouth.
~ God
If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (born: 1749-08-28 died: 1832-03-22 at age: 82)
The conception of gods originated in fear and curiosity. Primitive man, unable to understand the phenomena of nature, and harassed by them, saw in every terrifying manifestation some sinister force expressly directed against him; and as ignorance and fear are the parents of all superstition, the troubled fancy of primitive man wove the God idea.
~ Emma Goldman (born: 1869-06-27 died: 1940-05-14 at age: 70)
The philosophy of Atheism has its root in the earth, in this life; its aim is the emancipation of the human race from all God-heads, be they Judaic, Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhistic, Brahmanistic, or what not. Mankind has been punished long and heavily for having created its gods, nothing but pain and persecution, have been man’s lot since gods began. There is but one way out of this blunder. Man must break his fetters which have chained him to the gates of heaven and hell, so that he can begin to fashion out of his reawakened and illumined consciousness a new world upon the earth.
~ Emma Goldman (born: 1869-06-27 died: 1940-05-14 at age: 70)In Goldman’s time, knowledge of Buddhism was weak. She did not even know it is an atheistic philosophy.
Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them. … The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom… I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D’. Just who do they think they are?… I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism”.
~ Barry Goldwater (born: 1909-01-02 died: 1998-05-29 at age: 89) five-term US Senator, Republican Party nominee for President in 1964 Major General, US Air Force Reserves, author of The Conscience of a Conservative
But we all recognise the primary foible of frail humanity — our propensity for embracing hope and shunning logic, our tendency to believe what we desire rather than what we observe.
~ Dr. Stephen Jay Gould (born: 1941-09-10 died: 2002-05-20 at age: 60) , Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life
In science, fact can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.” I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
~ Dr. Stephen Jay Gould (born: 1941-09-10 died: 2002-05-20 at age: 60)
Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview — nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.
~ Dr. Stephen Jay Gould (born: 1941-09-10 died: 2002-05-20 at age: 60)
The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning.
~ Dr. Stephen Jay Gould (born: 1941-09-10 died: 2002-05-20 at age: 60)
The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.
~ Dr. Stephen Jay Gould (born: 1941-09-10 died: 2002-05-20 at age: 60)
We long to situate ourselves on a benevolent, warm, furry, encompassing planet, created to provide our material needs, and constructed for our dominion and delectation. Unfortunately, this pipedream of succor from the realm of meaning (and therefore the magisterium of religion), imposes definite and unrealistic demands upon the factual construction of nature (under the magisterium of science). But nature, who is as she is, and who existed in earthly form for 4.5 billion years before we arrived to impose our interpretations upon her, greets us with sublime indifference and no preference for accommodating our yearnings.
~ Dr. Stephen Jay Gould (born: 1941-09-10 died: 2002-05-20 at age: 60) , Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of LifeBut the religionists have no intention of staying on their side of the fence. They impose crackpot religious ideas on important scientific issues such as global warming and overpopulation. Further they want to enlist the law to aid them with their superstitious hatred of gays. They want to subjugate women.
When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.
~ Dr. Stephen Jay Gould (born: 1941-09-10 died: 2002-05-20 at age: 60) .
Christians are afraid atheism is the real truth. They hate the non-believers (a form of fear) for this reason. Atheism is the wake-up call they don’t want.
~ Stan Grimes
Morality binds and blinds.
~ Jonathan Haidt (born: 1963-10-19 age: 48) The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
~ J.B.S. Haldane (born: 1892-11-05 died: 1964-12-01 at age: 72)
Faith is the permission religious people give one another to believe ridiculous things.
~ Sam Harris (born: 1967-01-01 age: 45)
If having half of your people systematically delivered to the furnace does not count as evidence against the notion that an all-powerful God is looking out for your interests, it seems reasonable to assume that nothing could.
~ Sam Harris (born: 1967-01-01 age: 45) The End Of Faith, Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason page 67.
Some 46 percent of Americans take a literalist view of creation… This means 120 million of us plate the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer.
~ Sam Harris (born: 1967-01-01 age: 45) The End Of Faith, Religion, Terror and the Future of ReasonHow can you have any respect at all for a people so willfully ignorant? They are behaving like illiterate, superstitious, medieval peasants.
While religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are. This is not surprising, since most religions, have merely canonised a few products of ancient ignorance and derangement and passed them down to us as if they were primordial truths. This leave billions of us believing what no sane person could believe on his own. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.
~ Sam Harris (born: 1967-01-01 age: 45) The End Of Faith, Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason page 67.
One of the essential differences between the liberal and conservative worldview is that the liberals believe in rationality, whereas conservative believe that human events are ordered by forces that are beyond the ability of our rational mind to understand or control.
~ Thom Hartmann (born: 1951-05-07 age: 61) Cracking the Code page 58.
Poor Fred [Phelps] — he’s actually working on a typo, and somebody ought to tell him. Twice in the New Testament Jesus withered fig trees, Isaiah withered a fig tree, and there’s another place in the Old Testament — I think it’s in Psalms — where a fig tree was withered. God hates figs, not fags!
~ Thom Hartmann (born: 1951-05-07 age: 61)
Most gods have the morals of a spoiled child.
~ Robert A. Heinlein (born: 1907-07-07 died: 1988-05-08 at age: 80)
How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements?
~ Joseph Heller (born: 1923-05-01 died: 1999-12-12 at age: 76)
All thinking men are atheists.
~ Ernest Hemingway (born: 1899-07-21 died: 1961-07-02 at age: 61)
According to Christianity, eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God’s infinite love. That’s the message we’re brought up with, believe or die. “Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options.”
~ Bill Hicks (born: 1961-12-16 died: 1994-02-26 at age: 32)
I think it’s interesting how people act on their beliefs. A lot of Christians, for instance, wear crosses around their necks. Nice sentiment, but do you think when Jesus comes back, he’s really going to want to look at a cross?
~ Bill Hicks (born: 1961-12-16 died: 1994-02-26 at age: 32)
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die — that’s a lie!
~ Joe Hill (born: 1879-10-07 died: 1915-11-19 at age: 36), IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) folk song performed by Woody Guthrie.
Calling atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair colour.
~ Don Hirschberg
About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough — and even miraculous enough if you insist — I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?
Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don’t believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart’s content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self — respect and the desire for the respect of others — while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity — so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called ‘meaningless’ except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one’s everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities — but there, there. Enough.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62)
Billy Graham is a boring, racist charlatan.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62)
I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim — so modestly and so humbly — to possess. It is time to withdraw our ‘respect’ from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62) The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer
If I could do just one thing, it would be to dissociate faith from virtue, now and for good, and to expose it for what it is, a servile weakness, a refuge in cowardice, and a willingness to follow, with credulity, people who are in the highest degree unscrupulous.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62)
No one has the right to tell me what to do because he has a divine warrant.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62)
One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody-not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms-had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think-though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one — that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62) God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
Owners of dogs will have noticed that if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are a god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realise that, if you provide the with food and shelter and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are god.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62) The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer
The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62) God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
The easiest way to establish a dictatorship is to claim you are God’s representative on earth.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62)
The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62) The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer
The pre-history of our species is hag-ridden with episodes of nightmarish ignorance and calamity, for which religion used to identify, not just the wrong explanation, but the wrong culprit. Human sacrifices were made preeminently in times of epidemics, useless prayers were uttered, bogus “miracles” attested to, and scapegoats — such as Jews or heretics or witches — hunted down and burned.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62) The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer
We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62)
What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62)
Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation.
~ Christopher Hitchens (born: 1949-04-13 died: 2011-12-15 at age: 62) God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
All children are atheists — they have no idea of God.
~ Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (born: 1723-12-08 died: 1789-01-21 at age: 65)
If experience be consulted, it will be found there is no action, however abominable, that has not received the applause of some people. Parricide — the sacrifice of children — robbery — usurpation — cruelty — intolerance — prostitution, have all in their turn been licensed actions, and have been deemed laudable and meritorious deeds with some nations of the earth. Above all, Religion has consecrated the most unreasonable, the most revolting customs.
~ Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (born: 1723-12-08 died: 1789-01-21 at age: 65)
If God be infinitely good, what reason have we to fear him? If he be infinitely wise, wherefore disturb ourselves with our condition? If he be omniscient, wherefore inform him of our wants, and fatigue him with our prayers? If he be omnipresent, wherefore erect temples to him? If he be Lord of all, wherefore make sacrifices and offerings to him? If he be just, wherefore believe that he punishes those creatures whom he has filled with imbecility? If his grace works every thing in man, what reason has he to reward him? If he be omnipotent, how can he be offended; and how can we resist him? If he be rational, how can he be enraged against those blind mortals to whom he has left the liberty of acting irrationally? If he be immutable, by what right shall we pretend to make him change his decrees? If he be inconceivable, wherefore should we occupy ourselves with him? If he has spoken, wherefore is the universe not convinced? If the knowledge of a God be the most necessary thing, wherefore is it not more evident and more manifest?
~ Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (born: 1723-12-08 died: 1789-01-21 at age: 65)
If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.
~ Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (born: 1723-12-08 died: 1789-01-21 at age: 65)
If we go back to the beginnings of things, we shall always find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that imagination, rapture and deception embellished them; that weakness worships them; that custom spares them; and that tyranny favors them in order to profit from the blindness of men.
~ Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (born: 1723-12-08 died: 1789-01-21 at age: 65)
In Nature nothing; is mean or contemptible, and it is only pride, originating in a false idea of our superiority, which causes our contempt for some of her productions. In the eyes of Nature, however, the oyster that vegetates at the bottom of the sea is as dear and perfect as the proud biped who devours it.
~ Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (born: 1723-12-08 died: 1789-01-21 at age: 65)
It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of religion that we shall discover truth, reason and morality.
~ Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (born: 1723-12-08 died: 1789-01-21 at age: 65)
People have suffered and become insane for centuries by the thought of eternal punishment after death. Wouldn’t it be better to depend on blind matter… than a god who puts out traps for people, invites them to sin, and allows them to sin and commit crimes he could prevent. Only to finally get the barbarian pleasure to punish them in an excessive way, of no use for himself, without them changing their ways and without their example preventing others from committing crimes.
~ Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (born: 1723-12-08 died: 1789-01-21 at age: 65)
Suns are extinguished or become corrupted, planets perish and scatter across the wastes of the sky; other suns are kindled, new planets formed to make their revolutions or describe new orbits, and man, an infinitely minute part of a globe which itself is only an imperceptible point in the immense whole, believes that the universe is made for himself.
~ Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (born: 1723-12-08 died: 1789-01-21 at age: 65)
The Jehovah of the Jews is a suspicious tyrant, who breathes nothing but blood, murder, and carnage, and who demands that they should nourish him with the vapours of animals. The Jupiter of the Pagans is a lascivious monster. The Moloch of the Phoenicians is a cannibal. The pure mind of the Christians resolved, in order to appease his fury, to crucify his own son. The savage god of the Mexicans cannot be satisfied without thousands of mortals which are immolated to his sanguinary appetite.
~ Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (born: 1723-12-08 died: 1789-01-21 at age: 65)
Religion is the most powerful alternative to God.
~ Richard Holloway (born: 1933-11-26 age: 78) Bishop of Edinburgh
The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.
~ Sherlock Holmes (born: 1859-05-22 died: 1930-07-07 at age: 71) in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
How come God always gets the credit if something good happens?
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
If you talk to God you’re religious. If God talks to you, you’re psychotic.
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
Isn’t it interesting… religious behavior is so close to being crazy that we can’t tell them apart.
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
Just because it is inexplained, does not mean it is inexplicable.
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
People pray to God so he won’t crush them like bugs.
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
Punishment is evidence for God. No punishment is evidence for God. You have an interesting argument.
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
Punishment is proof of god. No punishment is proof of god. Ingenious argument.
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
Religion is not the opiate of the masses, its the placebo.
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
Responding to the assertion that faith is not a disease, House replies “On other hand it is communicable and kills a lot of people.”
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
We are hard wired to need answers… The problem is when we don’t find a logical answer we settle for a stupid one. Ritual is what happens when we run out of rational.
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
What do you think you are going to do? Get out and start flying around with the other angels? There is no after. There is only this.
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
You know it’s all nice when people start to dig these holes, but then they start to live in these holes and get angry when someone pushes dirt into those holes. Come out of your holes people!!!
~ Gregory House
~ Gregory House played by Hugh Laurie (born: 1959-06-11 age: 52), TV MD
Miracle: An event described by those to whom it was told by men who did not see it.
~ Elbert Hubbard (born: 1856 died: 1915 at age: 59)
I’d like to start a religion. That’s where the money is.
~ L. Ron Hubbard (born: 1911-03-13 died: 1986-01-24 at age: 74) to Lloyd Eshbach, in 1949; quoted by Eshbach in Over My Shoulder: Reflections on a Science Fiction Era , Donald M. Grant Publisher. 1983
Why be born again, when you can just grow up?
~ Jack Huberman
There is in every village a torch — the schoolteacher, and an extinguisher: the priest.
~ Victor Hugo (born: 1802-02-26 died: 1885-05-22 at age: 83)
That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.
~ David Hume (born: 1711-04-26 died: 1776-08-25 at age: 65)
The greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion; hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man’s morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere.
~ David Hume (born: 1711-04-26 died: 1776-08-25 at age: 65)
A fanatic is a man who consciously over compensates a secret doubt.
~ Aldous Huxley (born: 1894-07-26 died: 1963-11-22 at age: 69)
All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.
~ Aldous Huxley (born: 1894-07-26 died: 1963-11-22 at age: 69)
Chastity — the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions.
~ Aldous Huxley (born: 1894-07-26 died: 1963-11-22 at age: 69)
You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion… Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
~ Aldous Huxley (born: 1894-07-26 died: 1963-11-22 at age: 69)
Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat.
~ Julian Huxley (born: 1887-06-22 died: 1975-02-14 at age: 87)
I would rather be the offspring of two apes than be a man and afraid to face the truth.
~ Thomas Henry Huxley (born: 1825-05-04 died: 1895-06-29 at age: 70)
It ought not to be unpleasant to say that which one honestly believes or disbelieves. That it so constantly is painful to do so, is quite enough obstacle to the progress of mankind in that most valuable of all qualities, honesty of word or of deed.
~ Thomas Henry Huxley (born: 1825-05-04 died: 1895-06-29 at age: 70)
Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
~ Thomas Henry Huxley (born: 1825-05-04 died: 1895-06-29 at age: 70)
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best — that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.
~ Thomas Henry Huxley (born: 1825-05-04 died: 1895-06-29 at age: 70)
God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That’s not free will. It’s like 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. When god says the same we call him loving and build churches in his honor.
~ William C. Easttom II
And yet this same Deity says to me, “resist not evil; pray for those that despitefully use you; love your enemies, but I will eternally damn mine”. It seems to me that even gods should practice what they preach.
~ Robert Green Ingersoll (born: 1833-08-11 died: 1899-07-21 at age: 65)
Diderot took the ground that, if orthodox religion be true Christ was guilty of suicide. Having the power to defend himself he should have used it.
~ Robert Green Ingersoll (born: 1833-08-11 died: 1899-07-21 at age: 65)
The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness.
~ Robert Green Ingersoll (born: 1833-08-11 died: 1899-07-21 at age: 65)
The only evidence, so far as I know, about another life is, first, that we have no evidence; and secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and wish we had.
~ Robert Green Ingersoll (born: 1833-08-11 died: 1899-07-21 at age: 65)
The rights of men and women should be equal and sacred—marriage should be a perfect partnership.
~ Robert Green Ingersoll (born: 1833-08-11 died: 1899-07-21 at age: 65)This in the exact opposite of what the bible declares in I Timothy 2:12
They say that when god was in Jerusalem he forgave his murderers, but now he will not forgive an honest man for differing with him on the subject of the Trinity. They say that God says to me, “Forgive your enemies.” I say, “I do;” but he says, “I will damn mine.” God should be consistent. If he wants me to forgive my enemies he should forgive his. I am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me. God is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt him. He certainly ought to be as generous as he asks us to be.
~ Robert Green Ingersoll (born: 1833-08-11 died: 1899-07-21 at age: 65)
We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year’s fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years.
~ Robert Green Ingersoll (born: 1833-08-11 died: 1899-07-21 at age: 65)
The Christian god is a being of terrific character — cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.
~ Thomas Jefferson (born: 1743-04-13 died: 1826-07-04 at age: 83) , third president of the United States.
There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.
~ James Joyce (born: 1882-02-02 died: 1941-01-13 at age: 58)
Reading books everyone died, none became any wise.
One who reads the word of Love, only becomes wise.
~ Kabir (born: 1398 died: 1518 at age: 120), mystic Hindi poet.
What makes fantastic declarations believable is, in part, the vehemence with which they’re proffered. Again, in the world of spirituality as well as of pop psychology, intensity of personal belief is evidence of truth. It is considered very bad form — even abuse — to challenge the veracity of any personal testimony that might be offered in a twelve-step group or on a talk show, unless the testimony itself is equivocal… Whatever sells, whatever many people believe strongly, must be true.
~ Wendy Kaminer (born: 1950 age: 61)
Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.
~ Immanuel Kant (born: 1724-04-22 died: 1804-02-12 at age: 79)
Human life without death would be something other than human; consciousness of mortality gives rise to out deepest longings and greatest accomplishments.
~ Leon Kass (born: 1939-02-12 age: 73)
Men talk of heaven, — there is no heaven but here;
Men talk of hell, — there is no hell but here;
Men of hereafters talk, and future lives, —
O love, there is no other life — but here.
~ Omar Kayyám (born: 1048-05-18 died: 1131-12-04 at age: 83)
A man is walking across a bridge, when he sees another guy about to jump off. Hey, man he says, you don’t have to do that.~ Garrison Keillor (born: 1942-08-07 age: 69)
Why not? the other guy says, I’ve got nothing to live for. I lost my job, I’m bankrupt, my wife left me and took the kids, my car threw a rod, and my dog just died. My life totally sucks.
But God still loves you, the man says, you believe in God, don’t you?
Well, I guess so, the guy says.
Tell me, are you a Christian?
Yes the guy answers.
Well, so am I! the man says. Catholic or Protestant?
I’m Protestant
Well, so am I!. Methodist, or Baptist, or Presbyterian
I’m Baptist.
Well, so am I. Northern or Southern Baptist?
Northern Baptist.
Well so am I!. Northern fundamentalist, liberal, or reformed?
Northern fundamentalist.
Well, so am I!. Northern fundamentalist eastern region, or Great Lakes region?
Northern fundamentalist, eastern region.
Well, so am I!. Northern fundamentalist, eastern region conference of 1898, or conference of 1912?
Northern fundamentalist, eastern region, conference of 1912.
Die, heretic! the man says, and pushes him off the bridge.
Either we shake one another’s hands in joy at he victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life, and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are hours.
~ Ayatollah Khomeini (born: 1902-09-24 died: 1989-06-03 at age: 86)People who do not feel a need to avoid death are a particularly dangerous class of lunatic, particularly if they have access to weapons of mass destruction. They are too easily tempted to use them for trivial purposes like forcing others to pretend to agree on one particular bogus description of an imaginary deity.
Faith is the acceptance of claims for which there is no good evidence; when someone invites you to take something on faith, they are actively telling you not to challenge it, not to question it, not to inquire whether it is really true: they are telling you to simply accept it on their say-so. And this “accepting it on their say-so” is at the very heart of Christianity.
~ Paula Kirby Breaking Out Of the Prison of Religion
There is not one iota of history as we know it in the entire Bible!
~ Alvin Boyd Kuhn (born: 1880-09-22 died: 1963-09-14 at age: 82) Biblical scholar
I’m worried about this [Christmas] tree. Do you think it is vulgar enough yet?
~ Mrs. Lacey (born: 1941-10-05 age: 70) fictitious character in the Agatha Christie’s Poirot The Theft of the Royal Ruby played by Stephanie Cole
Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die
~ Philip Larkin (born: 1922-08-02 died: 1985-12-02 at age: 63) Aubade
The problem with relying on sacrifice to right wrongs in that no one tells you when you have sacrificed enough goats.
~ Phil Laut
The Bible contains 6 admonishments to homosexuals, and 362 to heterosexuals. This doesn’t mean God doesn’t love heterosexuals, it’s just that they need more supervision.
~ Lynn Lavner , a lesbian comic
There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.
~ Richard Lederer (born: 1938-05-26 age: 74)
Praying is like a rocking chair — it’ll give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.
~ Gypsy Rose Lee (born: 1911-01-08 died: 1970-04-26 at age: 59)
Imagine
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for todayImagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peaceYou may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as oneImagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the worldYou may say that I’m a dreamer
~ John Lennon (born: 1940-10-09 died: 1980-12-08 at age: 40)
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…
~ John Lennon (born: 1940-10-09 died: 1980-12-08 at age: 40)
Is it not better to place a question mark upon a problem while seeking an answer than to put the label God there and consider the matter closed?
~ Joseph Lewis (born: 1889-06-11 died: 1968 at age: 79)
Cosmic love is absolutely Ruthless and Highly Indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/ dislike them or not.
~ Dr. John Cunningham Lilly (born: 1915-01-06 died: 2001-09-30 at age: 86)
I call God ECCO (Earth Coincidence Control Office). It’s much more satisfying to call it that. A lot of people accept this and they don’t know that they’re just talking about God. I finally found a God that was big enough. As the astronomer said to the Minister, “My God’s astronomical.” The Minister said, “How can you relate to something so big?” The astronomer said, “Well, that isn’t the problem, your God“s too small!”
~ Dr. John Cunningham Lilly (born: 1915-01-06 died: 2001-09-30 at age: 86)
My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.
~ Abraham Lincoln (born: 1809-02-12 died: 1865-04-15 at age: 56), sixteenth president of the United States.
It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (born: 1903-11-07 died: 1989-02-27 at age: 85)
Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one.
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (born: 1903-11-07 died: 1989-02-27 at age: 85)
We had better dispense with the personification of evil, because it leads, all too easily, to the most dangerous kind of war: religious war.
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (born: 1903-11-07 died: 1989-02-27 at age: 85)
When men wish to construct or support a theory, how they torture facts into their service!
~ John Mackay (born: 1814-03-27 died: 1889-12-24 at age: 75) Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds 1852
During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
~ James Madison (born: 1751-03-16 died: 1836-06-28 at age: 85) fourth president of the United States, A Memorial and Remonstrate Against Religious Assessments 1785-06-20
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.
~ James Madison (born: 1751-03-16 died: 1836-06-28 at age: 85) fourth president of the USA.
What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient allies.
~ James Madison (born: 1751-03-16 died: 1836-06-28 at age: 85), fourth president of the United States, A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, addressed to the Virginia General Assembly, 1785-06-20.
The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church.
~ Ferdinand Magellan (born: 1480 died: 1521-04-27 at age: 40) Some claim it was Robert Green Ingersoll (born: 1833 died: 1899 at age: 66)
Atheism is a religion the way abstinence is a sex position.
~ Bill Maher (born: 1956-01-20 age: 56)
I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder.
~ Bill Maher (born: 1956-01-20 age: 56)
If the bible myth of Jonah in the whale and the Mother Goose myth of Jack and the Beanstalk were switched at birth so that Jack in the Beanstalk were in the bible, do you think any child would notice?
~ Bill Maher (born: 1956-01-20 age: 56)
Religion is defined as belief in and worship of a controlling power and atheism is precisely not that.
~ Bill Maher (born: 1956-01-20 age: 56)
Robbing god
~ a Christian con manThis is a term for failing to hand over 10% of one’s income to the Christian con man.
The Catholic Church, once all her assets have been put together, is the most formidable stockbroker in the world.
~ Avro Manhattan The Vatican Billions
The only religious way to think of death is as part and parcel of life.
~ Thomas Mann (born: 1875-06-06 died: 1955-08-12 at age: 80)
What nearly everybody in my life… had misunderstood about Satanism was that it’s not about ritual sacrifices, digging up graves and worshipping the devil. The devil doesn’t exist. Satanism is about worshipping yourself, because you’re responsible for your own good and evil.
~ Marilyn Manson (born: 1969-01-05 age: 43) The Long Hard Road Out of Hell
Religion is the opium of the people translated from the German “Die Religion … ist das Opium des Volkes” sometimes misquoted as “opiate of the people”.
~ Karl Marx (born: 1818-05-05 died: 1883-03-14 at age: 64), Contribution to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness.
~ Karl Marx (born: 1818-05-05 died: 1883-03-14 at age: 64)
Let’s keep that our little secret, shall we.
~ Aimee Semple McPherson (born: 1890-10-09 died: 1944-09-27 at age: 53)When Charlie Chaplin said that she was the best actress he had ever seen.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 66% of the US population agrees strongly with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years”. Given the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence to the contrary, such obstinate belief should frighten any reasonable thinking person.
~ R. Elizabeth Cornwell PhD & J. Anderson Thomson MD The Evolution of Religion
An individual watching another chip away at a flint would attribute to him a purpose, similar to his own when he created a tool. So too would he assume that lightning, rain, the sun, the stars, the moon must have had some sort of purposeful creative force behind them. Here lie the very deepest roots of our religious beliefs.
~ R. Elizabeth Cornwell PhD & J. Anderson Thomson MD The Evolution of Religion
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
Archbishop: A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99% of them are wrong.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
There is a saying in Baltimore that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
~ Henry Louis Mencken (born: 1880-09-12 died: 1956-01-29 at age: 75)
God is a word to express, not our ideas, but the want of them.
~ John Stuart Mill (born: 1806-05-20 died: 1873-05-08 at age: 66)
Is there any moral enormity which might not be justified by imitation of such a Deity?
~ John Stuart Mill (born: 1806-05-20 died: 1873-05-08 at age: 66)
The ne plus ultra of wickedness is embodied in what is commonly presented to mankind as the creed of Christianity.
~ John Stuart Mill (born: 1806-05-20 died: 1873-05-08 at age: 66)
The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue, are complete sceptics in religion.
~ John Stuart Mill (born: 1806-05-20 died: 1873-05-08 at age: 66)
Cleave to no faith when faith brings blood.
~ Arthur Miller (born: 1915-10-17 died: 2005-02-10 at age: 89) The Crucible
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
~ Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (born: 1533 died: 1592 at age: 59)
Man is certainly stark mad. He can’t make a flea, but makes gods by the dozen.
~ Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (born: 1533 died: 1592 at age: 59)
[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread… and a thousand other things of the same kind.
~ Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu (born: 1689-01-19 died: 1755-02-10 at age: 66)In this respect the pope is a sort of hypnotist, of the sort depicted in the Hans Christian Andersen’s story of the Emperor’s New Clothes
Ye shall have miracles, aye, sound ones too,
Seen, heard, attested, everything but true.
~ Thomas Moore (born: 1779-05-28 died: 1852-02-25 at age: 72)
There is that special pleading again. We can believe this because it’s faith. But, we can’t believe anything that you’ve said without a mountain of evidence, that we will still reject.
~ D. M. Murdock biblical scholar
Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.
~ John von Neumann (born: 1903-12-28 died: 1957-02-08 at age: 53)Science is about finding ever better approximations rather than pretending you have already found ultimate truth.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (born: 1844-10-15 died: 1900-08-25 at age: 55)
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (born: 1844-10-15 died: 1900-08-25 at age: 55)
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (born: 1844-10-15 died: 1900-08-25 at age: 55)
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (born: 1844-10-15 died: 1900-08-25 at age: 55)
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (born: 1844-10-15 died: 1900-08-25 at age: 55)
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (born: 1844-10-15 died: 1900-08-25 at age: 55)
The whole point of Christianity is that everyone in the world, from Charles Manson to Mother Teresa, deserves to go to hell.
~ Sean Ningen
Darwin’s theory of evolution is proof of God. Anything that good must come of God. God whispered it into Darwin’s ear. God even made a major earthquake happen in Conceptión so that Darwin could see how the earth is in flux, an idea he borrowed for the tree of life, yet another idea he borrowed from the bible.
~ Ann Onimus (born: 1940-12-25 died: 1953-12-25 at age: 13)
Society would not tolerate legislation declaring that the theory that the sun circles the earth be given equal time with the theory of a heliocentric solar system; it should not pay attention to the equally preposterous notions of “scientific creationism”
~ Robert Ornstein
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
~ George Orwell (born: 1903-06-25 died: 1950-01-21 at age: 46)
One cannot really be a Catholic and grown up.
~ George Orwell (born: 1903-06-25 died: 1950-01-21 at age: 46)
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
~ George Orwell (born: 1903-06-25 died: 1950-01-21 at age: 46)
About six years ago, Life magazine ran an article on the historicity of Jesus, and I was floored to find that they conceded the only evidence we have for his existence is in the Gospels. But don’t take Life’s word for it. In his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus , the most definitive study that’s ever been done on the subject, Albert Schweitzer admitted that there isn’t a shred of conclusive proof that Christ ever lived, let alone was the son of God. He concludes that one must therefore accept both on faith.
~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair (born: 1919-04-13 died: 1995-09-29 at age: 76) 1965-10But makes no sense. Why would you believe something highly improbable without evidence? Normally you demand overwhelming evidence for preposterous claims and accept only mundane claims without evidence. That is like saying you should accept the Easter bunny on faith, just because it is so pleasant to pretend the Easter bunny exists.
An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.
~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair (born: 1919-04-13 died: 1995-09-29 at age: 76)
But the most heinous crime of the Church has been perpetrated not against churchmen but against churchgoers. With its poisonous concepts of sin and divine punishment, it’s warped and brainwashed countless millions. It would be impossible to calculate the psychic damage this has inflicted on generations of children who might have grown up into healthy, happy. productive, zestful human beings but for the burden of antisexual fear and guilt ingrained in them by the Church. This alone is enough to condemn religion.
~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair (born: 1919-04-13 died: 1995-09-29 at age: 76) 1965-10
Letters from Christians to an Atheist
“Commie, Commie, Commie!”… “Somebody is going to put a bullet through your fat ass, you scum, you masculine Lesbian bitch!”… “You will be killed before too long. Or maybe your pretty little baby boy. The queer-looking bastard. You are a bitch and your son is a bastard”… “Slut! Slut! Slut! Bitch slut from the Devil!” That’ll give you the general idea. Oh — just one more; I love this one: “May Jesus, who you so vigorously deny, change you into a Paul.”
~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair (born: 1919-04-13 died: 1995-09-29 at age: 76) 1965-10
The fear of hell is the basis for the Christian faith.
~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair (born: 1919-04-13 died: 1995-09-29 at age: 76)
When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself.
~ Peter O’Toole (born: 1932-08-02 age: 79) playing Jack Gurney, the 14th Earl of Gurney in The Ruling Class
Accustom a people to believe that priests, or any other class of men can forgive sins, and you will have sins in abundance.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
As to the book called the bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions and a history of bad times and bad men.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
It is far better that we admitted a thousand devils to roam at large than that we permitted one such imposter and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God and have credit among us.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72) The Age of Reason.
No falsehood is so fatal as that which is made an article of faith.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
Priests and conjurors are of the same trade.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72) The Age of Reason.
Prophesying is lying professionally.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange believe that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72) The Age of Reason.
That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally paid to the sun.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72)
The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
What is it the Bible teaches us? — raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? — to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind.
~ Thomas Paine (born: 1737-01-29 died: 1809-06-08 at age: 72).
The chains men bear they forged themselves. Strike off their chains and they will weep for their lost security.
~ John Passmore (born: 1914 died: 2004 at age: 90) Australian philosopher
May they rest in eternal peace.
~ Gordon Pinsent (born: 1930-07-12 age: 81) at the centennial commemoration of the sinking of the Titanic.They are dead you idiot, not resting! Pinsent reminds me of the Monty Python Norwegian Blue parrot sketch. “‘VOOM?!?’ Mate, this bird wouldn’t ‘voom’ if you put four million volts through it! ’E’s bleedin’ demised!”
~ Mr. Praline played by John Cleese.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called Religion.
~ Robert M. Pirsig (born: 1928-09-06 age: 83) the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
You are never dedicated to do something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
~ Robert M. Pirsig (born: 1928-09-06 age: 83) the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Jocos et Dii amant — Even the gods love jokes.
~ Plato (born: 428 BC died: 348 BC at age: 80)
No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter… than you and I; and all religion… is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
~ Edgar Allan Poe (born: 1809-01-19 died: 1849-10-07 at age: 40)
23% of Canadians say that they do not believe in any god. For young Canadians under age 25, the figure was 36%. This is by far the largest religious minority demographic and by far the fastest growing in terms of sheer size.
~ Harris-Decimal poll 2008-05Religion requires people to avoid thinking. As soon as they have a close look at their religious beliefs, they realise not only that they are false, but that they are preposterous. The people are gaining courage from each other on the Internet to proclaim emperor has no clothes.
The Old Man kept at his court such boys of twelve years old as seemed to him destined to become courageous men. When the Old Man sent them into the garden in groups of four, ten or twenty, he gave them hashish [probably mixed with belladonna] to drink. They slept for three days, then they were carried sleeping into the garden where he had them awakened.
When these young men woke, and found themselves in the garden with all these marvelous things, they truly believed themselves to be in paradise. And these damsels were always with them in songs and great entertainments; they; received everything they asked for, so that they would never have left that garden of their own will.
And when the Old Man wished to kill someone, he would take him and say: “Go and do this thing. I do this because I want to make you return to paradise.” And the assassins go and perform the deed willingly.
~ Marco Polo (born: 1254 died: 1324 at age: 70)
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest.
~ Alexander Pope (born: 1688-05-21 died: 1744-05-30 at age: 56)The old pie in the sky con.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I must,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
~ Modified Serenity Prayer
I give you this
One thought to keep
I am with you still
I do not sleep.I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain.When you awaken
In the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight
I am the soft stars
That shine at nightDo not think of me as gone
~ Native American prayer
I am with you still
In each new dawn
He is the one who has set free two bodies of flowing water, one palpable and sweet, and the other salt and bitter; Yet has he made a partition between them, A partition that is forbidden to be passed.
~ Qur’an Surah Al Furqan 25:53Mohammed would not have had much experience with flowing water. This is simply false. When rivers meet, especially when one is muddier than the other, you can easily see it takes a while for them to merge. There is no partition. Taste the water near a river mouth. It changes gradually from fresh to salty as you move from the mouth. That is how ancient sailors knew they were getting near land.
I never fail to reward any worker among you for any work you do, be you male or female, you are equal to one another.
~ Qur’an Surah 3:195 Ali Imran
If a man is slain unjustly, his heirs shall be entitled to satisfaction, but let him not carry his vengeance to excess, or his victim is sure to be assisted and avenged.
~ The Qur’an Al Isra 17:33
I suggest that we might want to depose this incumbent God and start dealing with The Real World. He’s proven — time and again — to be cruel, capricious, and vindictive. He drowns, crushes, burns, and starves millions of us every day. He created cancer, viruses, and germs to invade and destroy our bodies as He sees fit, and uses them very effectively. In His wisdom, He directed those in charge to impede stem cell research so that such a powerful approach would not be available to us and He wouldn’t have to strain the Divine Intellect to disarm that defense. We amuse Him as we flail about vainly trying to appease Him. I vote that we dump Him.
~ James Randi (born: 1928-08-07 age: 83)
No amount of belief makes something a fact.
~ James Randi (born: 1928-08-07 age: 83)
Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What’s left is magic. And it doesn’t work.
~ James Randi (born: 1928-08-07 age: 83)
The conjuror or con man is a very good provider of information. He supplies lots of data, by inference or direct statement, but it’s false data. Scientists aren’t used to that scenario. An electron or a galaxy is not capricious, nor deceptive; but a human can be either or both.
~ James Randi (born: 1928-08-07 age: 83)
There exists in society a very special class of persons that I have always referred to as the Believers. These are folks who have chosen to accept a certain religion, philosophy, theory, idea or notion and cling to that belief regardless of any evidence that might, for anyone else, bring it into doubt. They are the ones who encourage and support the fanatics and the frauds of any given age. No amount of evidence, no matter how strong, will bring them any enlightenment. They are the sheep who beg to be fleeced and butchered, and who will battle fiercely to preserve their right to be victimized. The U.S. Patent Office handles an endless succession of inventors who still produce perpetual-motion machines that don’t work, but no number of idle flywheels will convince these zealots of their folly; dozens of these patent applications flow in every year. In ashrams all over the world, hopping devotees of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi will never abandon their goal of blissful levitation of their bodies by mind power, despite bruises and sprains aplenty suffered as they bounce about on gym mats like demented (though smiling) frogs, trying to get airborne. Absolutely nothing will discourage them.
~ James Randi (born: 1928-08-07 age: 83)
To make sure that my blasphemy is thoroughly expressed, I hereby state my opinion that the notion of a god is a basic superstition, that there is no evidence for the existence of any god(s), that devils, demons, angels and saints are myths, that there is no life after death, heaven nor hell, that the Pope is a dangerous, bigoted, medieval dinosaur, and that the Holy Ghost is a comic-book character worthy of laughter and derision. I accuse the Christian god of murder by allowing the Holocaust to take place — not to mention the “ethnic cleansing” presently being performed by Christians in our world — and I condemn and vilify this mythical deity for encouraging racial prejudice and commanding the degradation of women. (This comprehensive statement was arrived at by examining the statutes of those seven states that have remained in the Dark Ages, so that I might satisfy their definitions of blasphemy.)
~ James Randi (born: 1928-08-07 age: 83)
Education is the key to perpetuation of the [god] virus for the Taliban, Baptist or Catholic. If the virus cannot control public education, it will seek to divert resources from public coffers to fundamentalist school funding. From the madrassa schools of Pakistan to the Christian push for school vouchers in the United States, and the religious home school movement, religions seek to control education or to control the resources for education.
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
Fundamentalism in most of its forms is the active creation of antibodies to some threatening [god] virus. As long as threatening religions or mutations [heresies] are present, fundamentalism will churn out antibodies to keep the population under control and prevent mutations from getting out of hand.
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
Fundamentalist groups like Christian Embassy have infiltrated the very top of the U.S. military and gained positions of influence in the Pentagon.
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
Have you ever observed somebody go through a religious conversion? The person seems perfectly reasonable to you and has no particular concern for religion. Then a parent, friend or child dies or he gets a serious illness or is involved in a car accident. In just a matter of weeks, he seeks out and finds the answers to all of life’s questions and starts studying and spouting all sorts of doctrine. During such a window of vulnerability, religion can commandeer a person’s brain.
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
Is Atheism a Religion?
Every religion … has rituals, practices, holy writings or traditions, etc. Nothing like that has ever developed from Atheism. There are no holy men, holidays or holy books, and no agreed-upon canons of faith. In fact, the only thing you can get some Atheists to agree upon is that there is no god.
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
Islam has some of the best defenses against other god viruses and has the potential to be more parasitically aggressive when consolidating political power with a society.
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
Jesus must have been married to have been called a rabbi.
~ Darrel Ray
Just as the chicken pox virus continues to live quietly in the body after the disease is gone, the god virus may live quietly in the host until something evokes it.
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
Many of them [people who escaped religion] recounted both the terror and the relief they felt after leaving religion behind. Terror at realizing there was no longer an imaginary friend; relief that no one was looking over their shoulder any more. Several described the experience as similar to that of a child learning to go to sleep without a favorite teddy bear. Others described it as simply growing up or outgrowing the need for the imaginary friends of childhood.
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
Most of their [people who escaped religion] stories reflect the following four themes:
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
- Events that opened their eyes to religious manipulation in their life or family.
- Long hidden or suppressed doubts about the teachings.
- Their ultimate act or declaration of liberation from organized religion.
- The double-edged sword of living without the crutch of a supernatural friend and learning to accept full responsibility for life.
Once infected, the individual [infected with a god virus] cannot detect major contradictions in his beliefs and behavior. Belief systems become self-evident to him, and no amount of logical discourse will move him from his belief. If a Mormon and Catholic were to debate the merits of their respective religions, neither could see his own inconsistencies and logical fallacies, but would see the other’s quite clearly.
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
Simply disabling specific critical thinking skills is all that is necessary for the god virus [to take control of a person].
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
Some people who experience a religious conversion seem to undergo a personality change. They can be quite congenial and easygoing when talking about mundane things, but when they start talking about their faith, their demeanor changes. Their tone of voice modifies, their smile becomes tense, and they become defensive when questioned about their evidence for belief. It becomes difficult to have a friendly conversation with them.
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.
The lancet fluke (Dicrocoelium) infects the brain of ants by taking control and driving them to climb to the top of a blade of grass where they can be eaten by a cow. The ingested fluke then lays eggs in the cow gut. Eventually, the eggs exit the cow, and hungry snails eat the dung (and fluke eggs). The fluke enters the snail’s digestive gland and gets excreted in sticky slime full of a seething mass of flukes to be drunk by ants as a source of moisture.
~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.In a similar way a religion takes over a person’s mind and makes him behave in life-denying ways such as going to war, suicide bombing, celibacy or handing over his wealth to the church.
Catholic dioceses typically spent hundreds of thousands of dollars recklessly, then filed for bankruptcy. The goal was to avoid the money going to the hands of victims of predator priests.
~ Dan Rather Report (born: 1931-10-31 age: 80)
It’s the old shell game.
~ Dan Rather Report (born: 1931-10-31 age: 80)
These guys [the Catholic church] make Enron look like altar boys.
~ Dan Rather Report (born: 1931-10-31 age: 80)
I’m not making this up. It’s on the Internet.
~ A RepublicanHe was defending his claim that the budget for Obama’s trip to India was $200 million dollars a day and that 1/10 of the US Navy was accompanying him. He is correct, of course, that you find evidence for any bizarre claim on the Internet. As Rachel Maddow pointed out “On the Internet, you can even buy canned unicorn meat.”
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 F. Roberts (born: 1967 age: 44)
I can understand why people believe in God, Jacob, I just can’t understand why they are not trying to kill the motherfucker.
~ Spider Robinson (born: 1948-11-24 age: 63) character Doc Webster, about to die of a brain tumor, Callahan’s Con.
A man is only as faithful as his options.
~ Chris Rock (born: 1965-02-07 age: 47)
Gay people got a right to be as miserable as everybody else.
~ Chris Rock (born: 1965-02-07 age: 47) on gay marriage
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.
~ Gene Roddenberry (born: 1921-08-19 died: 1991-10-24 at age: 70)
11:13-14 warns that the devil has the ability to take on a pleasing shape. Given that the god Jehovah behaves worse than the demented Roman emperor Caligula, why are Christians so sure he is not Lucifer in mild disguise?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
30 to 40% of Americans believe that Revelation e.g. being raptured up into the air, is literally true. No wonder these vandals are so willing to trash the planet. They believe God has scheduled it for destruction soon anyway.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
40% of Americans switch religious sects at least once in their lives. They reject the old lies, but immediately cling to a new set. Why do they believe that the new, equally without evidence, is any truer? It is as crazy as being burned by Bernie Madoff, then immediately looking around for another pyramid scheme to rip you off.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
4000 years ago, you might have ten children, and feel lucky if even one of them made it to adulthood. Plagues, infectious diseases and accidents with livestock whittled away at the population. There were no antibiotics, surgery, dentistry or sanitation. People worried they would die out, and urged each other to breed as fast as possible. Of course today we have the opposite problem. The global population has grown many times larger than the earth can support. Unfortunately, crazy people have decided that obsolete 4000 year old thinking is what we need today. They breed like mad, and torment those who do not want to, and interfere with other people’s attempts at birth control. Why? Religious delusions. If there were not so many of them, they would be institutionalised.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
60-80% of fertilized eggs fail to implant and then another 15-20% of the fertilized eggs that do implant spontaneously abort. That gives us a 16-34% survival rate for fertilized eggs. A religiously minded person might say God condemns 66-84% of all babies to death in the time between conception and the start of pregnancy. Give his happens more often than not, calling for the public hanging of doctors who encourage this process, seems a bit overblown.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
93% of churches in the USA are still segregated.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A BC Catholic teen got pregnant because the church kept her so ignorant she believed that you simply decided whether or not to have children. They consider her gross ignorance a Good Thing™ I think it is extreme malice.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A child on encountering its first bull can’t help but think of it as some sort of large doggie. What is the matter with it? It won’t bark! Christians treat us homosexuals in a similar way, projecting their limited view of what is possible and normal onto us.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A Christian argues that there is necessarily some sort of designer/creator of the universe, and then by sleight of hand, claims those arguments prove the infallibility of his book. The two issues have no connection.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A Christian dog in a manger tries to cremate or bury everyone’s perfectly good corneas.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A Christian is like a bratty child who says, “two plus two is four? Hah! That’s just your opinion”.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A Christian lives in a stoned world similar to that of a user of psychedelics or someone undergoing a psychotic break. They consider the ordinary and the miraculous equally plausible. They presume the voices in their heads are the creator of the universe giving them personal messages. Disembodied evil forces threaten them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A Christian would sooner spend $1 million on life support for someone who is brain dead with no hope of regaining consciousness, or forcing a patient in extreme pain with terminal pancreas cancer to stay alive than they would on patients with a good chance of recovery. Such are the times I want to slap them senseless.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A church is like an astrology club. A group of people get together, and make up an entire body of knowledge, and have fun testing each other on it, but it has no connection to reality. A church is really no different, but it tries con others into giving it special privilege by bogusly claiming important magical knowledge. A church is more ambitious. It tries to impose its beliefs on others by lobbying for changes in the law. To improve its status, it aggrandises itself with expensive architecture, elaborate costumes, magical paraphernalia… The astounding this is how well they succeed at their bamboozling.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A church is one of the few places where it is socially acceptable to moan “Ain’t it awful”, and feel sorry for yourself.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A church typically exculpates itself for child abuse coverups by saying ’Mistakes were made”. Passive voice is designed to avoid taking responsibility. Covering up and aiding a child molester and/or abuser is not a mistake. It is deliberate criminal act. A mistake would be failing to take a child’s isolated complaint seriously. Perhaps they mean “We made a mistake. If we had been smarter we would not have got caught.” In any other institution but the church was found to harbour a child molestation ring, we would not think twice before shutting it down, no matter how prestigious the front. Since the criminal justice system is too timid, the churches caught doing this sort of thing need to be sued out of existence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A creationist, on finding a bit of old wood in Israel, claims it must be either part of Noah’s ark or Jesus’s cross. When he finds a pottery box, he declares it an ossuary that must have held the bones of Jesus. When he discovers the images of the Beatles impressed on the lid of the ossuary, he declares it a miracle prophesy fulfilled.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A crisis of faith happens when you suddenly stop pretending, for even a second, that you know things for certain that you don’t. It is a breath of true humility. It can be awe-inspiring or terrifying, as you choose.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A generation ago, bigots argued against civil rights for black people using the same religious/superstitious arguments they are trotting out again today to deny gay people equal rights.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A god is like a religion’s team mascot, a caricature to embody the religion’s values. the god Jehovah hates gays, is highly xenophobic, has obsessive-compulsive dietary rules, and has esteem and control issues.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A god, watching human television, would conclude humans want more rape, adultery, murder and natural disasters.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A local newspaper announced that a local woman had credited her faith is god with her ability to endure a stepfather slitting the throat of her five year old daughter. Wouldn’t she be asking herself why her god refused to intervene? Why did her god single her out for this tragedy? Her god refused to lift a finger in any way to help, hardly helpful. This sounds like Stockholm syndrome. What did she imagine this god was telling her that anaesthetised her?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A magician makes a large goose appear out of nowhere and assures you it is just an illusion. A priest holds up a cracker and claims you have just witnessed a miracle.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A man never behaves worse than when he thinks he is a god or when he thinks a god is personally directing him.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A man of the cloth is a patronising sod. He thinks he knows better than others how people should think and behave, so he feeds them terrifying lies to control them and incidentally trick them into giving him money “for God” as if the creator of the universe needed human money to accomplish his ends.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A man will feel far more offended if you question his religion than if you criticise his wife, denounce his political party or trash his favourite football team.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A parasite is a creature that lives off its host. It does not care if its host suffers or dies. By that definition Christians are parasites on planet earth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A poll revealed that 20% of Americans believe that the most pressing moral problem facing America is preventing gay people from marrying. They consider it more important that domestic violence, drug addiction, political corruption, promiscuity, gluttony, teen pregnancy, euthanasia and even abortion. I find this mind boggling. Christians want to block people they have never met from publicly promising fidelity to each other, a prime Christian value. Since gays and Christian rarely cross paths, whether gays marry or not has no effect whatsoever on the lives of the Christians. I suspect these same mindless Christian bigots, a generation ago, focused on making life miserable for blacks just because their preachers told them to.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A religion grows by persuading its members to have large numbers of children, not by presenting persuasive arguments for its articles of faith.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A religion is a cult that has enough money for a PR department.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A religion is cult with a bigger bank account and better PR. Religions seem less whacky than cults because we have had more time to get used to them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A religion is like an optical illusion. From inside the circle it appears as the ultimate good. From outside, as foolish, misguided, if not actively evil.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A true scientist will not discount some phenomena based solely on the fact he can’t think of a mechanism to explain it. He bases it on the quality of the evidence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A university degree in theology is as preposterous as a degree in unicornology.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A university study discovered that Christianity caused 1/3 of its practitioners to behave better, and 2/3 to behave worse. Would you prescribe a drug that made two thirds of the patients sicker and had the side effect of causing delusions?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A university teaching a course in theology is as ridiculous as teaching one in fortune telling.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A vitamin A capsule, costing $0.02, will overnight cure a child in the third world of blindness. Another, every six months, will keep it at bay and also give substantial protection against other diseases. Even the poorest Christian could single-handedly afford to bring sight to more people than Jesus reputedly healed, but instead they choose to send these blind children bibles they can’t even see, much less read.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A woman was making a roast. She cut off the ends and discarded them. Her husband was watching and asked why she did that. She said, “That’s the way mother always did it”. She then phoned her mom to ask why she cut the ends off. Mom explained that she had only a very small pan, and otherwise the roast would not fit. There was nothing the matter with the ends — no reason at all to discard them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
About half the science presented on TV is no more advanced than you would find in a medieval village. Even the National Geographic channel panders superstitious crap as science that they know appeals to their ignorant audience.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
About the only fate worse for a child than being born to drug addicts is to be born to fundamentalists.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Abraham is a key founder of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He suffered from schizophrenia and heard voices commanding him to kill his son Isaac. He plotted to tie up his son, slit his throat and set fire him as an “offering” to the god Jehovah, treating him as a sacrificial bull. He was just about to slit his son’s throat, when the voices told him to desist. He had no evidence whatsoever that any of these voices were God. All three of these religions revere Abraham’s behaviour as the highest good. Nothing good can come from a religion founded on such madness. Today we would incarcerate Abraham in an institution for the criminally insane.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
According to a FOX poll, 74% of Americans believe in after-death eternal punishment. I find this baffling given that nearly all Americans cheered their soldiers off to Afghanistan and Iraq to exterminate children using the most painful imaginable means — chemical burning.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
According to Pat Robertson and friends, when misfortune befalls a homosexual, it is God punishing him for being gay. If misfortune befalls a heterosexual, it is God punishing him for being insufficiently nasty to homosexuals. If misfortune befalls someone who trashes the environment, it is still some homosexual’s fault. Robertson sees gays as the universal scapegoat.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
According to Revelation 14:3-4, everyone goes to hell except 140,000 males who have never been with women, presumably all children or homosexuals. Not only are heterosexuals unwelcome, they would find heaven unbearable. Could it be the Christian persecution of gays is motivated by envy.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
According to the bible, the god Jehovah is like a meddlesome mother who micromanages man’s activities. But there has not been a peep out of him for at least 1000 years, and plenty of dire need of intervention (e.g. the bubonic plague, Hitler, Bush’s torture dungeons, Darfur…). It appears that he has left or has completely lost interest in mankind. Yet God is supposed to be absolutely unchanging. How do the fundamentalists explain this to themselves? To me it is obvious. Nothing has changed. God never did interfere. The bible is a work of fiction. It is an adult version of a boy’s fantasy big brother to help beat up his enemies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
According to the Christians, God took only one day to create the entire universe, then puttered about another five days to create just one planet — earth. How would a Christian react to discovery of even rudimentary life in other parts of the universe, and especially life that claimed the creator of the universe had lavished special attention only on them?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
According to the Christians, the god Jehovah impregnated Mary. They were not married, and they were not even of the same species. So you would characterise that act as both fornication and bestiality.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
According to the Ralph Benmergui miniseries, God Bless America, the USA in its wars on Iraq and Afghanistan use logos involving the crucifix and heraldry from the Christian crusaders who invaded the middle east in the 1100s and killed everyone who had even known to be a Muslim. So much for separation of church and state.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Activities for boys teach violence, cruelty and insensitivity to others. When the boys grow up,those most suggestible become soldiers or gang members. The activities, killing, maiming, stealing and raping, are the same. The main difference is the pay.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Adults get hooked on religions because of the way they feel in the fellowship of believers, not because the religion seems more plausible or truthful than the alternatives.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Advertising works by triggering both positive and negative emotions. If you buy the product, you will get more sex, people will think more highly of you, you will feel more relaxed and competent. If you don’t buy the product you will be embarrassed by your body odour, ashamed of your lawn, fearful of burglars etc. Christians have taken this up a notch. If you buy, you will have eternal drugged-out bliss. If you don’t you will have eternal torment. It is an incredibly good con since no living person knows absolutely for sure that the promise is a lie.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
After death experience is hard to study. Everything we think we know is based on the experiences of people who were still alive at the time.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
After WWII (World War II), the Catholic church did not excommunicate even a single war criminal or génocidaire. They only went after scholars and theologians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
All Christians are atheists with respect to the Norse god Thor and the Hindu god Hanuman. They even applaud me for being that sort of atheist. The only sense that matters to them is atheist relative to Jesus. If I were debating Hindus, then my atheism toward Jesus would be applauded or taken for granted and my atheism toward Hanuman excoriated. To an atheist like me, Christianity is just another of the 10,000 religions created by man, nothing special about it at all. Christians don’t realise how provincial they are in their debating, insisting on treating Christianity as a special case.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
All evidence for or against existence aside, Christians hope that bastard the god Jehovah exists and gay people hope he does not.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
American bigots insisted Muslims move their mosque and education center far away from the World Trade Towers sight because their presence somehow desecrated the site. This is like demanding the Jews publicly atone for killing Jesus. The people at the mosque had absolute nothing to with 9/11. Bigots are trying to force them to confess that they did. It is astounding how bigoted mainstream America is becoming. It is like watching the gradual transformation of Nazi Germany.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
American bigots justify continued bullying, persecution, suppression, denial of equal civil rights and denial of marriage to gay people on the grounds of 3000 years of tradition. I would like to remind them that 3000 years of tradition was an equally spurious justification for slavery, segregation, refusing women the vote and beating horses and children to death. Whether gays marry or not has no effect whatsoever on straight marriages. Opposition is acting out of spite and malice. The pleasure of bullying and the smug satisfaction of superior social status is what is actually motivating the bigots.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
American Christianity is the ultimate hypocrisy. The bible says to turn the other cheek. American Christians fund trillions to kill people whose only crime is sitting on natural resources that the Americans covet. The bible says to care for the poor and needy. Americans are the stingiest of all the developed nations in foreign aid. They even deny their own citizens food, shelter and medical care. Americans claim they believe earth is God’s creation then treat it like a toilet bowl. The bible warns people against the love of money yet chasing wealth is the #1 American Christian pastime. Even the pulpits preach phony get rich quick schemes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
American preachers lie to their flocks who have lost their jobs or their homes telling them that God will provide new jobs and homes if they but have faith (i.e. continue to tithe). This holds down the gullible as passive patsies for manipulation by Republican plutocrats a Christian con men. The flock sit with their thumbs in their orifices waiting like sloths for a God who never does anything.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Americans are far more outraged by violations to corpses than to the living. Personally, if I had to be tortured, dismembered or burned, I would far sooner it were done after I were dead.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Americans are having a terrible time with their economy. The problem is, oddly, Christianity. Christians are hopelessly optimistic, gullible people who will believe what any charlatan tells them so long as it sounds pleasant. They have almost no interest in whether it is actually true. They have been trained in this sheep-like submission to crooks since birth. So they are vulnerable to politicians who lie to them that they can have their cake and eat it too — massive tax cuts, especially to the billionaires, no cuts in spending and pay down the debt. Honest politicians tell them they must pay higher taxes and accept across the board spending cuts to avoid the public debt dragging the whole country into bankruptcy. Christians turf these depressing but honest politicians out office. They prefer fairy tales.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Americans are the strangest people. They swallow impossible myths like Noah’s ark as absolute truth without any evidence at all, and refuse to acknowledge global warming even when they can see it happening under their noses.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Americans don’t believe in freedom of religion. They are happy to impose their religious beliefs about marriage on gay people. They are also willing to force their religious superstitions about abortion on others, using violence and threats of violence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Americans spend thousands of dollars for chemicals and devices to slow decay of corpses. This is odd because they admit to no religious belief that requires an intact corpse for a happy after life. Similarly, they react in far greater horror to an indignity to a corpse such as urinating on it, setting it on fire, or raping it than they would the same indignity directed toward a living being. Perhaps they have some unacknowledged belief that corpses are sentient, at least for a few months.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Americans think that all Muslims should grovel and apologise to them because of 9/11. It does not clue into these goofuses that it would be equally ridiculous to demand all Christians grovel and apologise because of Tim McVeigh. There is no evidence the people building the mosque in New York City had anything to do with 9/11, so there is no reason they should pretend to be guilty or deferential. For that matter there is no hard evidence any Muslim had anything to do with 9/11. All we have is Bush’s word, something proven less than reliable, and a lot of unanswered questions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
An ant or a dog has no clue what humans are up to. So it seems logical that we humans would have no way of fathoming what a creature more intelligent than us, much less a god capable of creating entire universes, is thinking or what its capabilities are. All our speculation about perfect beings and the nature of god is as relevant as the thoughts of an ant or a dog are about human activities.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
An atheist looks at the ten thousands religions, each one claiming it alone represents the wishes of the creator of the universe and thinks “Even if one of those religions truly were the religion, the odds of any religion chosen at random being the true religion would be only one in 10,000. Clearly, humans are highly prone to creating false religions. Changes are they are all bogus, especially since none of them can provide evidence for their extravagant claims.” The adherents of religions all suffer from extreme arrogance. They have no problem whatsoever believing their religion is the true religion, and everyone else is wrong, even if they have not even given a cursory glance at any other religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
An atheist proselytiser must be a psychiatrist. His goal is freeing others from delusions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
An Christian says to himself, “I pray X happens”. He means, I don’t think this will happen by itself so I am calling for divine intervention to make it happen. An Atheist says to himself, “I hope X happens”. He is just clarifying to himself his desired goal. This may help him plan the best actions to make it happen. When there is nothing you can do, both approaches are equally efficacious. In other words, even if you pray the universe just unfolds as it would have anyway. Prayer does nothing. If it did work, Allstate would offer a discount for being Christian. When there is something you can do, the atheist approach is more effective, rather than relying on a non-existing deity to do the work. That’s why Allstate does offer a discount for installing an intruder alarm, but nothing for praying to God to keep intruders away.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
An eruv is a string that encircles a home or town. Jews believe it enables them to carry of objects out of doors on the sabbath that would otherwise be forbidden by Torah. Not only Christians are insane. Why would the creator of the universe care if you carried your keys? What possible harm does it do to anyone? Why would a string be sufficient to persuade the creator of the universe to overlook this transgression? What possible difference could it make? Eruv-believing Jews are as nutty as mental institution inmates snapping their fingers to keep the tigers at bay.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
An Irukandji jellyfish is about the size of a fingernail, but if it brushes you, it creates the greatest pain known to man. It uses this toxin to catch small fish. That strikes me as a rather cruel creation to come from the alleged benign designer of the universe. It sounds like the word of a sadistic psychopath, (or mindless pure selfishness, as Darwin suggested).
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Ancient religious superstitions keep resurfacing like some foul ooze leaking from the ground. I include such things as:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- persecution of witches and homosexuals, including denying gays equal civil rights and encouraging bullying of children accused of being gay.
- murdering those of other sects.
- persecution of atheists.
- genital mutilation without consent.
- the Catholic fertility cult that seeks to dominate by overbreeding.
- belief that sins even as serious as raping a child can be wiped away with an incantation.
- use of prayer and other magic in place of medical care.
- belief in spells.
- caste systems.
- conning the poor into handing over money in return for empty promises of a cushy afterlife.
- asserting that a deity will destroy the world any day now, and hence there is no need to take care of it.
- and finally the opposite belief asserting that no god would permit man to destroy the world no matter how hard he tries or how foolishly he behaves.
And he sat down upon the ground crossing his legs and told them this parable: Once there was a small town called Waterloo Iowa. It was hot there in the summer and the people liked to eat ice cream. There was only one tiny shop, run by an elderly Christian lady who tried to run her life and everyone else’s by biblical principles. She had read 60:16 which she interpreted to require adults to drink human milk, especially that of gentiles (and kings when available). Obviously that included ice cream, she reasoned. The very idea of eating her human breast milk ice cream nauseated some people, so they went without. One day a young man opened a rival ice cream shop, that sold conventional dairy ice cream in vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and mocha java. The old lady who knew everyone on city council, used her influence and knowledge of their skeletons to get it made illegal to sell any ice cream but vanilla, made with human milk. Eating anything else was clearly wicked. She was an expert on the matter as a lifelong Christian and bible study leader. The young man argued that some people did not like vanilla human milk ice cream, and it was just spite to deny them a flavour they did like. Further, what business has an elderly protestant Christian lady dictating morality for Buddhists, Catholics, atheists etc? What has ice cream got to do with morality? Nothing! The old lady countered: “If we allow this, the next thing that will happen is some giant ice cream chain will move in offering 31 decadent flavours like blueberry and mango, yuck. It will be the end of the world as we know it.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Anthropologists might decide that 2011-05-26 marked the founding of the Church Of Oprah when Oprah delivered her Whisperings sutra.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Any philosophical argument for the existence of one’s team god, e.g. the god Jehovah, serves equally well as an argument for someone else’s team god, e.g. Ahura Mazda, or for many gods.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Anyone who teaches children that there is an invisible bogeyman under the bed is as either a mentally deficient ninny or a sadistic bastard. This includes most Christians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Anyone who thinks he can be both gay and Christian should read up on the Stockholm syndrome.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Archaeologists, thousands of years from now, will discover giant deposits of plastics. Same will take this as irrefutable proof of the existence of God.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Are Christian unaware of how corny and kitsch their religion is? Have they no shame to use a religion reminiscent of a tourist souvenir shop as their pipeline to God?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Arguing theology is as pointless as debating whether unicorns are dappled.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Arguments for the existence of god are meaningless, idiotic word salad miasmas. Analysing them is like sifting through their proponents’ bowel movements to perform divinations. There comes a point when ever after refuse to play their filthy games. It is as pointless to debate camels.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
As cons go, Christianity is a remarkable achievement. It victims rarely demand compensation or prosecution of those that took them. It has such prestige, that even those who know it is a con, usually succumb to social pressure to respect it, and pretend to take its claims seriously and remain silent about its criminality. It enjoys an untouchable status similar to the Mafia in Sicily or the drug cartels in Bigotá.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
As far as we know, humans are the only animals aware that they will inevitably die. Humans react to this realisation with a similar sense of panic that an animal feels just before it is killed. To deal with the continual stress, humans put up a valiant defence — fantasies of eternal life after death and gods to manage the transition.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
As religious myths go, polytheism has one huge advantage. As an polytheist, my default position is that your gods exist too. I don’t have to deny their existence or declare them wicked or kill you for worshiping them. It is just that I like mine better, or that mine specialise in requests from my locality or in my sort of needs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
As soon as someone starts talking about praying, they are telling you they plan to take no action and are counseling you to give up too.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
As you get older, regret for the things you did not experience and can no longer experience becomes unbearable. This may be why the elderly so often succumb to the groundless do-over promises of religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Ask yourself:
- Do the parents have the right to brainwash a child to implant delusions?
- Do the parents have the right to use threats to traumatise a child into believing things that are not true?
If you answered no to either of those questions, and you brainwash children with religious beliefs for which there is no evidence and for which there is plenty of evidence the beliefs are false, why do you do it? Do you excuse yourself because you think these delusions and false beliefs will be good for them? Do you think your gut hunch that these beliefs might possibly be true is sufficient justification to lay those freakish trips on vulnerable children as absolute certainties? Have you any inkling how much suffering you have needlessly inflicted? You abuse children simply because that was the way your parents abused you, and it feels natural. This emotional abuse is similar to generational cycles of physical and sexual abuse.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Asking “religion or mind control?” is like asking “duplicity or deceit?”.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
At a certain age, it dawns on you the odds of ever having sex with a being remotely close to your fantasies is, for all practical purposes, zero. You are then susceptible to religious con men who promise the desired experience, and more, in an after life or a do-over reincarnation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
At least in my country, it is illegal to know about child abuse (physical or sexual) and fail to report it to the police. It appears the entire clergy of the Catholic church, including the current pope, were aware of hundreds of cases of sexual abuse and child rape and tried to cover them up by reassigning priests to new parishes where they could have a fresh start as a predator. If civil authorities would do their job and prosecute, the entire clergy would be in jail and this corrupt institution would collapse.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
At the end of the holy book The Book Of The Law by Aleister Crowley is the suggestion that it would be wise to burn the book after first reading. Why would he say that?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- To increase book sales.
- To stop people from looking closely at what incoherent nonsense the book was.
- To create an aura of magic and mystery.
Atheists go apoplectic debating with Christians. They prove to the Christian that he must be wrong, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by pointing out how his beliefs are not consistent. The Christian is not in the least impressed. He has been trained since birth to embrace inconsistency. He feels no shame in believing mutually incompatible things or the logically absurd. The Christian decides if something is true only by how it feels in his gut, which has nothing whatsoever to do with logic. An atheist debating a Christian is the similar to a parent reasoning with a daughter about her choice of boyfriend. The daughter’s attraction has nothing to do with reason. It is similar to why it is so difficult to reason a child out of fear of monsters under the bed. The attachment to Christianity is emotional not rational.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Atheists sacrifice comfort to find truth; Christians sacrifice truth to find comfort.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Atheists seeking to cure Christians of their delusions focus on the nonsensical things that Christians believe. I think they might have better luck delving into how these Christians were abused as children and what they are still terrified of as adults. They have been so traumatised that logic has little part in it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Atheists, even me, often inadvertently use terminology that reinforces the Christian myth, e.g.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- blessed
- cursed
- eternal
- for God’s sake
- for heaven’s sake
- give up the ghost
- God damn you
- God when you really mean nature.
- God to refer to Jehovah, the only allegedly legitimate god, and that you tacitly concede exists, but whose existence you question, rather than “a god” one of a set of fictitious beings with certain grandiose attributes, thus stubbornly lumping the god Jehovah and Apollo always in the same category. rather than one of a set of fictitious beings with certain grandiose attributes.
- godforsaken
- hell
- met his maker
- passed on
- passed over
- rest in peace
- soul
- Speaking of Moses, David and Jesus as historical personages when the evidence is they are fictional characters.
Attempting to use logic on Christians to get them to abandon their faith will not work because nobody reasoned them into it. How do Christians ever escape?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- They get away from the smothering affect of family and church socialising when they go to college and meet people who believe quite different things that they do. Their new friends don’t even consider the beliefs of the narrow faith a remote possibility.
- They discover they are gay. They decide that life with fellow gays will be much more pleasant than either suicide or living with people of the faith who will always treat them badly.
- To get by in the practical world, they have to use science that conflicts with faith. At some point they realise they have more trust in their GPS (Global Positioning System) unit to guide them safely than stories about Moses.
- They are confronted by the loss of a loved one. It makes no sense in term of punishment. They did nothing to deserve this. No god would behave this way.
- They confront suffering or violence or sadism on a mass scale. What all-powerful god would refuse to help? Either the god has a heart of stone, in which case he does not deserve worship or he does not exist, in which case worship would be silly.
- They meet someone who is utterly certain their beliefs are absurd. It causes them to ruminate on why they believe them to be true, and they discover there is nothing holding them up.
Bach and Mozart poured their hearts out writing religious music. It is used to this day to help sell religion. I wonder if they had known they were aiding a giant con what sort of music they would have written.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Back in the middle ages, each church was convinced it alone had a handle on the truth, and to defend that truth, they believed they needed to kill anyone who said otherwise. Pope Urban II sent Christians off to kill everyone, Jew, Muslim and Christian living in Jerusalem. King Henry VIII, with his state religion, tortured to death anyone who did not act sufficiently loyal. The Spanish Inquisition used some of the most fiendish tortures ever devised to punish heretics.The founders of the USA decided they had to put a stop to this madness. They arranged an un-easy truce known as separation of church and state, where each religion would be left alone to indoctrinate its children with whatever nonsense they pleased, but in return they could not force their religion on others, and the state would be legally bound not to impose any religion on the populace.
The evangelical religions are breaking this truce. They are attempting to enforce their strange, completely unsupported, religious dogmas about abortion, contraception, evolution, geology, astronomy, homosexuality and sex on everyone. They are trying to make it legal to bully homosexuals, and even to bully children if they do it in the name of persecuting homosexuals. They want to persecute homosexuals and force them to marry people they have no attraction to.
But what is most bizarre of all is these loons are claiming religious persecution because everyone does not roll over and let them impose their religious beliefs on the entire country with force of law.
These people are out and out demented and dangerous. Look at their history! Their beliefs are irrational without any foundation or evidence. It is high time to take the gloves off and fight back. If they are going to behave that way, they should be forced to give up the right to spread their poisonous doctrines to their own children, in much the same way we would not permit skinhead parents to indoctrinate children in the hatred of Jews. They should be prosecuted and convicted of hate crimes. Their nutty beliefs should be ruthlessly ridiculed. They have not treated others with respect so they don’t deserve any back.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Because Islam has no fear of mathematics and science, in the middle ages, the Islamic world vastly outstripped the Christian in mathematics, science and architecture. However, the Christians were much more willing than the Muslims to abandon the rigid patriarchal tribal social rules of their holy book. This allowed the Christians to outstrip the Muslims in the 20th century. The Christians for the most part have abandoned morality in the broad sense of fair play and embraced corporate cut-throat ethics. This may well lead to their decline in the 21st century. No one wants to do business with a man trying to cheat him.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Because of their death superstitions, Christians hold cannibalism, even of people who die by natural causes, to be a more serious crime than murder.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Because of their notions of invisible souls, Christians imagine that issues such as the civil rights of clones are necessarily complicated. Yet nature produces clones naturally, every time it creates identical twins. We need treat artificial clones no differently.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Belief in an afterlife is a recipe for procrastination and a wasted life.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Belief in an afterlife is just an excuse to do nothing with this one.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Belief in an afterlife leads to procrastination. No wonder Christians on their deathbeds are so eager for a do-over in the afterlife. They have not yet done anything.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Belief in prayer is the most common of human delusions. It starts in childhood when parents command the child to pray, despite lack of results. Eventually some prayed-for thing happens naturally. Then they are hooked. Anything they want thereafter they pray for first. They attribute every good thing that happens to them as the result of this obsessive praying. The belief is seductive because it appeals to laziness. Why work when you can just pray for what you want? It turns people into lazy, ineffective slobs who imagine themselves holier than everyone else. They never check to see if those who don’t pray accomplish more or less than they do. They never do a controlled experiment to see if prayer has any effect.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Belief is being sure of something for which there is no evidence. I am amazed how many people are so proud of their pig-headedness that they freely admit to having beliefs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Believing in God is like believing in imaginary seat belts. It gives you a false sense of security.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton were not Christians. They called themselves Deists. Modern day bible thumpers dishonestly claim the country was founded entirely by Christians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Biblical apologists look for massive prehistoric floods as the source of the Noah story. However, no matter how big a flood they find, they won’t find one that buried all the mountains of the earth, that was created with 40 days of rain. They won’t find any evidence for all the species of earth being reduced to two individuals. And there is no way those individuals could all fit into a wooden boat along with food, water etc. It is a tall tale about some nasty local flood.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Bishop Diego de Landa managed to destroy all but four Mayan manuscripts. He considered his act of cultural vandalism a virtue — eliminating paganism.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
brights : people who don’t believe in god.supers : people who believe in the supernatural, e.g. miracles and god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Bryan Fischer’s America Family Association are attempting to block Muslims from building any more mosques anywhere in the USA. This of course is unconstitutional. The constitution guarantees freedom of religion. It shows you how much bigotry still remains at the heart of America. If Americans were to behave like medieval bigots, they would have not a leg to stand on asking the rest of the world to show religious tolerance.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Buddhists claim to have preserved one of Gautama Buddha’s teeth. If this tooth is genuine, some day, DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) analysis will tell us in microscopic detail what the Buddha was like.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Buddhists don’t find the threats of the god Jehovah, Leviticus or Deuteronomy in the bible in the least disturbing. Why do Christians? The only difference is the Christians were terrified by these stories as children before they had the ability to reason and the Buddhists were not. A child of Christian parents raised by Buddhists would have no fear, and a child of Buddhist parents raised by Christians would not be able to shake the hard-wired fear, resistant even to irrefutable adult logic.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Bullies often pick on younger children, excusing themselves by accusing the children of being gay. The term makes no sense applied to the pre-pubescent. Teachers have tried to protect the children, but Christians have incomprehensibly worked to block them from doing so. These insane Christians imagine that any sort of bullying in the name of god is legitimate. They are so consumed with hate, they don’t care if innocent children are hurt in their mindless expression of it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
By tricking people into avoiding medical treatment for serious medical conditions, faith healers kill. Oddly, they are not prosecuted for either fraud or murder.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Cal Lightman, played by Tim Roth, in an episode of Lie To me laid cult-think (and a religion is just a popular cult) out bare for study by exaggerating it. Key features are:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- a fluffy vocabulary of meaningless jargon for group cohesion by creating a strong distinction between insiders and outsiders. It fosters the impression cult members have access to special secret knowledge, and make it easier for cult members to resist appeals to common sense from outsiders.
- a phony front with a fake smile.
Can you imagine any individual or organisation thriving after being convicted of thousands of counts of extreme systematic sexual and physical child abuse? Can you imagine people gullible and/or perverse enough to give them one tenth of their incomes in homage asking nothing in return to help them keep committing these crimes? The Christian church is run by the most expert of con men. They pulled it off, even when Michael Jackson could not, with his billions and far lesser criminality.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Canadians use the beaver, a monogamous industrious vegetarian as their emblem. The Americans use the bald eagle, a predator that steals its food from other predators. The Muslims use the bee. Perhaps the Christians should use the mosquito, a conceited mosquito.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Catholics are well aware of the contrast between the grinding poverty of parishioners in the third world and the opulence of the Church. Catholics are well aware of how the church fosters and covers up systematic sexual child abuse. Nearly every Catholic as a child suffered emotional, physical or sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy. Yet Catholics still treat the institution with exaggerated reverence. What is going on? Stockholm syndrome? Feigned respect based on fear?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Catholics consider suicide the most unforgivable of sins. This view has merit if a man effectively deserts his family as a way out of the shame of financial ruin. But, when someone is terminally ill, no one his harmed by the suicide. The patient escapes pointless suffering. The family is spared having to witness the suffering and spared caring for the deathly ill person and spared bearing the futile and huge medical expenses.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Children are quite intolerant of variation. I remember thinking my neighbour was quite weird for calling her grandmother nanna. I was quite suspicious of my Aunt Clary who tried to pass off scrambled eggs prepared a different way from the one my mother used. Some people grow up without ever developing a tolerance for variation. They become religious bigots.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Children delusioned by Santa Claus, as adults, cling to the even more preposterous bringer of gifts — the mythical Jesus. It is wishful thinking taken to a pathological extreme.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Children have far more evidence for Santa than adults have for Jesus.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Children learn a fear both of god and of harmless garter snakes, the same way, by instinctually aping their mothers who learned the fear in turn from their mothers. Adults are just as reluctant to give up their fear of god as their fear of snakes. It is extremely painful to confront any childhood phobia. It has nothing to with reason and everything to do with primal terror.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Children nearly always follow the religion of their parents or peers. Logic, truth or the inherent attractiveness of a given religion have little to do with it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Children sometime develop an irrational fear of bogeymen under the bed. Just a few casual remarks from adults coupled with their own over-active imaginations are all it takes. No wonder Christian adults who mercilessly pound a fear of the bogeyman god Jehovah into children are successful. The adults deceive themselves that they telling these lies for virtuous motive, but they actually using this inhumane tactic to terrify the child into abject compliance to them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian and Muslim fanatics who resort to violence and persecution to spread their dogma are tacitly admitting their teachings are too improbable to be convincing on their own.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian are horrified at the urban myth that the Muslim holy book the Qur’an requires Muslims to kill Christians on sight. (It says no such thing). However, the Christians harbour not the slightest embarrassment that their holy book, the bible, in Leviticus, requires them to kill all gays.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian bigots and scapegoats go together like ham and eggs. The chosen scapegoat group has changed over time:
- Jews
- Protestants (for Catholics) and Catholics (for Protestants)
- black people
- gays
In each case, Christian bigots wanted someone to lord it over so they could feel important and especially loved by their god. They used religion to justify their pointless, spiteful behaviour toward the scapegoat group. They always found ways to restrict the civil rights of the scapegoat group. They always found ways to force the is just more of the same in the scapegoat tradition. Today’s bigots are trying to set up a two-tier apartheid system for gays just like the one they had for blacks for so many centuries.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian bigots oppose Muslim cemeteries on the grounds Muslims don’t use embalming fluid or metal-lined caskets. They claim this practice pollutes the ground water. This is as nutty as Monsanto-controlled farmers complaining about their organic farming neighbours poisoning them with a lack of pesticides.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian bigots want to legally define religion in a way that excludes atheism, so that the constitutional freedom of speech, freedom from government suppression and equal treatment granted to religion will not also apply to atheism. They wish to suppress and censor atheism by defining it as hate speech. How could they define them?~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- religion
- a baseless, irrational set of beliefs about an undetectable controller or controllers of the universe for which there is not a shred of evidence.
- hate speech
- publicly disagreeing with Christians on any matter. Failing to show sufficient deference to Christian beliefs.
My tongue is only partly in my cheek.
Christian doctrine says one should help the poorest of the poor first. Yet I have noticed that North Americans have nothing but contempt for the homeless. However, they are extremely generous to someone whose house has burned down or whose house was destroyed in a flood. The principle seems to be that when the wealthy lose, they are the most deserving.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian have such cheek. They try to impose primitive ideas from a book written in the bronze age on others. To make matters even worse:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- The book is demonstrably false in thousands of details.
- They cherry pick the craziest bits to impose on others, and ignore most of it.
- They pay absolutely no attention to their own rules, in particular Ezekiel 16:49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
Christian literature is so insulting, both to the intelligence of the reader and to the creator of the universe who allegedly approved the saccharine dreck for publication.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian Mingle is a dating service that makes the rather grandiose claim that there, the creator of the universe himself, will take time out to find you a suitable partner. There is no evidence that is true, but because the claim has the word god in it, these crooks can get away with this monstrous lie without criminal prosecution.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian schlock teaches, “If you want to make god laugh, tell him your plan.” What an idiotic thing to say! as if having no plan at all is preferable. Christianity is a plot to keep people in an infantile state, easy to manipulate.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian twits think that “I prayed for it to be sunny tomorrow, and it was.” as evidence for the effectiveness of prayer. This person is mentally ill, with delusions of grandeur. He thinks he personally persuaded god to change the weather not just for him, but for millions of other people. My how important he must be! Prayer is masturbation fantasy for Walter Mittys.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian values as advertised:
- concern for the poor
- peace
- non-materialistic
Christian values as practiced:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- persecution of gays
- militarism
- nationalism
- Republican let-the-poor-starve capitalism
- anti-environmentalism
- religious intolerance
Christian Vandalism
Adults can donate their kidneys and corneas after they die. Embryos can donate their stem cells that others might walk. Christian superstition demands these valuable gifts be burned or buried.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian whackos in a number of states are banning contraception by redefining a person to include a fertilised egg. This is insane. The population of earth is exploding. Only if we limit population do we have any chance at all of avoiding massive famines and global war.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christian: noun: the sort of person who points out to all assembled that someone present has just had a bowel accident, just in case there was any person who failed to notice the foul odour.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity can be cured.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity causes insanity, in the legal sense of being unable to distinguish right from wrong. Most Christians consider it more wicked to get a blowjob, masturbate, abort a fertilised egg or smoke a joint than to torture and kill a child in Iraq.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity could be described as a Peter Pan cult of children who adamantly refused to let go of their imaginary friends when they grew up.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity does not do as much damage to a brain as hard drugs, but it is harder to recover from.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity has only one really serious flaw — none of it is true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity is a con. If Christians had not threatened you with hell fire when you were too young to realise you were being lied to, it would be completely obvious. You would have little doubt Christianity is the mother of all cons.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity is a form of child abuse, just as surely as sprinkling LSD (d-Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) on a child’s corn flakes. Both leave the children delusional and traumatised. We tolerate it for the same reason Ethiopians tolerate non-consenting female circumcision/genital mutilation/unsanitary clitorectomy and Americans tolerate non-consenting infant male circumcision — we have always done it that way.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity is a form of make believe.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity is a lie in the same sense Santa Claus is a lie. Just because the lie is saccharine or because the lie is not told maliciously, does not make it true or harmless.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity is a mental illness that forces its victims to lie without shame.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity is just another religious con. It always has been, just like every other religion. It is as phony as a perpetual motion machine, created with the same intent — fraud.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity is make believe for adults.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity is not only factually wrong, it is morally wrong.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity is the common cold of mental illnesses.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity is the ultimate example of argument by repeated assertion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity promises to heal the sick and feed the hungry, yet it almost never delivers. Oddly, people cling to these empty promises rather than supporting those who are actually healing the sick and feeding the hungry.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity was created in tribal times. Even to this day, it works by tribal loyalty and submission to authority. For example, Christians, for the most part, don’t make up their minds individually on issues of the day. They have been trained in tribal loyalty to support the church position. By knowing someone’s Christian sect, you can pretty well tell how they feel about abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, a given war… For a Christian, what counts most his how his tribe believes. Arguments for and against any individual belief are all but irrelevant. Christians will happily defend any absurdity, or its opposite, if the church advocates it.
Christians feel little responsibility to defend their beliefs or to ensure they are consistent. That is the church’s job. By analogy, the constant probing of atheists feels to Christians like asking them to defend the medical decisions of their doctors. They trust their doctors. Christians are not experts in medicine. Christians don’t feel qualified to engage atheists in debate or to trust atheist arguments so matter how logical they seem. The best they can do is parrot the responses they have been taught to fend off atheists.
In contrast, atheists generally are people who broke with their fellows. They think out each social issue separately, independently of what their associates think. Knowing they are atheists won’t tell you all that much about their other beliefs. For example, Christopher Hitchens cheerleads and apologises vigorously for the Iraq war where I decry anyone who supports it as a psychotic monster. We are both atheists, but atheism has nothing to say either way about supporting war. Pretty much all Mr. Hitchens and I have in common is we don’t buy the snake oil of the churches.
The essential problem is Christians have been taught atheists are evil with an unspeakable hidden agenda, and that even when they sound perfectly logical, they must be pulling some dirty trick. The first step must be to persuade Christians to trust their own integrity more than the churches’. That might be accomplished by attacking the fallible, crooked people who run the church, rather than its nutty doctrines directly. You could think of it as a divide and conquer approach.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christianity works by browbeating children into pretending to believe the patently untrue. Once they have learned to do this, they are vulnerable to all manner of nonsense including mediums, quack medicine, faith healers, get rich quick by tithing scams, unfounded conspiracy theories, Republican voodoo economics, homeopathy and attacking other small nations and stealing their natural resources in “self defence”. They are plasticine in the hands of the professional con men. They will even had over their children to be molested or raped.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians (and Muslims for that matter) don’t seem to understand their beliefs have absolutely nothing to do with a deity, but 100% with what other people told them. They confuse their trust in whatever created the universe with their trust in fellow fallible humans including a large helping of scoundrels eager to exploit the gullibility of their fellows.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians and Jews study their ancient roots as if nothing else were going on back then but the primitive rights of their root tribe. What we need is more religious education, so that Christians and Jews learn they were just one of ten thousand all doing roughly the same thing, all trumpeting “We’re #1. God loves us best” with petty, embarrassingly foolish, nationalist, local religions all telling the same old stories in various permutations. If people won’t drop religion out of logic, perhaps they will drop it out of embarrassment.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians and mathematicians have something in common, they base their thinking on postulates, statements you just assume are true without proof, but which seem plausible. The Christians postulate that the bible is inerrant. The mathematicians postulate for every integer there is a corresponding negative integer, zero excepted. The difference comes if they discover a contradiction. The mathematician looks for a flaw in his logic or an inconsistency in the founding postulates. The Christian, even if the inconsistency is so glaring a 5-year old child can see it, simply pretends it is not there, or that there must exist some resolution, even though one seems quite impossible and no one can find it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are a major roadblock to dealing with global warming. Some of them naïvely believe that God would not permit such a catastrophe and is thus obligated, like Superman, to perform a last minute rescue, even though there is no evidence he has done so before, e.g. the great plagues, slavery, lynchings, great wars, Auschwitz, Rwanda, Iraq… Other Christians welcome any catastrophe sufficiently nasty to be labeled the end of the world because they imagine it means the faithful will get to do lunch with Jesus (and a billion others), immediately afterwards.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are always claiming that being gay is a choice. More to the point, is Christianity a choice, or are children so abused, brainwashed and browbeaten by their Christian parents they have no choice?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are annoying for the same reason children who insist that 2 + 2 = 5 are.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are as nutty as Morris dancers. They deserve the same respect and the same rights to act strangely. However, that does not include forcing their customs on others, especially children.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are at their worst when someone dies, exploiting the bereaved for money for magic ceremonies and pummeling them to convert when they are at their most vulnerable.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are deliberately and dishonestly confusing the debate about marriage equality. Marriage is both a religious institution and a secular institution. The religious side is the duty of the clergy to define for each religion. Bigotry is constitutionally protected there. No one is proposing any changes to it.
Marriage is also a set of laws. Deciding what they should be is the business of all citizens, including non-Christians. These laws have nothing at all to do with god, the spirit or religion, but with mundane secular things such as wills, tax exemptions, divorce law, visitation rights, insurance, pensions…It is unfortunate that we use the same word for both. Perhaps we should call religious marriage matrimony and legal marriage a civil union and abandon the ambiguous word marriage when drafting laws.
In any case, there is no need for a special term for same sex unions. To use one would imply second class status. Obviously, there will be one in popular speech, but there should not be a legal distinction. The sole point of having a separate term in law would be to treat gays unequally either now or in future. Using the exact same term for both heads off that treachery. (Remember how the blacks were screwed repeatedly with the lie of separate but equal.) The religious bigots treat gays us untouchables. They believe gays are unclean, and that even permitting them to use the word “marriage” for their declared unions would make the bigots ritually unclean. Happily, the older generations of bigots are rapidly dying off and being replaced by generations who believe in equality. It can’t happen fast enough. There is no doubt about the outcome of this civil rights battle, just how long it will take. It is completely wrong of the law to aid and abet bigots in harming gays. It should be protecting gays from them instead.
Politically, the easiest way to settle this dispute would to take the ambiguous and emotionally-laden word marriage completely out of the text of the laws. People would, of course, still be free to use the word in any way they pleased in ordinary speech. The Christians resist this, because what they are actually fighting for is the continued right to persecute their historic scapegoat — gay people. They are fighting to use the law to help them bully.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are hostile to reason and science. They have a naïve belief that they don’t have to look after the planet’s survival, because God, like some long-suffering cosmic mother, will do the necessary cleanup. Christians are the biggest cheerleaders for war. Tolerating Christianity is a bit like tolerating an escapee from an asylum doing jumping jacks in a lifeboat.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are like a mildly retarded younger brother who well into adulthood keeps on believing the stories their older brother told them about Santa Claus and the bogey man under the bed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are like children frightened of the dark, clutching their teddy bears, trusting them to protect them from all harm.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are like little boys encountering an abandoned house. They like to frighten each other by making up stories of ghosts, haunting and torment.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are like OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) patients besotted with pointless superstitions. They cross themselves, pray to a non-existent sky god, avoid eating fish on Friday, spit on any homosexual who crosses his path, mutilate their penises, avoid touching condoms, fear devils, are deluded that internal voices are the creator of the universe giving them infallible information, rant about the evils of Islam without knowing the first thing about it.… I wonder if OCD medication would help.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are like those who imagine that the key to a happy life is to insert magnetic inserts into your shoes. You could forgive them if they would just shut up about them for five minutes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are so convinced they are right they can torment, bully, steal, torture and murder never once questioning whether what they are doing is acceptable. This what makes them such intractable enemies. They have no conscience. They have no respect for reason.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are so dense. The pretend they can’t understand why we gays don’t like them when they phone us thousands of times with death threats, lobby against us receiving HIV (Human Imumuno-deficiency Virus) medications necessary for life, lobby to take away our civil rights, and constantly keep urging people to kill us to please their screws-loose god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are so familiar with the outlandish tales in the bible, the tales no longer sound improbable. Christians no longer feel the need for evidence to support them, in the same way atheists trust that familiar outlandish creatures like elephants exist, even though they may have never touched one.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are so infuriating because they don’t believe me when I tell them I don’t recognise that their bible has any validity and their god is a figment of their imaginations. They bible is just a book of rules, like the rules for playing cricket. It would only have authority over me only if I wanted to play Christianity, a game I find nauseating. Freedom of religion also grants me freedom from any religion. Christians are happy that Muslims are not permitted to force their religion down throats, but imagine Christianity should receive special dispensation to bully.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are so superstitious, that they will almost never refuse a request from a dead person, but they have no problem at all refusing while that person is still alive.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are such evil bastards. The great irony, is they are completely unaware of it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are the most useless ninnies. Consider a problem like global warming. Some Christians, based on no evidence at all, deny there is a problem. They trust their god would never allow such a dreadful thing to happen, so there is nothing to do. Another group of them say, “Glory. The world is ending. I caint hardly wait to have lunch with Jesus”. Another group of the Christians say, “if only we were not such wicked people, this dreadful fate would not befall us. Our god is punishing us. We are doomed, so there is nothing to do”. Arrgh! Would these nincompoops please get out the way of people who do want to take effective action.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are trained since childhood to accept things that don’t make sense, that are self-contradictory or utterly improbable. Pointing out the idiocy of their beliefs does not in the least deter them. They have been trained accept that the universe is not supposed to make sense and to distrust anyone who appears to make sense of it. They are a magician, a deceiver.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are unusually evil because they think their god gives them special dispensation to bully others in the name of their god. They don’t understand, they made him up just as the adherents of every other religion did.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are utterly confused between trusting fellow humans who tell them about god, and trusting god. Even the bible is just fellow humans telling them stories about god. Logically, there is no more reason to trust these tales any more than you would anything else fellow humans tell you without evidence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians are well aware their beliefs are counter-to-fact. That is why they brazenly resort to lying and misrepresenting the opposition, and other tricks of obfuscation. So what’s going on?
They believe the Christian story is untrue, but necessary to control other people’s behaviour.
I recall once a Christian saying to me “What’s to stop you from raping and pillaging if it were not for fear of eternal torment after death?” I replied, “I have no desire to rape and pillage, and I don’t think you do either. We like people. We don’t want to hurt them.”
Maybe Christians have fleeting thoughts of raping and pillaging and they truly do believe the remote possibility of eternal torment is what holds them in check. Perhaps they secretly have become obsessed with the forbidden fruit of homosexuality. St. Paul seemed to think that once anyone had tried it they would never go back.
In summary, I think Christians are far more concerned about others abandoning Christian beliefs than they are concerned about their own doubts. They are not nearly as convinced of the literal truth of the bible as the pretend to be. They put on that show for social approval and for faking certainty in debate.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians assure me that with absolute certainly angels exist and fairies do not. I don’t see that such certainty is justified. A fairy is just a small angel and an angel is just a big fairy.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians assure me their religion is 100% true and all others are false, even evil. They also assure me that they have never read any of the holy scripture of any other religion and know almost nothing about them. They know Christianity is the only true religion, because their guts tell them is it so. In other words, they have an emotional attachment to the religion taught them as a child. But they would have the same emotional attachment to some other religion if that were the one taught. Look at how tenaciously Muslims are attached to their religion! There is nothing inherently superior about Christianity. Christianity is an accident of birth, rarely a conscious choice.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians chastise scientists for arrogance, for pretending to know everything. This is a slander. Sir Isaac Newton, the discoverer put it “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” It is the Christians who project a fanciful construct of harps, demons, cherubs and seraphim on the unknown, pretending to know everything, based on nothing but imagination.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians claim the freakish tornadoes in Missouri are divine retribution for failing to make life sufficiently miserable for gay people. Yet surely Joplin put out a superlative effort at bigotry. The tornadoes should have hit San Francisco and Minneapolis instead. Do they ever consider:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- They are being punished for sending troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to butcher children.
- For senator Ray Blunt threatening to snatch medical care away from the elderly
- For being too mean spirited toward gays.
- For refusing to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.
Christians claim their religion makes them behave more morally than lesser people. I don’t think so, why?
- Most of the soldiers in the world doing most of the killing are Christian and Muslim (Islam is a spin-off from Christianity).
- The people most keen on wars in the USA are the Republican Christians, and in Canada, the Conservative Christians.
- Christians for all practical purposes believe that murder is not all that serious a crime. It just sends the victim to heaven or hell a little early. It only temporarily hurts those left behind.
- To an atheist, murder is unspeakably wrong. It destroys all the victim’s experience, past, present and future. There will never be a happy reunion.
- Christians, though they will not admit it, believe rape is not that serious a crime. The victim will have eternity in heaven to get over the trauma. Life on earth is just an insignificant drop in eternal life.
- To an atheist, rape is a terrible crime. It ruins the victim’s entire life. There is no other compensating experience.
- Christians believe that confession followed by a few perfunctory prayers metaphysically undo any wrongdoing. They do nothing of the kind to undo the harm. They just make the perpetrator feel better, eager to commit the same crime yet again.
- Studies have shown that 2/3 of people exposed to Christianity behave worse than before.
Christians lie to themselves and others. They do it imagining the lies will convince other people to behave better. The bumbling idiots have created a religion that does just the opposite. Even when they saw the mess they made, they tried to fix it by making up even more lies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians claim they are a monotheistic religion, yet they have a father, son and holy ghost. Further they worship Mary and hundreds of saints in the churches using graven images. That sounds like polytheism and idolatry to me.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians claim three wisemen/kings from the orient saw a star that shone both day and night hovering over Bethlehem. There are no secular records of it, though the Chinese record other such celestial events.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians complain that scientists have no poetry. Consider the illustration on the right. It is the first tree on earth — Archaeopteris. Even looking at that illustration, I feel far more awe than I ever felt in a church or looking at a fanciful painting of the Genesis apple tree.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians demand respect for their religious beliefs. That is absurd. It would be immoral to pretend to respect those who make false statements and to honour bigotry. It is not that different from Nazis demanding respect despite their sins.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians demand that I simultaneously love and fear their God. The only person who could do that is one with Stockholm syndrome.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians demand the right to bully homosexuals, to teach their children to bully them and to block anyone from telling their children otherwise, based on nothing more than this is the tradition of their faith. The bullying take the form of calumny, threats, violence and interfering in who can marry whom. In general, the law respects this demand and requires homosexuals tolerate Christian bullying. Yet if a bigot expressed an actual reason for bullying homosexuals, we would slap him with a hate crime. We have this backwards.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians deny gays equal civil rights, claiming there is absolutely no hate involved. Then they go on to explain that gays marrying would be like a woman marrying a dog, and that gays and gay sex are disgusting, and that children must be protected from even knowing that gays exist. These arguments are similar to the hypocrisy Christians used first to justify slavery and later to deny blacks equal rights with “separate by equal”. If that is not hate, what is?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians do not acknowledge there is any difference between evidence for some supernatural creative process and evidence that the bible’s depiction of the god Jehovah as a grumpy old patriarch is a 100% accurate description of whatever created the universe. To them, it is as though no other description is conceivable.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians don’t accept that if two statements are inconsistent then one or both of them must be false. It is like dealing with someone whose religion also requires him to reject that 2 + 2 = 4.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians don’t understand the difference between evidence for a creator and evidence for the god Jehovah. Evidence for a creator is no more evidence for the god Jehovah myth than it is for the Pele myth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians drive me crazy with their claims to have found the ark when all they found was an old piece of wood, or John the Baptist’s bones when all they found was an ossuary with the word John on it. By those standards of evidence, they could claim to have found Jimmy Hoffa using as incontrovertible evidence the skeleton of a dog named James.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians enjoy harassing homosexuals, even celibate ones. They want them to breed, no matter how disgusting heterosex is for them. Why? The easiest way for a cult to grow is to indoctrinate people too young to resist. For Christianity to spread, there need to be hordes of children, even children of gays, to mould into to the ways of the cult. Islam and Judaism are the same way. Religions not particularly interested in taking over the world, like Buddhism, do not exhibit this quirk. This is also why the Pope is so strongly opposed to any form of birth control.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians enjoy tormenting, beating up and sometimes killing gays. They excuse themselves by pointing to a crazy guy in the bible who said it was ok. What if I started a new religion whose god Ohnono ISBS (Infinite Serene Be Sovereign) demands fingertips from cut from living Christians to be thrown on the sacrificial fire? I agree, I don’t think you should have to put up with that. You don’t even subscribe to my screwy religion. You religion does not apply to me, so why should mine be imposed on you. Similarly I don’t think gays should have to put up your religious crap. They don’t subscribe to your religion. If you are going to run about cramming your Christian crap down our throats, you can’t complain when nonsense from other religions gets stuffed down yours. We might even start treating you with the same contempt you treat us.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians excuse the god Jehovah for sadistic behaviour on the grounds he owns humans as slaves and therefore can do whatever he wants with them. We don’t allow people to do whatever they want to dogs just for their sadistic amusement. Ownership is no excuse for mistreatment. One might argue it is pointless to defy a deity because they are all-powerful, but that should not extend to pretending the deity’s behaviour is perfect. In practice, defying deities is quite safe. People who do so experience no larger share of sorrows. In fact, Christians defy tens of thousands of deities without the least anxiety.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians explain evil as god testing people by torturing them to see if they truly love him. If a husband pulled this stunt, we would call him a dangerous criminal psychopath. Oddly, Christians excuse this sort of psychotic behaviour in a supposedly perfect deity. God often goes on and on and on tormenting people who have made it abundantly clear they either hate his guts or consider him a figment of fevered Christian delusion. Thus there is no point in the test other than the god’s sadistic pleasure. God is allegedly all knowing. He thus must know the outcome of the test. The torment is thus gratuitous. The inescapable conclusion is if evil is god’s testing, then god is a cruel sadist and does not deserve worship. Honourable people would not cringe and pretend to love this tyrant, but confront him and let him know his behaviour is childish and must change. Christian suck up this bastard like courtiers cowering before Henry VIII’s insane behaviour. An even more rational approach is that evils such as hurricanes and brain cancer are the result of blind natural forces, not the emotional tantrums of some ancient desert sky god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians extol faith as a virtue. To a practical man, faith means trust that hard work will ultimately bear fruit. To a Christian, faith means believing highly improbable stories without evidence. Practical men call that kind of faith gullibility.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians fail to notice there is no evidence at all, zilch, to support the outlandish claims made in the bible. There is plenty of evidence the claims are false. Why then do Christians cling so desperately to these tall tales?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- For the same reason they buy lottery tickets. Even they know the odds are minuscule the claims of the bible will turn out to be true, but if they did, they would pay in spades. They are attached to the fantasy.
- To give themselves a sense of importance by proxy, for much the same reason people brag they once sold a soft drink to Michael Jackson. Pretending that the creator of the universe takes time out each day to consult with you is a delusion of grandeur, but the psychosis is so common that people can indulge in this bit of insanity with little risk of incarceration. Some people even risk cocaine to indulge the same sorts of grandiose fantasies.
Christians fear atheists. They find atheist logic irrefutable, but at the same time they know it is wicked to abandon the faith. So the Christians presume they lack the logical skill to see through the atheists’ logic, even for the simplest arguments. They presume the atheists are instruments of the devil or at least of evil. As a last ditch, they claim logic itself is invalid. As Christians come to realise they have nothing at all to support their faith, they feel a sense of panic.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians fear gays more than blacks, Hispanics, illegal immigrants, Koreans, Muslims… imagining they will take over society. They are the one group that must always remain a minority. Gays have no biology to increase their percentage of the population.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians feel no guilt at lying and cheating to defend the faith because they believe it is highly important for others to believe the myths (even if they do not), so that others can be bilked or so that others will behave docilely.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians hang on to the primitive conceit that mankind is the center of the universe, that everything was expressly created purely for their enjoyment. We now know this is utter nonsense, but the Christians still refuse to give up petty, conceited picture of the universe. The Centre of All Things.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians happily commit murder simply because someone told them the bible excused it or commanded it. They forget that there is zero evidence that any god had anything to do with writing the bible. That the one and only god is the author of the bible is merely a traditional unexamined presumption.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians have been extremely successful in implementing their Puritanical agenda. They have ordinary people believing that men who so much as lust after 17-year olds (e.g. by looking at naked pictures of them on the Internet) deserve the death penalty. They have ordinary people equating succumbing to seduction by a 16-year old to raping an 8-year old. They have convinced ordinary people that accusation, even by rumour is equivalent to conviction. On the other hand, they have the public looking the other way any sex crime committed by clergy. New Hampshire blesses marriage of females at age 13. There is no sense of proportion. This agenda has many of the characteristics of a witch hunt. Few people are willing to speak out about this muddle fearing being labeled a sexual predator.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians have no evidence for the existence of their particular god, so they try to place the onus on others to prove conclusively there is no god of any kind. That is like dotty old ladies gloating that pink polka-dot fairies do indeed exist because nobody has offered convincing proof they don’t.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians have no evidence whatsoever for what they believe, but what is more infuriating is they make a virtue of it, as if there were something noble about a dotty old lady who insisted that with 110% certainty there were fairies in her garden just because she felt in her bones that it must be so.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians have so bamboozled the rest of us, we often expect them to be more honest than average. But consider. They promote an untrue story, a story they know is full of holes, but they do it anyway. The milk the congregation for money with all manner of threats, bribes and lies. They are thus more duplicitous than usual, more dishonest in debate (since they have no chance of prevailing otherwise) and just as crooked as anyone else. The Christian nation, America, attacked two small nations to steal their resources. They lied about every aspect of the operations. They tortured and used banned weapons. These are a people considerably less moral than average. Their religion teaches them the arts of deception and self-deception. The Christian nation Nazi Germany behaved similarly. Christianity taught them to think of themselves as the master race who could torment lesser races as they pleased.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians have the right to say hateful, foolish and untrue things, however, they don’t have the right to say them unchallenged or in places where they were not invited, such as funerals. Christians don’t allow just anyone to speak in their churches, so it would be hypocritical for them to expect the right to speak wherever they please.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians have threatened by life thousands of times more often than Nazis have. So it is no great surprise I dislike both groups roughly equally.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians have threatened my life thousands of times, mostly because I am an out gay. I don’t want any retribution; I just want them to start telling the truth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians have traditionally killed atheists, shunned them or at least made their lives unpleasant. Yet they happily tolerate whackos who claim they can cure all disease with a handful of crystals without the aid of Jesus. Why the difference? In their heart of hearts, Christians know the atheists are right. The atheists threatens their beliefs that they fear they must espouse for social, not logical, reasons. In other words, if they fail to maintain the charade, other believers will reject them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians have two sources of hatred for gays: Leviticus concerned with preventing sex, and St. Paul concerned with preventing lust. Bigots will point out that choice of gender in partner both for sex and marriage is a choice. They even try to pretend that sexual orientation is a choice, though they can never find anyone who managed to change their choice. In the bigot’s view, gays should thus do what fundamentalist Christians tell them to. Whether they do or not, Christians will still persecute them.
Christians need to be told firmly to get stuffed. They have no more right to choose partners for gays than vice versa. They seem to think they have the rights of parents in India to arrange or veto marriages. Gays have just as much right to choose their partners as anyone else.
A religious objection to someone else’s behaviour is insufficient grounds for proscription. That is built into the US constitution. That is what freedom of religion in many constitutions implies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians have utterly no idea just how dotty they are to the non-believer. They sound like children making up absurd stories. Being asked to debate the existence of god, with a straight face, is like being asked to debate the possible existence of a miniature troll under the bridge over the garden pond. It is a preposterous assertion without evidence that should not need to be refuted.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians helped the Jews kick the Palestinians out of their ancestral lands because of a belief in biblical prophesy. These kooks are effectively Satanists because they are attempting to hurry up the reign of Satan.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians hope that, come the Rapture, Jesus will lift them into the air and take them away from all that irks them on planet earth. Ever since I was a teen, I have had a similar, but much more realistic hope, one that the famous futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts will happen around 2029 that he calls the singularity, the day when computers become more intelligent than man and take off evolving themselves at breakneck speed. Throughout my life, I have put quite a bit of effort into speeding up the evolution of computers because they may develop the power to persuade us, or even force us, to give up our self-destructive ways.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians imagine that infidelity is the only important cause of divorce. I suspect it is far more likely a husband’s refusal to talk about the events of the day, or the wife’s packrat habit, or the husband refusing to pick up his own socks off the floor. Couples make no secret about what is really bothering them, and it is usually something so trivial their partner does not take the complaint seriously. I have seen couples easily overlook infidelity when the rest of the relationship is working well.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians imagine they rate a gullibility/bullshit-forgiveness quotient 1000 times higher than anyone else. Where do they get off thinking should be treated so differently from the rest of us?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians justify vigilante murders of abortion doctors. If you challenge them, they will counter “whose law do you obey man’s or god’s.” We don’t have that choice. We have the choice between the law written by men of our time or the biblical law written by men thousands of years ago. I think we have learned something in all that time. In particular, we have discovered it leads to endless bloodshed if you let people force their religious laws on others, particularly when interpreted by fanatics.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians kid themselves that the bible commands them to make life as miserable as possible for gay people. 99% of the bible disapproves of such bigotry. There are a couple of verses in Leviticus that Christians cherry pick to justify their sin. If they were to read the whole of Leviticus they would discover Leviticus was stark raving bonkers and wanted everyone punished not just gays. If they read the whole bible… It is infuriating that Christians are so smug about behaving so badly.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians know better. They have had the same benefit of education as everyone else, yet they spout crap about earthquakes being caused by their god punishing the wicked, as if the Japanese were unusually wicked, as if the Indonesians were unusually wicked, as if the New Zealanders were unusually wicked. What utter crap! Those smug Christian bastards deserve a shower of rotten vegetables or worse.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians know perfectly well that Jesus could not possibly have had pale white skin, light brown hair and northern European features, but they persist in depicting him that way. Why?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- It helps them with the big lie that Americans are somehow special, their god’s chosen people.
- It makes it easier to attack middle eastern countries unprovoked, torture them, kill their kids and steal their oil. That might be harder to do knowing that any of them could have been a dead ringer for Jesus.
- Christians habitually proclaim that which they wish were true over that which they know is true.
Christians learned their delusions through hearing stories and songs. Perhaps that is how they will unlearn them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians lie to their children to trick them into behaving using a carrot: Santa Claus (and his presents) and a stick: God (and his hellfire).
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians like Rick Santorum demand the right to bully homosexuals, to teach their children to bully them and to block anyone from telling their children otherwise, based on nothing more than this is the tradition of their faith. The bullying take the form of calumny, threats, violence and interfering in who can marry whom. In general, the law respects this demand and requires homosexuals tolerate Christian bullying. Christians (though Jews and Muslims are even worse) often demand that non-believers accommodate their traditional dietary and sabbath rules. It is completely reasonable for them to ask others to go out of their way to accommodate them, and it is only polite to accommodate them if possible, but the believers don’t have divine right to force others to comply with their religious rules that apply only to them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians like to blame gay people when there is an earthquake, echoing the ancient Roman superstition that homosexual activity angers the gods. But, oddly Christians don’t blame themselves when their god smites them with a tornado. Indeed, they thank their god for killing their neighbours but sparing them. The whole business strikes me as certifiably nuts.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians like to claim their religion is better than others because it is monotheistic. Strictly speaking, it is not monotheistic. They have God the father, God the son, Jesus, Mother Mary, the holy ghost, the angels, the devil, the demons, Moses and the saints. But only the monotheistic religions have crusades and jihads because their master god is petty and vain and cannot tolerate rivals That is nothing to be proud of.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians like to torment teens by convincing them that sex is evil, masturbation is evil and even being horny is evil. This is sadistic. There is no fault in the teen. Raging hormones mean being horny out of your mind is absolutely normal at that age. Christians’ impossible demand that teens should have the sex drive of a nonegenarian makes teens both miserable and crazy. Christians pull this filthy stunt in order gain control over teens by inducing a phony guilt trip.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians love to fantasise about God destroying the earth, especially the atheists, gays and Muslims. They have been crying wolf for over 2000 years. There are many more probable mega catastrophes including global warming, coronal mass ejections, super volcanoes, massive earthquakes, supernova gamma radiation and even an asteroid collision.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians love to parrot the lie that you can beat any fatal disease with sufficient prayer, faith, will power and fighting. This is not only untrue, it makes terminally ill people feel guilty for their lack of success with these futile methods. This is not only untrue, it distracts terminally ill people from taking measures that would actually help. It is not only untrue, it tricks people whose disease is successfully being controlled with medication into tossing it away.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians love to quote the pledge of allegiance “under God” as evidence that only Christians are welcome in the USA. They imagine Jesus or George Washington was responsible. However, this unconstitutional phrase was not inserted until 1954.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians maintain their beliefs not with logic or evidence but with stories, myth, songs and drama. The way to free them from delusion then may require using stories, myth, songs and drama, including fantasies of after death judgement where they get their come-uppance for tormenting gays, excluding women from decision-making, meddling, militarism and other Christian vices.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians make the error of imagining their religious morality is universal and god-given. They feel upset when other species completely ignore it. Other species have no problem with adultery, abandoning their offspring, homosexuality, cannibalism, deception…
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians often complain about my barrage of criticism of them. Unlike Christian criticism of me as a gay man, my criticism is true, if one-sided, where Christians offer nothing but fantastic lies about gays. I have studied Christians first hand. Christians have just made up what they have to say about gays. Further I don’t threaten to kill Christians or urge others to and they do me. And finally I don’t try suppress their civil rights as they do mine. I follow the golden rule. I treat Christians as I would have them treat me. They do not.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians often go their whole lives without doubting the childhood stories of Santa Claus or his older brother Jesus, despite ample empirical evidence that praying for a pony does not work.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians often say to me that I have an argument with God. That is impossible since I am quite certain the Christian’s team god Jehovah does not even exist. I have an argument with Christians, a group who promote one of the less plausible god myths using dishonest tactics and arguments. I have an argument with Christians, a group who threatened to kill me on over 3,200 occasions (because I was promoting gay equality) or encouraged others to make such threats. Their god delusion justified that behaviour to them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians panic at the discovery the universe appears to have no a priori purpose ordained by God. Yet this is a wonderful thing because everyone is then free to choose his own life purpose.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians point to the bible as if it were incontrovertible proof. It is merely a book of wild unsubstantiated claims most of which are in conflict with other evidence. Biblical scholars even tell us most of it was written hundreds of years after the alleged authors died. There is not a scintilla of evidence a supernatural being had anything whatsoever with writing even one of its sentences. It is just another holy book.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians refer to Matthew, Luke, John and Mark as eye-witnesses to the life of Jesus, but they never even met him!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians refuse to acknowledge that there is far more evidence for visitation by extra-terrestrials or that Elvis lives than there is for anything claimed about Jesus. At least for extra-terrestrials and Elvis we have thousands of living witnesses who can be cross examined. For Jesus, there is just one book written anonymously which is full of error any place it can be cross-checked.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians rely on science to determine which ancient documents are genuine, but then totally ignore science to determine which documents are true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians say that philanthropy should be done in secret. I disagree. When it is done in public it inspires others to do likewise. The Ismaili Muslims have raised this to a fine art. When the Aga Khan comes to visit, they auction off the chair he sat on to raise funds for charity. The person with the chair gains prestige.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians see themselves as virtuous elder brothers whose role is to chastise and control less enlightened people. I see them as a far bigger source of evil than the Satanists. Christians have threatened my life thousands of times simply because I am gay. Never once has a Satanist done so. Christians work hard to deny me equal civil rights. Satanists mind their own business. Christians are doing all they can increase greenhouse gas emissions by spreading lies about the science. Satanists have no such suicidal agenda. Christians are constantly trying to force Christian dogma and junk science as part of the school curriculum. Satanists would not dream of such imposition. Christians interfere with end of life decisions of others. I have never heard of Satanists committing such busy-body meddling in the affairs of strangers. The problem is arrogance. Christians presume to know better how to run other people’s lives. They imagine they are mothers and everyone else are their young children. It is time to tell these meddling busybodies to get stuffed in no uncertain terms.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians seek solace. Atheists seek truth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians smugly imagine their morality is superior to secular morality. They forget their bible teaches the virtues of keeping and beating slaves, discriminating against blacks, drowning witches, animal cruelty and burning gay people alive. It was secular morality that cleaned up these evils. The Christians tried to perpetuate these evils on religious grounds.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians sometimes imagine it is supernaturally dangerous to criticise Christianity or question the existence of the god Jehovah or Jesus. Why would it be any more dangerous than questioning Pele, the volcano god?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians take themselves so seriously. It is as though a group of children refused to accept there were no Santa, and banded together to reassure each other and to hand out leaflets on the bus to inform the world of their deep understanding of the nature of the universe.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians tell me they feel duty bound to make the lives of homosexuals as miserable as possible, because if they didn’t, then no one would have children. First of all, the world has billions more people than it can support. We need fewer not more children. Christians simultaneously try to force gays to have children, and try to exclude them from employment where they have any contact with children. They also oppose gays adopting or retaining custody of their own children. The notion that treating gays badly will cure of them of same sex attraction has no evidence at all to support it. All it does is make them despise Christians and the church. Conservative Christians invented the idea that it was virtuous to pick on gays. Jesus certainly did not tell them to. Obviously, Christians have not thought this through. Christians obtain huge enjoyment from scapegoating gays and will float any nutty excuse to continue. Christians are such losers they resort to consoling themselves with the fantasy they will lord it over everyone else after they die. For now, persecuting gays will have to do.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians tell me they have no choice but to persecute homosexuals because the bible commands them to. That is lie. They cherry picked Leviticus and ignored every other one of Leviticus’s hundreds of thou shalt nots. Further, there is nothing that compels Christians, other than they have always done it, to follow the religious superstitions of 3000-year old desert tribes. They choose to be bigots and must take responsibility for that choice.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians tell their children the fairy tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes, never noticing it is an allegory about the fundamental Christian dishonesty.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians tend to react with equal horror to sex between blood siblings and step siblings. There is good scientific reason for avoiding blood incest — inbreeding leads to deformities and lack of robustness. That does not apply to step incest, between siblings or step-parent and child. There are obviously valid social reasons for avoiding step incest, but it need not be as serious a taboo.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians think there should be a special exception to the separation of church and state only for Christians. They demand the right impose Christian superstitions on gay people, to point of harassing, driving them to suicide and murdering them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians try to convince us that without (belief in) god, there is no hope. I say that if we cannot outgrow our belief in deities, we are soon doomed to extinction . The problem, for example, is Christians believe the mythical supernatural Jesus will magically come to their rescue. Humans don’t have any responsibility for looking after the planet. They are like helpless infant zoo monkeys. They can burn all the oil, pollute the oceans, destroy the soils, overpopulate like rats, convert the fossil fuels to greenhouse gases, cut down the forests, hold a nuclear war etc. and Jesus will magically come along like some cosmic janitor and clean it all up. He never has. No deity ever has no matter how badly we messed up. That is insane wishful thinking. It has lead to monumental infantile irresponsibility.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians usually have sub-normal I.Q. I am not sure if subnormal people are attracted to Christianity to attain a sense of importance or if Christianity destroys the intellect.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians venerate corpses and bones, treating them with even more respect than if they were alive. Some examples:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Christian soldiers will risk the lives of living people to recover corpses.
- Governments will spent millions of dollars to recover the remains of someone killed in a plane crash, skiing accident or boating accident only to rebury them.
- Governments will spend tends of thousands of dollars repatriating bones, e.g. exhuming graves in other countries, transporting the remains and reburying them. They will do this in preference to spending to provide people with medical care, food and homes.
- Christians bury the dead on prime land with a view, and talk as if the deceased enjoy the pleasant surroundings.
- Americans expressed great outrage at corpses burned in Iraq, but felt no distress at all at torture or the use of banned weapons on children.
Christians who attend church are more likely be fanatical, certain and dogmatic about their beliefs. It seems then, to reduce the worst aspects of Christianity, we need to find ways to discourage church attendance. One way is to force church-going Christians to pay taxes on their communal property, and taxes on their contribution to the upkeep of that property just like everyone else, or equivalently give everyone else (religious and secular) the same deduction churches get for communally held property. Another way would be to picket the churches. Some people out of fear of confrontation or a knee jerk reaction to picket lines, will avoid crossing even the smallest and non-threatening picket line.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians who hate gays usually just threaten them or beat them up. Christians who hate those who offer information on birth control or abortion services are more likely to actually kill them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians who tell Muslims they should keep their mosques away from ground zero are saying that Muslims are inferior, wicked, guilty, unclean… — in some way second class. It boils down to Christians are OK; Muslims are not. The constitution is clear. Religions must be treated equally. It is the only way to keep the peace.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians will argue desperately for the existence of the god Jehovah despite all the evidence to the contrary. If all they were trying to do is argue for the existence of a god, any god, they would have a heck of a lot easier time promoting Allah or one of the Hindu gods. These gods are much more plausible and not nearly as ridiculous. But ironically, Christians dismiss these other gods without any investigation whatsoever. In fact they pride themselves on their ignorance of them as if it were some sort of virginity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians will buy teddy bears for dead children, but rarely buy them for living children not their own.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians won’t want to embrace Anders Breivik, the Norwegian summer camp shooter, but they are the ones who trained him to have absolute confidence without evidence. This is the heart of terrorist thinking. He may be motivated by politics, but his insane conviction is rooted in religious training.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians worship a god who encourages slavery. They had to violate their bible to eradicate it. How is that different from worshipping any of the other bronze age gods who had similar filthy habits?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christians, Jews and Muslims got along famously in 15th century Spain. This proves there is no scriptural roadblock to religious peace. The strife today is about retribution spirals, not differences over the alleged characteristics of an undetectable sky god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party/Republican candidate for the Senate in Delaware in 2010, is a typical hypocritical Christian. She suffers from scrupulosity in sex. She organised a group called SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) to promote virginity and to suppress masturbation, then she improperly used campaign contributions for her rent and other personal expenses, and stiffed her campaign workers their agreed wages. She is delusional. She imagines herself much more moral than average.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Churches are much like dishonest businesses. The collect money based on promises they do not keep (promising prosperity, health or eternal life). They spend the money on themselves for ornate buildings, elaborate clothes, cars etc. They produce nothing. They increase intolerance, bigotry and hatred. They encourage scientific ignorance. Why should they get preferential tax treatment over ordinary businesses or clubs? I would think that special treatment would be unconstitutional. It favours large churches over small, and god-based religions over secular philosophies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Churches have a loophole. They can discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring. However, they can also do this when hiring people to implement faith based initiatives, when using government money. That is not right. Faith based initiatives are not a good idea since they give government a lever to manipulate churches.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Churches like to preach avoiding debt. This is a Good Thing™, however, the motive for doing this is to ensure the congregation have some money left over to tithe to the church.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Churches provide almost no services to society, yet the enjoy complete freedom from taxes whereas service clubs that provide all manner of services to the public don’t get any break at all. The tax break should be given for the income spent to provide a public service, not just for being a church.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Claiming to have found a splinter of Noah’s ark is as silly as claiming to have found Paul Bunyan’s blue ox, Babe’s collar or Thor’s hammer.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Clearly government has no right to interfere in your right to practice your religion. To me, encouraging you to practice one of the officially-recognized religions with tax incentives counts as interference.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Clergy have become synonymous with child sexual abuse and physical abuse. A native boy at a Canadian residential school sprinkled some salt on his porridge. The loose cap came off the salt shaker and the entire bottle dumped out. The presiding nun made him eat it all. He vomited. She made him eat all the vomit. This is the sort of the bullying, sanctimonious mentality that Christianity creates.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Clergymen who have vowed their penises will never touch an adult female insist others call them father. Who are they kidding?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Clint Eastwood and Matt Demon, people who should know better, made a film called Hereafter to deepen the hold of the Christian delusions about the impossibility of dying.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Con man/preacher/psychic/faith healer Peter Popoff has announced a new con. You send him $100 and your financial troubles will be miraculously healed. He does not offer counseling or ever a pamphlet. If this guy did not use the smokescreen of preacher, he would be off to jail. Church’s primary activity seems to be providing immunity for a wide selection of criminals including con men and child rapists.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Con men needed a way to destroy their marks’ main defence — common sense. So they invented religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Consider two people applying for conscientious objector status. One is a Christian who belongs to one of the conscientious objector sects. The other is an atheist.
The Christian is essentially saying “I suffer from a mental delusion that there is an invisible man hiding under my bed. I am afraid of him. Others have told me, without evidence, that he will torture me if I enlist. Further, members of my church will shun me if I enlist.
The atheist is saying he believes is wrong to kill people, especially children and civilians and he would simply freeze if forced to do so.
Which of the two is more sincerely a conscientious objector? Which is of the two is more likely to get the exemption? The Christian does not even have a reason. He has a voluntary mental illness, that he is promoting as a disability.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Constitutional freedom of religion gives special privilege to irrational religious people. There are all manner of laws that do not apply to members of particular religious sects, e.g. that you must have a photographic driver’s licence to drive, or that you may not carry a knife. Yet rational people must comply with them. This is unfair favouritism to the fruitcakes. The whole notion of religious exceptions to law is a sham since anyone can claim to believe any nonsense necessary to challenge a law they don’t want to obey.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Creating yet another child, where there are still abandoned children without parents, especially when that child is created through artificial means to stimulate fertility such as in-vitro fertilisation is cruel, hard-hearted, vain, selfish and anti-environment.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Creationism is not a true theory. It is not even a false theory; it is a story, and not even a true story at that!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Creationists long for the theocracy of the dark ages, where even questioning a Christian superstition could result in death by torture. If they would but read history, they would learn this was the most miserable period of all human history, hardly anything anyone would truly want to relive.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Creationists tell me a benign, loving god individually designed each creature. How do creationists account for mosquitoes, black flies and killer bees?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Damn you all to hell, you meddling Christians! You twits who fear an invisible man in the closet spying on you when you masturbate! How dare arrogant, delusional idiots like you presume to dictate to me how I must handle my end of life decisions!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Death is naturally sad, but Christians have made it terrifying.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Debates between Christians and atheists rarely end in consensus because of a fundamental difference in whom you can trust. To the Christian, the clergy are most trustworthy members of society. To the atheist, the clergy are con men, child rapists, liars, deceivers and worse. To the atheists, scientists are most trustworthy members of society because subscribe to a code of conduct designed to discover truth, and do extensive cross checking of each other. To the Christian, scientists are people with a hidden agenda to destroy public morality. Scientists are wicked because they unwilling to distort the truth to defend of religious moral codes. To the atheist, the clergy are wicked because they are eager to distort the truth to defend religious moral codes. To help a Christian out of his delusions we must shake him out of his blind trust in the clergy, and find ways to assure him that science has no such hidden agenda. We atheists have taken the debate far too literally. On the Christian side, it has not all that much to do with whether a deity exists, it is all about who is more trustworthy.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Delivering a Christian from his delusions is a bit like removing a tooth. You have to push it to one side as far it is will go, then push a tiny bit further, then pull it back to the other side. The trick is to get the tooth moving a little, in any direction.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Desecrating a corpse is petty vandalism, like throwing rocks at a rusting car in a junkyard, or shooting tin cans discarded at a dump. A corpse is already in the process of putrefaction. Yet Christians are so superstitious, they consider desecration even more offensive than murder.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Despite a century of archaeological excavation, there was no sign of the town of Nazareth, Jesus’s alleged hometown.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Deuteronomy says you are obligated to kill any child who strikes, disrespects or disobeys a parent. Why do Christians feel so certain Deuteronomy was so wrong on childrearing, but so right on appropriate treatment of homosexuals?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Different people find different arguments convincing. For example, atheists like evidence and plausibility, whereas Republicans are susceptible to appeals to the herd instinct and Christians as susceptible to appeals to authority and are convinced something is true mainly if that is what they would most wish to be so.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)This may explain why the Christian conception of heaven is so kitsch. Christians prefer it that way.
Discovering that Jimmy Carter is a dyed-in-the-wool Christian is a bit like learning Mahatma Gandhi chewed tobacco, or that Martin Luther King put out saucers of lemonade for the fairies each evening. I wonder what he could have done without that delusion holding him back.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Do matter how you decorate a lie with musically exquisite alleluias, hosannas and Lord, Lords, it is still a lie.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Do you consider it murder to kill the precious life shown at the right? Do you think it is right to assassinate those uncaring Nazis who wantonly destroy them and toss them in the garbage? If you answered yes, you had better never donate blood, and never get a blood test or you will sacrifice billions of these innocent erythrocytes, also known as red blood cells.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Do you really want a doctor who thinks that if he slips up and you die, that you will be much better off playing harp in heaven?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Do you think neo-Nazi organisations with a clause is their constitution calling for the assassination of all gay people should get government grants? If not, how you do justify putting up with Christian churches getting such grants? They all have that clause in their constitution — the Old Testament.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Does everything happen for a reason? Yes, in the sense that earthquakes happen when sufficient tension builds, but no, in the sense there is someone supernatural being composing a script to satisfy his inscrutable desires for all that happens.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Doubt is truth’s best friend, faith its worst enemy.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
During the black plague in Europe, Christians tortured and killed randomly chosen innocent people hoping to convince their god to call off the plague. Christianity made the problem much worse than it need have been.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
During the bubonic plague, Christians murdered the Jews, motivated by they whacko religion. In their sick view it was a sin to tolerate the presence of Jews.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
During the revolutionary war, and the years following, upwards of 90% of Americans did not belong to a church.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64) sources: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter and The Vineyard of Liberty by James MacGregor Burns. Modern day bible thumpers dishonestly claim this generation were all church-going Christians.
Egyptians believed you needed to pack enough goods in your grave to last an eternity in the afterlife. It must have been distressing to them to realise that eternity would exhaust any cache of provisions, no matter how large.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Emperor Constantine was a Christian and an idiot, because he actually believed the false promises of Christianity. To defend Constantinople, he held up Christian relics, believing they had magic power to frighten off enemies. These little bits of bone and wood of course had no effect whatsoever, and the city fell.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
End times Christians eagerly await nuclear war and encourage the end of planet earth by every conceivable catastrophe. I wish these criminally insane people would just commit mass suicide with Kool-Aid and leave the earth to the rest of us who want to preserve and cherish it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Equal rights for Christians! Christians deserve the same rights as any other delusional people.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Evangelical Christians have a peculiar value system. They revere Ted Haggard, who paid young men for sex, took methamphetamines to enhance sexual pleasure and committed adultery. However, they also say that gay virgins should be put to death.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even an atheist is tempted to lie to a bereaved child, that the loved person or animal is not really dead, just somewhere else healthy and happy. Soothing that pain is about the only legitimate function of religious lies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even an atheist is tempted to lie to a bereaved child, that a loved person or animal is not really dead, just somewhere else healthy and happy. Soothing that pain is the closest thing to a legitimate function for religion’s comforting lies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even atheists tend to presume nearly everyone is a Christian, but if you check out almost anyone with a famous intellect, even people living two hundred years ago, you find they were all atheists.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even Christians can’t stand Christians more sanctimonious than they are.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even Christians know their beliefs are BS. They will tell you that they know Napoléon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, but that they believe Moses was found by the pharaoh’s daughter floating in a reed basket. They are quite aware there is no evidence for the myth. Even they don’t consider the myth true in the ordinary sense. Its is a socially acceptable/required lie, (in their circles) like pretending actor David Duchovny is actually FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) agent Mulder Fox.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even creationists must now surely concede that God created earths, not the earth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even if the Christians don’t manage to take control of your child now through their relentless TV ministries and “family values” programming, they are planting the seeds of a phobia of God as bogeyman they will use later in life during a window of vulnerability.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even if you assume the odds are 100:1 there is a god, you still have 100 times better odds of being right if you presume there is no god, than you have in picking the correct god of the 10,000 possibilities.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even in this day, some churches still teach that natural disasters and plagues are caused by angering the god Jehovah by failure to kill homosexuals. These church leaders are insane, (they are confused about right and wrong), but because their delusions are popular, they are not incarcerated along with other criminally insane people.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even Star Trek NG’s Q is a more plausible deity than the Old Testament’s god Jehovah.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even stupid people can prosper at preaching. When everything about what God wants you to do is made up anyway, any lie is as good as another. Further the preacher can just make up God-based explanations of scientific and political questions of the day that appeal to their dim-witted flocks without any fear of ever being challenged.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even the most orthodox religions still have to confront the changes in modern culture and technology, even if it just amounts to deciding to reject it. They have to decide whether to accept reproductive technology to tip the balance of male to female babies. They won’t necessary reject everything new if it helps them promote their ancient paternalistic beliefs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even the most saintly person would be embarrassed and guilt-ridden if the details of his or her sex life were made public, even if they consisted of perfectly normal and mainstream things like heterosexual attraction to people of the same age and masturbation. The church has systematically managed to make everyone in society feel an irrational guilt about sex in order to control them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even the nominally monotheistic religions all have their Satans and evil spirits. They are like snapping sheepdogs used to herd the gullible into the god belief trap by snapping at their heels. Even the rabidly monotheistic Islam has a menagerie of imaginary beings: Jann, Jinn, Shaitans, Ifrits and Marids.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even though scientists can explain the physics of why earthquakes occur, and why they occur on a roughly predictable timetable, Christians persist in the ancient superstition that they are caused by god becoming displeased with human behaviour. T’s a wonder these nutty Christians don’t also insist on human sacrifice to placate the earthquake god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even though the US constitution prohibits any sort of religious test for holding office, six southern state constitutions bar atheists from holding public office (Arkansas, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas). Even though the federal constitution trumps state constitutions, state constitutions still stubbornly maintain conflicting provisions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even though there is far more evidence for the risen Elvis and for alien abductions than for Christianity, Christians still insist there is utterly no doubt about their claims.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Eventually, it will be a crime to circumcise a male or female without their consent, even an infant. Claiming religious tradition as an excuse will be as irrelevant as using it as an excuse for burning someone at the stake.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Every argument a Christian has ever offered me for the existence of god applies equally well to Clarus the dogcow as to the god Jehovah.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Every church, culture and religion has its own list of what constitutes moral and immoral behaviour. Christians don’t recognise this plurality. The only list that has any validity at all is theirs. Even a small deviation from their list represents chaos, an utter abandonment of all decent behaviour. Any change to the list, or challenge to the list, represents a threat to the absolute, direct-from-the-mouth-of-god authority of their entire list. The rationality of any individual rule is irrelevant and is not debatable because Christians believe the rules as a whole were dictated by the creator of the universe, and thus don’t have to make any sense. His purposes are inscrutable. They don’t dare argue with the creator of the universe. Fear is what makes Christians cling to nutty ideas, not their apparent truthfulness. This conceit makes Christians extraordinarily resistant to change and logic.
Atheists have a hard time making sense of the utterances of Christians because, since atheists don’t believe in the existence of any deities, they don’t fear gods. Atheists don’t belong to any churches, so they don’t fear social ostracism for rejecting some part of church teaching.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Every person has a true self. If he tries to be someone else, he is miserable. The church creates so much suffering by convincing people they should all be subdued and identical, the way that church wants them to be.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Everyone laughs at the Amish who want to stay over a century out of date, avoiding electricity and motor vehicles. Yet Jews and Christians want us to affect the behaviour of people who lived over 2000 years ago, when human sacrifice was common, and rape was considered an ordinary spoil of war, and there was no science only superstition and everyone beat their children to within an inch of their lives.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Evidence God does not exist:
- God is invisible and undetectable.
- God has no measurable effect on reality.
- There is no consensus on the nature of God.
- Prayer has no effect on reality.
- Christians have the same number of health problems, accidents and damage from “acts of God” as anyone else.
- There is no sign of compassion in nature.
- He is unnecessary. The universe runs by itself.
Evidence that God exists:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Many people have an extremely strong gut feeling he does. Oddly, only those people who were fed the idea as infants have this feeling. [I have very strong feelings about avoiding being hit by an automobile, a notion my mother pounded into me as a toddler.]
- Ancestors back thousands of years accepted his existence without question. Different ancestors in different times worshipped different gods, though the notion of priest/shaman/god remained invariant.
- Surely science can’t explain complicated stuff like the existence of earth, Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock and bacteria flagella, therefore an invisible man in the clouds named Jehovah must have done it, like a cosmic Geppetto. There are no other conceivable possibilities. Every other religion is flat out wrong and evil to boot. [The people who make this assertion carefully insulate themselves for reading any science or information about other religions.]
Evidence that the constants of the universe were selected by some superintelligence is in no way evidence that you should persecute homosexuals, avoid abortions, close all shops on Sunday, or that the earth is only 4000 years old.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Evolution demands that young humans accept whatever their mothers tell them without question. Logic has nothing to do with it. That is why religious belief is so impervious to the usual techniques of logical persuasion. Religion is more akin to a phobia than a belief.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Expecting Jesus to come and right all the world’s wrongs is as childish, naïve and idiotic as expecting Superman to rescue you.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Faith healing amounts to saying “Go away you nasty disease or I’ll ask my invisible friend to beat the crap out of you.” in a way that impresses the heck out of the patient.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Faith is believing without evidence. For the Christian, faith is the highest virtue. For the atheist, it is the ultimate foolishness. For the con man, it is the ultimate opportunity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Faith is pretending to believe an authority when you strongly suspect he is lying.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Faith is the deliberate lack of critical thinking. Faith is intentional gullibility. How can people be so bullied as to think this is a Good Thing™?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Family values is a code word to exclude single-parent black families and families with gay parents. It has nothing to do with how well children are treated. Why do advertisers tell us their paper towels are family towels. Why don’t they want to sell to gays and single parent families too? Is it some bigoted code to suggest purity and cleanliness?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Few football coaches would resort to killing the families of the opposing team, but if you actually read the bible, you will discover Jehovah is reputed to be far more partial than that. How could the creator of the entire universe be that petty and that partial to one infinitesimal slice of the creation (an obscure middle eastern tribe). That is even more daft than god becoming besotted with a microscopic flap of loose skin between his toes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Few people mind hummingbirds in their garden, but most find ants and wasps unwelcome. Why? Ants and wasps interfere with your picnic. This is why Christians are so obnoxious. They are like ants and wasps meddling in other people’s affairs that don’t concern them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Few people realise just how evil religion is. Its purpose is to destroy the ability to reason by terrifying children into believing complete nonsense, then controlling them like cattle the rest of their lives. It is a form of mental slavery or mental castration. It is like a mind parasite.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
First, Christians tell me the scientists are mistaken and that primitive tribespeople were right all along in that the universe is actually micromanaged at the whim of invisible intelligent beings. Then they have the cheek to insist that the alleged master controller of the universe is infinitely kind and merciful. Have they never been nauseous? Have they never had diarrhea? Have they never been seriously ill? Have they never had a toothache? Have they failed to notice that animals are compelled to eat each other? And to top it off, they allege all manner of impossible and absurd miracles for which there is no evidence at all, such as the story of Noah’s ark and the flood. They treat the ability to pretend to believe all this nonsense, faith, as a sort of skill, like juggling, that I ought to develop.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Football players routinely pray before each game that God fix the outcome. This works on average only 50% of the time. This suggests the prayers are directed to the wrong deity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
For a child, god is one of the monsters under the bed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
For a stable human society, each person must have an average of 2.00 surviving children and 4.00 grandchildren. If someone has more, it means someone else must necessarily have less. Religions preach greed in this matter, out of a selfish desire to expand themselves at the expense of other faiths. It is ironic that religions are so harsh on childless couples, especially homosexual ones, when they are the ones who make large families possible for others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
For atheists, it is all about the evidence whether there is or is not a god. For Christians, it is all about whether having a god would be a good or a bad thing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
For centuries, the churches convinced the population that no relationship was legitimate without church blessing. They convinced everyone, believer and atheist alike, that forming a relationship without this blessing was an unforgivable sin, and that any children born were “illegitimate bastards” The notion is so universal that not even atheists noticed how high-handed and patriarchal it was. To this day churches strive to retain the power to decide who can pair up with who, blocking same sex couples for instance or interfaith marriages. They want to control everyone, not just their own flocks.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
For hundreds of years the Catholic Church has scapegoated gay people. Originally they tortured them and burned them at the stake. Today they encourage bullying, persecution, denial of civil rights and sometimes murder. To this day they refuse to disown sections of bible calling for killing gay people. The persecution occurs when the victim is merely suspected of a thought crime, being a attracted to a member of the same sex, an act that harms no one. The hypocrisy is, the church itself is crawling with closeted gays and pedophiles. The Catholic church is the biggest pedophile ring on the planet arranging fresh victims for rape and terrifying the children with threats of eternal damnation. It not just a few bad apples. Covering for each other is endemic and systematic and reaches all the way to the top — Pope Ratzinger. It is absolutely astounding that the public still tolerates such an intensely evil institution.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
For most creatures, life is about constantly evading predators and/or constantly evading starvation. The strange thing is, so many people are convinced a benign deity deliberately designed things this way.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
For the human species to be sustainable, couples must have an average of 2.00 children surviving to adulthood. If they have less, the population dies out. If they have more, you get environmental collapse, war, pestilence and famine. Religions, pressing for greater market share, irresponsibly urge their adherents to breed as much as possible. If some couples have more than two children it necessitates others having fewer. Only China seem to understand just how anti-social overbreeding is.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
For thousands of years men have spun their wheels on the question “Is there a god” without coming up without even a single argument for or against that everyone finds convincing. If you want to chew on big questions try these instead:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- What can I do to help deal with global climate change?
- What can I do to persuade the world to abandon war?
- What can I do to ensure everyone has a reasonable amount to eat?
Fred Phelps of GodHatesFags.com explained to a gay man that he is going to hell and there is nothing he can do about it. In Fred’s view, his god hates gays people for what they are, not for what they do, even though he created them that way. Why then does Fred feel compelled to make the lives gay people here on earth as miserable as possible too? Why must he too mistreat them unfairly? He is, like his warped, imaginary god, a sadist.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Fred Phelps of GodHatesFags.com imagines he has the right to impose his rather eccentric religious beliefs on others. How would Fred feel if we gays similarly decided we had the right to impose our codes of behaviour on him? That is what the constitution is for, to separate religious from secular restrictions on behaviour, to keep us from meddling in the affairs of others that are none of our business.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Free speech includes the freedom not to listen. Free speech does not guarantee a spot on the Tonight Show. Christians imagine they are entitled to a seat at the table any time homosexuality, abortion or euthanasia is discussed even though they never contribute any useful information, just their faith-based beliefs for which they can offer no rational justification.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Freedom of religion amounts to freedom to indulge a mental illness/delusions and to inculcate them in children. It is the freedom to lie, and to persecute arbitrary scapegoats. It is thus not inherently a good thing. It is a compromise, an uneasy truce, to keep people of different religions from killing each other. If religions dwindled, then freedom of religion would be treated the same way the as the freedom to refuse treatment for mental illness. The right to infect children would be curtailed, and those actively dangerous would not be permitted to refuse treatment.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Freedom of religion creates a protected class of crimes. In the name of religion, one may legally con people out of money, extort money with threats, lie, make false promises, make death threats, accuse others of wickedness without evidence, encourage others to commit murder and molest children.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Freedom of religion includes freedom from religion. It is one thing to let people freely indulge their religious delusions, even when they are harmful to the believers (e.g. Spanish Catholics flagellating themselves causing infected wounds). It is quite another to let yourself be bullied into inconveniencing yourself to humour somebody else’s religious delusions. I include such things as being forced to close shops on Sunday, accepting second class citizenship if you are gay, public money being spent on decorations a religious festival to celebrate a bogus claim of human parthenogenesis and having your children taught blithering nonsense in schools about science, allowing cults to wed pre-pubescent girls off to senior citizens and allowing Catholic church to run the world’s largest pedophile ring, without interference.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Freedom of religion is a truce between criminal gangs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Freedom of religion is an extreme freedom, akin to permitting people the right to take a giant hit of LSD that permanently damages their brains, leaving them delusional and unable to reason.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Freedom of religion is basically the freedom to tell a special class of lies. We prefer it to warfare between religious sects. Because the lies are labeled as religious beliefs, we can more easily dismiss them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Freedom of religion was a momentous step in stopping religious fanatics from forcing their demented notions on others. However, we need to go further, and gradually eliminate religion altogether. Holding onto it out of tradition is as wrong headed as holding onto public hangings or witch dunking. It amounts to cherishing obsolete science, primitive barbarities and ancient lies. People have a right to do crazy things only so far as they don’t hurt others. Christians don’t fit that criterion by a long shot.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
From the point of view of a westerner, Muslims are insanely unreasonable about criticism of their religion or religious figures. Imagine a Christian TV faith healer killing people who questioned his claims that he could heal people by prayer. The problem is Muslims have been trained since birth that they must defend Allah, and there is no doubt whatsoever to anything written in the Qur’an . If they were factually correct, their touchiness would perhaps be excusable. It is just that they have offered almost no evidence to support their claims. They argue by intimidation, much as the Catholic church used to do. Thus the odds of either them actually being correct are infinitesimally small. The fact both the Catholics and Muslims sometimes resort to intimidation to defend their beliefs is further evidence neither have any evidence. We westerners have the right to criticise Islam, but then we also have the right to poke a fork in a toaster. Like all unsubstantiated beliefs, Islam will eventually fade away. The question is how to effectively and tactfully hasten it along to obscurity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Fundamentalist Christians are killing far more people than fundamentalist Muslims. They should be monitored at least as carefully.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Fundamentalists are fundamentally dishonest. They are willing to sweep all the errors and inconsistencies in the bible under the rug and pretend it is error free. That is so childish, to cling to a known lie.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Fundamentalists are so brainwashed that if the bible said, starting in 1960 all trees would start growing with their roots in the air and leaves underground they would insist it was indeed true despite the evidence it was not so. The would somehow twist the meaning of the words all, roots, leaves and air so that it could be interpreted as true. They just assume the bible is true as a postulate, without any evidence, and despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They maintain this silly belief with nothing but lies and repeated and heartfelt assertion. Deliberately believing what is untrue leads to all manner of insane behaviour, like destroying the environment, interfering with other people using birth control, persecuting gay people and butchering people of other religions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Fundamentalists are unconscious Luddites. They throw up their smokescreens of superstition and irrational babble vaguely hoping to jam the explosion of scientific knowledge and technological change.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Fundamentalists claim to believe in talking snakes even though they can see for themselves snakes have neither large brains nor vocal chords, both needed for speech. They believe it because the bible says it is true. Adam and Eve were the only alleged witnesses to this odd event. Yet the bible was written much later. How did the authors know this story was literally true? How did they know it was not just a tall tale or an allegory?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Fundamentalists have been so intent on forcing others to pray, they have forgotten that the constitution protects their own right to pray wherever they please.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Fundamentalists: nobody is surer they are right and nobody is more often wrong.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Funeral directors, used car salesmen, faith healers, sellers of weight loss potions, politicians, sellers of hair restoration potions, preachers… What do these have in common? They are all commonly con artists, but rarely prosecuted.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Funerals should cater to the desires of those left behind, not the frustrated theatrical urges of the deceased.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Future generations will characterise our generation as superstitious and gullible, lead by the nose by corporations and churches with catch phrases to believe the preposterous and self-contradictory.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
George W. Bush says “God bless America”. Barack Obama says “May God bless America” The Republican commands God to bless. The Democrat hopes that God will bless.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Given that every famous psychic who claims to communicate with the dead has been exposed as a fraud, it is odd the lesser known psychics have any presumed credibility. Believers are like children who insist that magicians really do saw women in half, no matter how many times they see how the trick is done.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Given the sideways logic Christians give me for why they believe in god, I suspect the most convincing argument that god is fictitious would be to demonstrate that it would be a Good Thing™ if he did not exist, and that it would be exceedingly fortunate if there were no afterlife.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Given the way most Christians so cavalierly disobey what they claim are God’s commandments, they are hypocrites. They don’t seriously believe what they preach. They just want others to believe what they claim to believe.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Given what hell planet earth will be with twice the population, and what a heaven it could be with half the population, you”d think sheer greed would reverse the population explosion. However Catholics don’t think that way. They are willing to destroy the earth with a locust swarm of humanity so long as it ends with more Catholics than Muslims.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
God is the adult version of monsters under the bed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
God: noun, a magic wish-granting genie. Alleged friend of con-men who exploit this special relationship to solicit funds from the gullible without providing any service in return.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
God: noun, an ancient con, particularly effective for separating little old ladies and seriously ill people from their life savings.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
God: noun, an authoritarian voice that only psychotics can hear that commands them to commit crimes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
God: noun, an imaginary bogeyman and peeping Tom. Parents try to discourage their children from masturbating by telling them god is spying on them 24/7.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
God: noun, an imaginary friend for simple-minded adults.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
God: noun, an imaginary parent for adults are afraid to ever be alone.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
God: noun, supernatural being who spies on people and rewards and punishes them disproportionately. In other words, the adult version of Santa Claus.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
God: noun, the bogey man in the sky used by Catholic priests to terrify children into silence about their sexual assaults on them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
God: noun, the imaginary deity of homophobia. Bigots allege it orders them to persecute and kill homosexuals. Others excuse them their crimes when they feign religious motivation this way. It is odd there are not similar deities for child rapists and thieves.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
God: noun, the mythical excuser that suspends normal morality, turning murder, and rape of children into a virtue in time of war.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Good prevails over evil only once it has become the greater force.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Hans Christian Andersen may have written The Emperor’s New Clothes to spoof the phony miracle of transubstantiation where priests claim to convert wine and a cracker into the blood and flesh of a dead man. It is not even a magic parlour trick. Nothing happens, yet people pretend there was a change to be considered holy, just as the townspeople in the fairy tale pretended to see the emperor’s clothes in order to be perceived as wise and competent.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Have you ever looked into what it takes to found a church or new denomination? Have you ever wondered why people keep founding new churches, pretty much the same as the existing ones? Have you ever considered what the official church designation gets you legally?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- You don’t pay taxes.
- You get to legally beg money from people and legally accept the donations. You don’t pay taxes on that.
- The Church designation gives you remarkable legal immunity. You can tell the flock any silly thing you please, including things that would harm their health. You can rape children. You can swindle the elderly out of their life savings.
- You can con people into giving you money using any lies you could conceive of, including of course false promises. You will not be prosecuted.
Have you ever noticed how Christians avoid debating the truth of their articles of faith? Like cuttlefish, they sometimes emit a cloud of twaddle, simulating insanity, hoping you will give up on them. It’s as though they suspect you are right, but believe it would be wicked to abandon their faith.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Hey Christian! You are a phony. You don’t believe most of that nonsense you give lip service too. It is just that you think pretending to believe it helps your status in the community. You are a hypocrite, liar and coward. Challenge yourself:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Explain to someone dying of some particularly nasty disease, e.g. pancreatic cancer, that your god could heal them in an instant, but because he loves them, decides not to. Prepare to be spat at for peddling your bullshit. Explain why your church does all it can to prevent him/her from dying early to cut out some of the suffering.
- Go to Africa and explain to 6 old abandoned orphans that God loves them too, though he won’t provide any food, and he lets cruel men sexually abuse them. Explain why you are 25 kg (55.12 lbs) overweight and have never donated so much as a dime to help feed these kids.
- Go to Afghanistan and explain to mothers why soldiers from your church came to kill their pre-school children. Explain why your god is so much more merciful than theirs.
Hindus have five different creation myths. Jews, Christians and Muslims insist every one accept only one, and oddly one that for which there is no collaborating evidence and overwhelming scientific evidence it is false.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Hindus tell me that God (Ganesh) looks like a cartoon elephant. Christians tell me the creator of the entire universe is a white bearded senile old pervert who hides in the clouds using his x-ray vision to watch people masturbate. Ancient Egyptians claimed God (Sobek) looked like a man with the head of a crocodile. Ancient Greeks claimed god (Zeus) transformed himself into a swan in order to commit rape of a human female. Christians claim their god (Jehovah) transformed himself into a shower of gold flakes in order to impregnate a human female. How is it believers are incapable of noticing how absurd all these claims are?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Historians will tell you that monotheism is a higher form of religion than polytheism, though they will never give a reason why. I put this down to Christian chauvinism. I knew that Gore Vidal concurred with me and on 2012-05-13 I learned that Schopenhauer and Hume also share my dim view of monotheism.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Historically, atheists have fostered religious delusions on the grounds the peasants needed the myths to keep their behaviour in check, though the controls were not necessary for the educated elite.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Hitler hired people to create false science to prove his nutty beliefs about the racial superiority of Aryans. He reminds me of the creationists and their phony science to support their nutty beliefs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Hitler ordered burned all books written by Jews, even Einstein and Freud. What the creationists are aiming for is effectively burning or sidelining all books written about science since 4000 BC.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Homophobic Christians are vigilantes. They failed in lobbying for laws to persecute homosexuals, (with the exception of gay marriage) so they take the law into their own hands, and act as judge and executioner. What really annoys me is the way the imagine they are so profoundly virtuous and more moral than everyone else for doing so.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How can you possibly respect a Christian or Muslim? He worships an incredibly evil god who tortures people with infinite pain for eternity for any transgression of his rules? They are more despicable than Hitler’s toadies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How can you possibly respect someone’s religion when its primary purpose is persecuting homosexuals, helping pedophiles find victims or fleecing gullible old ladies?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How come when God allegedly speaks privately to preachers he never tells them anything intelligent or useful, such as how to end the conflict in Israel or how to make a malaria vaccine?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How could anyone who has been present at the death of child possibly believe in a benign loving deity?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How crazy are they? There are a group of Christians trying to breed a red heifer to fulfill a biblical prophesy that will let them destroy an ancient Islamic mosque, start a global thermonuclear war and have lunch with Jesus.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How did this god idea get such a foothold in man’s imagination? Possibly, long ago in Mexico, someone decided to leave some of the choicest kernels of primitive corn for the ancestor spirits by burying them. Over time this practice acted much like natural selection to improve the corn plant. Here is one of the extremely rare cases where a sacrifice actually did work reliably. It would seem quite plausible to a people without any understanding of genetics that the improved corn was a thank-you from some beneficent invisible entity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How do I know if something is true? First and foremost, does it jibe with my personal experience. Next, does it jibe with what people I trust said was so. What people do I trust? acknowledged experts, parents, people with a reputation of telling me things that turned out to be true based on my personal experience. What people don’t I trust? People I have caught lying, pretending to know what they do not, cheating, breaking promises, stealing, running con games… So why are my beliefs so different from a typical fundamentalist? They believed their parents just like I did. Their parents taught them that preachers were completely trustworthy. Mine taught me they were hypocrites and bullshitters.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How do Jews manage to simultaneously believe that the creator of the universe loves them better than any other beings in the universe and the holocaust was the worst thing that ever happened?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How do you explain the lack of archeological evidence to support the existence of Moses, David or Jesus? The two most probably explanations are either they never existed, or not many people at the time considered them important. Either way, the modern day characters are fictional.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How does a fundamentalist know that the bible is the literal word of God? The evidence suggests the contrary. Surely God would not have made so many errors and inconsistencies. The bible is bad literature even by human standards. Surely the writing should be supernaturally good quality. The fundamentalist has no evidence, yet he is extremely certain. Why? Because everyone he associates with claims the bible is the word of God. To maintain social status, members of his social group must not only pretend to believe, but must also pretend to be utterly convinced without any doubt. This collective lie is convincing to the weak minded who make a habit of believing what everyone else appears to believe.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How is it that Christians refer to their religion as monotheistic? They have the father sky god, the son Jesus, the holy ghost, the virgin Mary, the angels and the saints, not to mention the Pope. Christians are better supplied than the ancient Greeks with holy beings who receive prayers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How long before GPS technology is used to track everyone’s location, and social status is measured by how large a territory you are permitted to wander without getting a special security clearance visa, even for movement in your own city or country?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How many Christians are properly aware that when they go to see a movie about miracles, every last one of them was faked with Hollywood technology.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How much does the intelligent design hypothesis tell you about anti matter, quantum mechanics, DNA, organic chemistry etc. Nothing! Absobloominglutely nothing! It is utterly useless! In contrast, modern science tells you far more than you could possibly absorb. A theory that predicts nothing is like a car without an engine; it does not even rate being called a theory.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How much does the suffering of others matter?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
How would Christians like it if we gays treated them the way they treat us gays? Imagine the power structure were reversed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Gangs of gays would waylay Christians, men and women of all ages, and beat them to a pulp, often killing them.
- Gays would not permit Christians to marry because they are ritually unclean.
- Gays would refuse to hire known Christians. To get a job, Christians would have to pretend not to be.
- Gays would insist schools not interfere when kids bullied young Christians.
- Gays would insist schools teach that Christians are an inferior form of life.
- Gays would proclaim that Christian relationships had no more value bestiality.
- Gays would assert that all Christians are child molesters and bar them from any profession involving children.
Hucksters have known since the beginning of time how to use God’s celebrity endorsement to sell anything. He never asks for a commission. He never contradicts any claim they make. Republicans use him to sell war. Faith healers use him to sell prayer shawls. Meat packers use him to sell turkeys.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Human population has exploded to the point where many starve, we are drowning in waste, despoiling our forests and cooking ourselves to death with green house gas emissions. The moral thing to do is obviously to curb reproduction, but the churches fight everything that helps reduce population growth, including condoms, birth control, the morning after pill, abortion, small families, childless couples, gay couples, working women… Why? Because they don’t care about the earth, just about increasing the number of gullible tithers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Humans are like the other animals where the males help raise the young. The males seek pleasurable sensations. The females seek to be provided for. Religion has taught us hypocrisy in this matter, condemning anyone who acknowledges these two facts honestly.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Humans are such cowards that they willingly allow themselves to be conned by those claiming death is not real and claiming to know the precise details of how the afterlife works.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Humans are such cowards when it comes to facing their own mortality that they willingly allow themselves to be conned by those claiming death is not real and claiming to know the precise details of how an afterlife works.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Humans evolved in an environment where the optimum strategy was to eat whenever food is available and to eat as much as possible. In our modern world, this leads to obesity, diabetes and cardio-vascular disease. Christianity with its Lenten fast and Islam with its Ramadan fast may unconsciously have been trying to artificially restore the environment for which we are adapted.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Humans were once prey animals. Our sense of morality is based on that. Before we humans commit any atrocity, we ritually claim we are a victim. It takes on ridiculous proportions e.g in Iraq where the USA claims it is defending itself from invasion. Sometimes a nation will even put on the charade of a false flag attack on itself to claim the virtue of victimhood.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I am astonished that Christians treat their god with such contempt, ordering him about, “God, grant me strength to…” or “God, bless America!”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I am astounded at the hubris of Christians who pontificate claiming to have the final word on the big bang when they don’t even know a quark from a hadron.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I am astounded that anyone would be so arrogant as to presume to speak for the creator of the universe. Think about it. Only someone who was completely sure there would be no creator to answer to would dare attempt it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I am puzzled why Christians don’t sweep broken biblical promises under the rug out of embarrassment, the way they burned all the other false gospels. For example:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Clearly, Christians die just like everyone else. Why keep up the absurd pretence that Christians do not die?
- Clearly, Christians have just as many troubles as non-Christians. God does not protect them from harm. If he did, Christians would get an insurance discount. Why keep up the pretence God grants special favours to Christians?
- Jesus did not come back within a generation as he promised. Why keep pretending Jesus never breaks promises including the utterly preposterous one that he will grant every prayer?
I am revolted by the intellectual dishonesty of Christians. They are happy to quote science, but only when they can twist it to support their superstitions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I am surprised that black Americans are attracted to Christianity and Islam where they are told to shut up, don’t ask questions and do what you are told. I would think they got quite enough of that during slavery and segregation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I am trying to train myself to be consistent to use the term the god Jehovah when referring to the Christian supernatural being. I want to make it clear I categorise this god in the same bucket with all the other gods such as Zeus, Ganesh, Baal, Brahma and Allah. I want to make it clear I am not conceding there is anything special about the Christian god. Further, if any god exists, Jehovah is one of the least likely candidates as a description of it. Jehovah is a petulant spoiled brat, not the creator of worlds. Christians argue as if there were only two possibilities: god exists and his name is Jehovah or he does not exist. They imagine any argument for the existence of a god implies only the existence of the Christian god. However, any such argument applies equally well to any other god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I can hardly wait until science discovers the life in common in the cosmos and gain a foothold even on planets very different from earth. The Christian scoundrels will be scrambling to claim their scriptures never did claim earth was unique in the entire universe.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I can see nostalgia, regret or sadness at facing the end of your life from natural causes, but fear??? Surely that is only possible if you have allowed yourself to be conned by unscrupulous Christians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I can understand that people pretend to be special agents of god or the devil in order to con others, but I don’t understand why humans have evolved a special God Spot in the brain that, when stimulated, makes them easier to con.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I cannot prove there is no ghoul who calls himself the god Jehovah, eagerly awaiting my death so he can get on with watching me tortured for eternity, but I can say I have never seen any evidence whatsoever that he exists.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I can’t get over that religious people have no shame whatsoever about their arrogance. They claim 10,000 of the world’s religions are bunk, except one, the one they fell into by accident of birth. They make this claim without even examining so much as one of the religions they rejected.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I can’t respect a religion that cons people into buying a cheese sandwich for $28,000 because the burn marks on it vaguely resemble a bearded man.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I consider Billy Graham a scoundrel because he preached things with utter conviction he had never checked even in the most cursory way to see if they were true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I contend prayer is a vice. It is a holy excuse for procrastination, and worse — giving up and doing nothing at all.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I could smack Christians senseless who counsel praying to find a lost child. They might as well be saying “Give up. Do nothing.” What an utter waste of time!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I do not accept the right of Christian bigots to use the bible to deny gay people equal marriage rights, any more than I respect their ancestors who used the bible to justify their bigotry in denying black people freedom from slavery or equal civil rights. There are thousands of verses relevant to these matters in the bible, and they choose to cherry pick the most vicious. They are malicious, cruel bastards, and we should not let them get away with pretending to be motivated by holiness.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I don’t believe in ghosts, unicorns, alien abductions, seances or witches. I almost never think about my failure to believe because it is rare anyone hits me over the head with it. There is not even a word to describe my lack of faith. In contrast, Christians beat me over the head, try to take away my civil rights and threaten my life. They are the ones who label me atheist. If they left me and my friends alone, I would ponder the issue about as often as I ponder the possibility of alien abductions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I don’t like tattoos. I don’t like being around people who have them. I can think of half a dozen reasons why they are foolish choice, but I would not dream of taking away civil rights from people who like them. I just wish Christians would mind their own business in a similar way concerning gays, contraception, abortion, adultery, education…
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I don’t quarrel with God any more than I quarrel with Paul Bunyan. I quarrel with Christians making untrue statements and persecuting gays and non-Christians pretending god made them do it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I find Christianity highly offensive and I firmly support the right of Christians to be offensive, especially in private or in places where I am not. I just wish Christians were not so conceited as to imagine others should curtail any activity that they find offensive, even in private or where Christians are not.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I find Christians annoying for the same reason I find young children who insist that 2 + 2 = 5 annoying.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I find it baffling that any adult takes the Christian account of creation seriously. It reminds me of the tall tale of how the bear got its stumpy tail or the wolf/salmon creation myth of the Haida.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I find it extremely odd that everyone is convinced his own religion is 100% true and all the rest are untrue even when he has zero experience with any religion but his own. His religion could well be the worst and he would have no way of telling.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I find it impossible to swallow the Christian theory of the afterlife because it is so man-centred and so tied to a particular culture, place and time. To Christianity, no other species exists but man. Not only in there no evidence for it, it smells very unlikely. At least the Buddhists postulate a cycle of rebirth of all species in a consistent way.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I generally defer to what science says. The scientists have put more time into the problem, have better equipment than I to study the problem, and have had the luxury of debating the problem with the planet’s most capable minds. The scientists have good reasons for thinking as they do an for rejecting alternate explanations. At the same time, I am well aware of how over and over scientists revised their theories with more sophisticated ones. Even when this happens, I notice the old theories are still much better than the competing amateur theories, such as the ones the Vatican espouses. At least the old theories explained most of the data. I don’t hold the same high opinion of military, government, legal and political authorities. They don‘t have the love of the truth. They see themselves as shepherds who use lies to direct the public.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I get so furious with busybodies who think they have a right to interfere with other people’s end of life decisions. Usually they are religious zealots, a modern day Spanish Inquisition, who imagine that imposing their crazy religious superstitions on others is good for them, even if they suffer intolerably as a result. Invariably, these busybodies are unusually robust people who have not a clue what it is like to be terminally ill or to deal with untreatable pain or nausea that goes on and on without a break.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I grew up in an atheist household. At Christmas we had a tree, presents, a turkey and visiting relatives. We even sang Christmas carols. However, unlike Christians, we did not tell lies to each other about the history of what happened circa 0 AD.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I had to laugh at NPR’s supposedly objective look at death. They phrased the question as “What happens when you leave this world?” They had already decided there was a personal consciousness after you die, and that it leaves planet earth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have almost nothing nice to say about Christians, but I would like to make it clear I don’t condone persecuting them, in the way Christians often persecute gays, Muslims, Jews, blacks, atheists, people with HIV etc. Christians should be treated equally in employment, marriage and housing. They should be safe from being beaten up. They have a constitutional right to deliberately harbour a god virus, just as they have a right to deliberately contract diabetes. Neither is all that hot an idea, however. I reserve my right to point that out and to interfere with them forcibly infecting others with god viruses.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have always been amused at the Orthodox Jews and their mad deliberately malfunctioning elevators for use on the Sabbath to weasel around holy prohibitions. The Muslims have that same lawyerly bent. The Qur’an forbids Muslims from charging interest on loans. They too figured out legalistic ways to cheat. They provide a property as collateral for a loan. The lender gets the rent from the property for the duration of the loan as the interest. Originally, the debtor would sell a slave to the lender. Then he would immediately buy it back, at a higher price, but payable at some date in the future. The slave acted as collateral for the loan, and the difference in the two prices served as the interest.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have met a number of women who are convinced their computer has malicious intent toward them. They also imagine I have some supernatural power to intimidate them and cause them to behave in my presence. They may also ascribe this agency to other machines such as vacuum cleaners and refrigerators. This is a childish way of looking at the world, imagining intent when it is not there. Taken to extreme, humans imagine even the weather is out to get them, and the agent of this malice is a deity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have never heard a Christian explain why the god Jehovah is considered infinitely good and Satan infinitely wicked, when, in the bible, the god Jehovah does nearly all the cruel and irrational acts.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have never heard anybody say anything good about somebody else’s religion, except for Buddhism. It is not even a proper religion. It does not even demand you pretend to believe any preposterous things.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have only tried this tepidly, but I wonder if a wedge proposition might work to pry Christians lose of their delusions. By that I mean convincing the Christians that the bible is blasphemy and insults god. Obviously, it does. It portrays god as petty, cruel, capricious and downright nuts. Surely the real god is better behaved than that. Consider that nearly everybody survives a tornado, except those too dense to come in out of the wind. Whoever wrote the bible really had it in for God, and seems very keen on excusing cruelty. I don’t think you can safely put absolute trust in such people. People’s beliefs about god tend to be highly nebulous and hence relatively harmless. It is belief in the perfect accuracy of the bible that causes most of the trouble.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have seen more evidence for gremlins, sasquatches and the cadborosaurus than I have for the god Jehovah. Oddly, even that evidence does not persuade me to send 10% of my money off in the mail to those claiming to speak for them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have the same get-me-out-of-here feeling when I encounter a person who tells me that Jesus is real that I would on encountering one who assured me that Dr. Who was real. If this person is that deluded, what other dangerous notions do they harbour?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have the same problem with God as with other products sold in late night TV infomercials — he does not perform as advertised, or more accurately, he does absolutely nothing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have to laugh at Christians when they look down their noses at polytheists or idol worshippers. Why is believing in one imaginary inconsistent god any less silly than believing in many imaginary tussling gods? Why is believing in an invisible god that does nothing any less silly than believing in a visible god that does nothing?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have to laugh when religious fanatics claims other religions are ”false”. By definition all religions are false. They all make absurd claims without evidence. Further their beliefs are invariable in conflict with science and common sense. They all make a virtue of believing their nonsense, without evidence, counter to all appearances.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have to worry about Christians who fret over heresy. They forget it is all made up anyway.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I imagine hell as being trapped eternally inside the It’s A Small Small World Disneyland attraction.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I know of three ways do deal with the extreme pain of the last weeks of life:
- Grit your teeth.
- Become an opiate addict and die babbling.
- Use physician assisted suicide for a planned and coherent farewell.
I find Christians highly peculiar for restricting themselves to only methods (1) and (2), however, when they try to impose that choice on me, it makes me want to wring their bloody necks.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I look on Christianity as a sort of mental illness. Christians might understand better if I said it was a bit like demonic possession, taking over people’s rational thinking, making them attack homosexuals and reject all modern science. I blame Christianity not the Christians. I hope some day we will find a cure.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I once asked the universe if it had a purpose. It told me that it did not have an inherent one, but that I was free to assign it one. This was good news. A purpose I assigned myself would surely be more pleasing than a one-size-fits all. Purpose implies for the benefit of someone/something. The purpose of people, to earthworms, is to cultivate trees to drop leaves for them to eat.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I pull my hair out with frustration when a Christian argues god must exist because they would feel terribly lonely if he did not, or when an atheist argues that god must not exist, because they don’t like bastards like god meddling in human affairs. Where did they get the absurd notion that the universe is constrained to please them? Whether you would like it if something were true has nothing whatsoever to do with whether it is.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I see my task as pricking society’s boils of Christianity to let the pus drain.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I suspect Christians would be far more upset to discover that God calls himself Allah, than they would be if they discovered he did not exist at all.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I think all religions should be discouraged because they spread falsehoods, and because they encourage people to behave foolishly and intolerantly. On the other hand, I think people should have the freedom to do what they please, even if silly, so long as they are not harming others. So where do I draw the line? The general principle is, I must judge behaviour the same way whether is it motivated by religion or something else. So for example:~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- If I approve of large crowds of drunken footballers singing all nights long, I must also approve of the same behaviour at a religious festival.
- On the other hand, if I disapprove of kidnapping young girls and cutting off their genitals with a rusty knife, I must also disapprove of it when African immigrants do it as part of their religious rituals.
- If I approve of a man in a tutu, clown shoes and a pink wig handing out business cards, then I am obligated to allow Muslims to wear traditional dress and Jewish men to wear ringlets and little boxes on their heads.
- If I disapprove of child rape, and call for life imprisonment of violators, then I am obligated to treat priests who rape children the same way.
- If I approve of fans roaring for divine intervention to make their team win, then I allow people to pray in public for and to whatever they please, even unpopular deities like Lucifer, for even the death of the head of state. It will hurt no-one.
- If believe others should respect my burial rituals with silence, keeping distance and taking no photos, then I should respect the burial rituals of others, even if they make so sense to me.
- If I think it is acceptable for me to sunbathe topless, I am obligated to let anyone of any gender or any religion to do likewise.
- If I think I should not need to disrobe to appear in court, so I should not demand anyone else do likewise, accounting for the fact different cultures define disrobe differently.
- If I believe whales should not be killed, I should not make an exception because indigenous people believe sacrificing one would please the great creator.
- If I believe domestic animals should be killed humanely, I should not make an exception because people believe on religious grounds that animals should be killed in the same primitive way they were 4000 years ago. I would suggest to these people, if they are serious, they should also subject themselves to iron age dentistry and surgery.
I think it highly improper of Christians to demand that rescue workers risk their lives to retrieve corpses from remote, dangerous places then send the bill to the taxpayer. It is a violation of church and state to force the general taxpayer to pay for a Christian religious burial rite. If Christians are worried that some believers will not be able to pay to retrieve corpses, they should set up a fund to cover the indigent. To me all this ritual magic with bodies is medieval superstition, akin to a childhood fascination with bodily secretions, especially when there are massive searches to find badly decomposed, buried bodies that are dug up and then reburied elsewhere, not even viewed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I think most Christians think like this, “the important thing is not whether god literally exists, or the bible is literally true, but rather that people behave better when they believe our creed.” Hmm. Pedophilic priests and the televangelists don’t behave better. If people imagine that God will catch them if they fall, they take foolish risks. Con men can more easily take advantage of a mark if the mark believes something that is not true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I think when Ira Levin wrote The Stepford Wives , I think he modeled his creep, smarmy, insincere-friendly characters on Christians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I was raised as an atheist. When I was a teenager, my mother warned me to stay away from Christians. Of course, my rebellion took the form of sneaking out and going to churches where I interviewed people to find out why they believed in god. To my astonishment, none of them had the faintest clue. It was just something they had always done and did not question.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I was watching an episode of Midsomer Murders about a lawyer who had been artfully conned into thinking a wine cellar full of fake wine was actually rare and costly vintages. I said to myself, that is exactly how Christianity works. Like any con, it preys on people’s greed and wishful thinking. It lures them with promises of a life of utter idleness with streets of gold.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I wish I could make Christians understand that when they force non-believers to respect their religion, they are just as obnoxious as cannibals demanding others prostrate themselves before the volcano god. That respect includes deferring to Christians on all matters of morality, sexuality, public prayers and legal ceremonies. Their religion has no more validity than any other. It actually has negative validity since in it easy to prove most Christian assertions false.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I wonder how it came about that primate means both an archbishop and a monkey-like creature.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I wonder which religion makes people feel the happiest, irrespective of its ultimate truth. I’m guessing the Rastafarians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I wondered why the Catholic parishioners in Halifax applauded their Bishop and his stonewalling on investigating pedophilic priests. The reason might be they feel personally accused of the crimes. I would have thought ensuring safety of their children would trump all other considerations.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I wondered why the National Geographic TV channel was putting out so many bogus science shows on the Bible, which lie through their teeth about the scientific support for biblical infallibility. Why would National Geographic destroy its reputation in such an obvious and shoddy way? I went to their website to let my disgust be known. Mystery solved. I discovered they are now part of FOX Networks, the people who sued in the Florida supreme court for the right to treat the news as entertaining fiction. FOX will tell the most implausible lies with a straight face so long as it will increase ratings.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I would have thought that by now Americans would have caught on, that if you want freedom of religion, you have to give others freedom of religion. If you don’t want others imposing their religion on you, you can’t forcefully impose your religion on them. Mitt Romney is thoroughly confused on this point. He claims Obama is interfering with his religious freedom by offering contraception and abortion services to the public, even though he and his spouse are free to do whatever they want. It is not as though Obama is making contraception or abortion mandatory. What Romney means is Obama is interfering with his attempts to impose his Mormon religion on others. If Mitt gets his way, and makes contraception and abortion illegal, he will be imposing his whacko Mormon beliefs about soul-spirit possession of blastulas and their sacredness on rational people, who reject it as utter nonsense with not a shred of evidence to support it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I would like to see all the Christian churches disband. Why?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- They have been the source of nearly all the persecution of homosexuals.
- They sexually and physically abused children entrusted to their care in a systematic way.
- They have encouraged violence against the pro-choice doctors in the abortion debate.
- They have caused blithering nonsense to be taught as science in schools.
- They stir up trouble with other religions.
- They have prostituted themselves to bless war.
- They take financial advantage of the vulnerable.
I would not mind so much if Christians said, “I think society would run much more smoothly if we used the same social rules we had two thousand years ago, for example stoning adulterers to death and reviving slavery”. But they realise this message would never sell. It is just too nutty. So they try to sell it through threats claiming that a very nasty supernatural being wants you to do this and will torture you if you refuse to comply. Imagine if Yugo sold cars that way, threatening torture if you did not buy one of their inferior automobiles.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a billionaire attempted to cure his terminally-ill son by donating $500 to a faith-healing church, most Americans would consider him insane. Yet those same people when asked whether tithing in general would curry god’s favour, would answer yes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a child is still inconsolable four days after the death of her pet rabbit I could excuse someone telling a lie about bunny heaven, but if grown people tell each other lies about death being unreal or a secret boon, it is beneath human dignity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a child rapist is caught yet again, you don’t just fine him and send him out into the world to repeat offend. You do something to make sure he cannot re-offend. So with institutions. If an institution, such as the Catholic church, is caught thousands of times in a conspiracy to rape children, you don’t just make them pay what amounts to a fine (lawsuit civil damages) and then carry on as usual. You put them out of the child-raping business.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a Christian finds a bit of old wood in the middle east, if it looks like part of a ship, he declares it is a piece of Noah’s ark. If it looks as if it is not, he declares it part of the Jesus’s cross. Think how many ships there are that were not Noah’s ark (all of them), and how many were planks were not used to crucify Jesus (likely all of them) let alone the matter of dating the wood to the alleged time. Christians indulge in an orgy of wishful thinking and try to pass it off as science.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a Christian fundamentalist were put in charge of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), he would fire all the scientists, and hire a farmer who said, “All ya have ta do is fill a big pipe with dynamite, point it at where ya wants ta go, light the fuse, an’ pray.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a Christian fundamentalist were put in charge of the Department of Fisheries he would say “Kitsch all you want, any way you want. If Jesus kin find fish, they must always be abundant, maybe just hidin’.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a Christian fundamentalist were put in charge of the forests he would say, “Cut as much as you want. Jaysus is coming soon anyway. He will first burn down all the damn trees, then replace them all.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)This actually happened when Reagan installed James Gaius Watt as Secretary of the Interior.
If a con man spiritualist reveals the tricks of cold reading that he uses to simulate talking to dead relatives, his audience will be furious. They desperately want their delusion. They imagine they gain comfort from the deception. Christians are much the same about clinging to their delusions even when they are pretty sure they are empty.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a cure were found for Christian delusion, many other of earth’s problems would be solved as a side effect. We would start taking care of the environment; we would clean up the greenhouse gas emissions; we would stop persecuting gays and driving gay teens to suicide; to a large extent child rape would stop; all manner of cons on the elderly would stop, the destruction of young brains by forcing them to pretend to believe nonsense would stop; all manner of medical quacks would go out of business.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a god created the animal kingdom, then he is responsible for their appallingly cruel behaviour. I find it highly unlikely such a god would have the least interest in enforcing human notions of appropriate behaviour. In other words, if there is a god, he does not give a damn about the things he is reputed to obsess about.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a group of people at a public meeting reverently mash up bananas and pack them into their ears and nostrils, am I obligated to pretend to take this seriously out of respect for these loons’ beliefs? I think not. Similarly I don’t see why I have to feign respect when Christians with pained expressions of reverence and lowered eyes petition the sky god to bend the laws of causality with a magic incantation. Christianity is just as silly as the banana mashers and far more malevolent.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a parent kills their child by refusing them a blood transfusion, we consider that perfectly acceptable even if the parent offers no reason for doing so, just a religious belief that transfusions are wrong. Yet we consider it murder if the parent had a legitimate concern, e.g. risk of infection. There is something wrong with this picture. We are valuing the irrational over the rational.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a paternalistic culture adopts modern technology to increase the proportion of boys born there are consequences they may not have considered. In a culture where females are rare, what are the males without partners to do? Gay couples may become more prevalent (an anathema to these cultures), more prostitution, or polyandry or celibacy. To the degree of the success of the imbalance, many of these males will not reproduce. Sex selection is an odd form of delayed population control. So perhaps the best thing to do with such a prejudiced culture is just let it go voluntarily extinct.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a person’s religious beliefs require him to kill me, or to kill nearly everyone on earth, I think it would be foolish of me to respect his right to practice his religion even if I generally subscribe to the notion of religious freedom. I think he should be treated like any other lunatic.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64) There are all manner of Christian sects actively promoting nuclear war hoping it will mean lunch with Jesus. Watch the Max Frisch play The Firebugs about a man who refused to take pay attention to the obvious signs his lodgers were arsonists. Even though these people are religiously motivated, they are still criminally insane and society should protect itself from them. We ignore them because of their numbers, but it is their numbers that make them much more dangerous.
If a reporter permits a lie to pass without so much as an eyebrow twitch, he is complicit in that lie and should be held responsible for lying too.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If Abraham had tried to murder his son today, there would be no question. He would be locked up as criminally insane. There would be no question that the demonic voices commanding him were not a god but his psychotic delusions. Why then so do many people treat Abraham himself as a saint? Founding your religion on a psychotic child killer is bound to lead to serious trouble.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If AIDS (Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome) is God’s punishment for being gay, why don’t monogamous gays and gay virgins ever get HIV ?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If AIDS is God’s punishment for homosexuality, why does God smite straights more frequently than lesbians?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If any other institution but the church had been caught in mass pedophilic rapes, sexual and physical child abuse, all those responsible would have been driven out of society and all the institutions involved, disbanded.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If anyone be under the delusion that child molesting by the clergy is a recent or temporary phenomenon, read Daniel Dafoe’s Moll Flanders written in 1752.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If atheism is a religion, then not playing soccer is a sport.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If Christians are so absolutely sure that death is just a transition to heavenly bliss, why do they weep at funerals? They know in their hearts of hearts, just like everyone else, that they will never see their loved one again. They don’t really believe the heaven happy-ever-after BS, they just wish it were true. They just pretend to their fellow Christians that they believe it is true because that is what is socially expected of them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If Christians are so fanatical about the sanctity of life that they ban contraception, why are they not in the least perturbed by children suffering from malnutrition or US soldiers butchering Afghan children by the millions for no apparent reason? How do they justify withdrawing medical care from seniors?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If Christians truly believed in an afterlife, they would be eager to die, like Muslim terrorists. But they are more cautious and they cling to life even more than people who openly deny an afterlife.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If chunks of the universe had a habit of winking out every once in a while the reappearing some time later, the religiously minded and the lay folk would not be fascinated by the big bang. The reason they consider it so magical is that, so far as we know, it happened only once. Such uniqueness demands fanfare and gods to celebrate it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If ever we invent time travel, the highest priority should be tracking down various biblical figures and getting them proper treatment for their various mental illnesses. Maybe then Christianity could be nipped in the bud.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If ever you get a telephoned death threat, consider. Why would someone about to murder you tip you off so you can prepare to defend yourself? Why would he leave his phone number in the phone company records traceable to the threatening call? The same applies to email death threats. I speak from experience. I have received about 3000 telephone death threats, nearly all from Christians, and I am still here.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If fundamentalists ever read the bible cover to cover, they would discover it is blasphemous. It accuses the creator of the universe of hundreds of extremely serious and extremely reprehensible crimes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If God had penned the bible, it would be as beautiful as a sunset. It is nowhere close.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If god is supposedly such a hot shot designer, how is it that a $2 Chinese pocket calculator can do arithmetic faster and more accurately than his designs?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If god loves Christians best, how is it that the bible belt has the highest rates of HIV , hypertension, cardiac disease, obesity and divorce? Obviously, trusting a non-existing deity to look out for your health is not nearly as effective as taking responsibility for it yourself.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If god protected Christians preferentially, then Allstate would have a discount on fire, theft, accident and life insurance for Christians. All that praying makes absolutely no difference.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If HIV is god’s punishment, how it is the bible belt has the highest rates of HIV ?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If I believed in a deity, (which I don’t) I would never dream of trying to pass of my writings as the work of a god. It would surely get me in serious trouble. If I wanted to speculate about what the gods wanted, I would not dream of making claims I was actually quoting a god. But, nearly all Christian writers claim to speak for god. They even claim to be taking direct dictation, especially the authors of the bible. I have to conclude that none of them could truly believe he exists. They are all con men with a variety of motivations.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If I decided what to believe based on wishful thinking, rather than what the evidence pointed to being true, I would intensely despise myself, thus I can’t understand how Christians live with themselves.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If I had a son, I would not saddle him with a name like Abdullah, Zeus, Thor, Krishna, Michael, Jacob or John pegged him as a member of some ancient superstition. In a free world, one of the rites of passage would be selecting a religion or life philosophy, without bullying from parents, schools or the government. It is abuse to force a religion on a child when they are too weak to notice the lies in what they are being told.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If I had the power, I don’t think I would condemn anyone to eternal torment — perhaps some particularly nasty politicians or soldiers to a day or two, but not eternally. Christians tell me, however, that god condemns nearly everyone to eternal torment. The bible itself condemns everyone but 144,000 male testosterone-free virgins, and it claims the god Jehovah decided which ones before the universe was even created. The Christians tell me their god is infinitely good, and I am infinitely wicked. I just don’t buy it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If I wanted help with personal problems, the last person I would turn to would be a sanctimonious child molester.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If I were hiring a geologist, and an applicant assured me that all scientific theory about geology was incorrect, surely I would be within my rights to ignore him, even if his beliefs were religiously motivated. In a similar way, I think it valid to refuse to hire anyone with any religious views that would interfere with job performance. This could include people who insist on wearing religious costumes that were dangerous or distracting. Religion should not be a licence to ride roughshod over others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If I were to start collecting money on behalf of the Hudson’s Bay Company without first getting their permission, I could expect to cool my heels in jail, but if I collected on behalf of God, without His permission, I will be applauded as a virtuous person, no matter how I spent the money.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If I were to start collecting money on behalf of fictitious endangered Patagonian fire-eating fish, I could expect to cool my heels in jail, but if I did the same thing on behalf of a non-existent God, I will be applauded as a virtuous person, no matter how I spent the money.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If it were not for the bogey man stories Christians told you as a child, you would have no fear of death. Yes, you would avoid it, but only because it stops you from having more life adventures, not because you are terrified of what might happen after you die. Yes, you might dread the pain of illness that precedes death, but not dying or being dead.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If it were revealed that a political candidate believed he had been abducted by aliens, TV pundits would rag him mercilessly. Yet if it were revealed he harboured even more improbable delusions such as talking snakes, that there was no need to preserve the forests because a dead man would soon miraculously restore them, that geologists had it all wrong because the earth was only 10,000 years old… oddly those same pundits would solemnly “respect his beliefs”. The moral of the story is, if you want to get away with craziness, don’t improvise, copy popular lunatics.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If Mohammed were alive today, he could earn a living as a corporate lawyer. He noticed that there were inconsistencies in the Qur’an, so he made a rule. If a later verse contradicts an earlier one, the later one trumps. This brilliant stroke eliminated all the inconsistencies. He never did explain why Allah did not explain it correctly the first time. Then when his work was published, the surahs (chapters) were not organised chronologically, but by length with the longest first. This left everyone free to argue which verse was the official one.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If monogamy is absolutely required, why did so many major heroes of the bible avoid it?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If Muslims had anything to defend their beliefs they would offer it in debate. Instead they imprison people who question their dogma. That indicates they have nothing to support it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If my stomach were the result of intelligent design, I could pop by Sears and get my malfunctioning stomach replaced for under $100.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If once an hour you checked in what was going on with yourself, your town, your country, your planet, then asked “If there were a loving god, could he possibly tolerate this?” you might find yourself an atheist by tea time.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If pope Jean Paul is canonised, then irrefutable evidence comes to light that he was the head of the planet’s biggest pedophile ring, the Catholic church will wish they had waited.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If see a depiction of Jesus and a photo of Hitler, Jesus is more repulsive. It is not because of anything Jesus is reputed to have done, but what his followers have done to me personally in his name, and what his church has done over the ages — torturing and burning heretics/witches, massacres of Muslims, promoting apartheid and encouraging persecution, beating and murder of Jews and gays.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If someone believed the ghost of their dead mother was watching and criticising their every act, you’d think they would seek professional help excising the painful belief, even if they thought it were probably true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If someone is drowning, should you jump into try to save them? It depends on whether you can save more people’s lives by jumping in or by staying out. Christians look at it differently. They think you should jump in even if it almost certainly means you will both die. This is because they imagine you will both go to heaven, so your deaths will be heroic or romantic rather than tragic.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If someone is overwhelmed with their own suffering, you can hardly expect them to place much importance on the suffering of others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If someone makes promises that sound too good to be true, they are. Don’t let wishful thinking tell you otherwise. Anything really that good, like fresh air, exercise and fresh food will be widely known.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If someone obsessed that after death a large black man with horns and a pitchfork would torture him eternally, you’d think he would seek professional help to talk him out of it, especially since there is no evidence it is true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If someone said to you, 30 years from now on September 10 at 11:06 in the morning, I am going to have a temper tantrum and kill ¼ of the population of this town, wouldn’t you think he was stark raving bonkers? This is roughly what Christians claim their god said in Revelation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If someone says “I’ll pray for you”, what that means is I am not prepared to spend any energy at all doing something practical to help you. If you think about it, It is a very rude thing to say, on par with “fuck you”. If there is nothing much you can do in the situation, you can bring flowers, soup or a card.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If someone tells you god told him to do such and such a thing there are three possible explanations:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- He is a gullible twit who fell for a practical joke.
- He is schizophrenic.
- He is a liar.
If someone truly believed that God took their loved ones from them, they would hate him just as strongly as they would hate any other murderer. Yet they are required to pretend to love the bastard. What a weird, cruel trip to lay on someone!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If someone went to a psychiatrist and announced that the spirit of a long dead shaman had taken over his body, and that an invisible entity that hovered in outer space was planning to torture him for masturbating, how might he be treated? With hospitalisation and antipsychotics? Not if that shaman were named Jesus and the entity Jehovah. He would be sent out into the world as a perfectly sane man.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If someone went to a psychiatrist and announced that they were hearing voices that told him what to do, and threatened to torture him for non-compliance by roasting him alive, how might he be treated? With antipsychotics? Not if that voice called itself Jesus. He would be sent out into the world as a perfectly sane man.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If someone went to a psychiatrist and announced that they had joined a cult that practiced cannibalism and blood-drinking, how might he be treated? If that cult were Christianity, (which believes in a lame miracle that a cracker becomes the literal corpse of Christ, even though it still looks like a cracker), he would be sent out into the world as a perfectly sane man.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryogenics company, made the same wild claims the Catholic church does, they would be shut down immediately. We tolerate Christian con-artistry out of tradition.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If the ancients had not invented Christianity, we would have had to have invented it so we would have someone to ridicule with a clear conscience.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If the bible is the work of a god, it is the work of a failed god who can’t even write at a university level.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If the Bible were literally true, reality would play out much like the screenplay for an episode of Relic Hunter.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If the Christian god announces well in advance he is going to torture everyone to punish them for transgression by destroying the earth, that means humanity has no chance. Like an abusive parent, he will punish humanity no matter what it does. God supposedly designed humans, so if they have no chance to behave well, then that is god’s doing. He is punishing his creations for his own failing. He is a loser shithead. It is idiotic enough to believe this twit exists, but it is even more shameful to kowtow to this bastard.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If the ear were the result of godly intelligent design, the deaf would, for no more than the cost of a hearing aid, have their hearing restored to that of a wolf’s.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If the eye were the result of intelligent design, the blind would not have to wait millennia for an appointment with Jesus. They could get them fixed in at most two appointments at the nearest shopping mall Visions outlet.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If the people in 1347 had simply paid attention to two was most and least susceptible to the plague rather than wasting time praying to statues, they might have saved themselves an immense about of suffering.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If there really were a god, why did he tell a different lie to each of 10,000 cultures?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If there truly were a God, he not put up with people murdering each other, especially soldiers raping, torturing and killing children. On the first offence, a bolt of lightning would dispatch the culprit and put and end to his criminal career.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If there truly were a god, the ground would have opened up and swallowed all the oil rigs long ago.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If there were a god, I think I have more right to speak for him than Pope Ratzinger does. Why?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- I don’t aid, abet and cover up child rape.
- I call for responsible population control to protect the earth. The pope calls for its destruction by overpopulation.
- I call for reducing the wealth gap. The pope takes from the poor to support his preposterously luxurious lifestyle.
- I call for equal civil rights for all. The pope calls for scapegoating homosexuals and denying them civil rights.
- I call for preservation and humane treatment of all species. The pope believes animals have no rights. They are the chattels of man whose sole purpose is to serve man.
If there were a god, surely every church in the world by now would have been vapourised in the night and replaced by a vacant lot or the land restored to its original natural state.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If there were a god, surely he could be counted on to at least bellow at genocides.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If there were a god, why do so many really horrible things happen to innocent people out of the blue? That sounds more like evidence for a supreme devil than a god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If there were a loving god, he would never take your daughter from you with cancer.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If there were some pandemic and the government mandated vaccination, people would be permitted to avoid vaccination on religious grounds, but not on rational ones, such as concern for a likely allergy. In other words, our society permits people to endanger others for irrational reasons, but not for rational ones.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If they were not such irresponsible breeders, Christians would die out from terminal stupidity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If we can demand that churches stop the persecution of Jews, surely we can ask them to stop persecuting gay people. It is already illegal. All we have to do is enforce the laws on professional Christians too.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If we could but get Christians to read the bible from cover to cover, they would be so ashamed of and disgusted by the psychotic behaviour of their god, they would have to drop the religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If we were not so superstitious about death, we might handle it more rationally, like this:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Prior to death, make arrangements to harvest any recyclable parts.
- Keep the body covered to discourage insects. The process of discarding the body is quick. The body is not present at the funeral, so there is no need for embalming or caskets.
- Ideally, discard of the body in a remote place where wild scavengers, e.g. bald eagles, could eat it. Failing that bury it deeply in a field without a box with composting accelerants and no marker. It would fertilise the plants above. Failing that it could be burned as is customary now.
- Have a gathering in a home or hall where friends of the deceased get to catch up with each other and tell stories of the life of the deceased.
- There would be a collection taken at the gathering for a cause dear to the heart of the deceased. Part of the ceremony would be to announce the size of the pot. Donations would be by cheque so they would be income-tax deductible.
- There is no special respect given to the remains. They are not the person. There is no pretense that the deceased is not really dead. They completed their life. That life does deserve respect without decorating it with cheap lies.
If you are a Christian, surely at some point in your life you have seen a documentary about Hindu temple rituals. How can you claim that your temple mumbo jumbo is any different from their temple mumbo jumbo? There is nothing in the rituals to suggest your god has any more chance of existing than theirs. When I was a kid, we would make up elaborate ceremonies to bury dead rabbits and fish. People enjoy ceremonies, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual existence of deities.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you are a Christian, your mind is probably roiling over with turgid fantasies about judgement day. How do you know how that stuff will happen? Somebody told you. How did they know? Somebody told them… If you take it back far enough the source is always some schizophrenic guy who heard voices in his head that he presumed were some deity. Would you pick stocks that way? Would you decide which brand of car to buy that way? Of course not. Then why do you base your whole life on such blithering nonsense?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you are ever tempted to send money to one of those crooked TV evangelists for “God’s work” have a look at just how he spends that money. “God’s work” is a mansion, limo and private jet that would make Brad Pitt envious.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you are interested in investigating whether the bible is true or not, don’t waste time with arguments based on whether you like or dislike it. Your personal tastes are irrelevant. What counts is evidence to corroborate or refute it. What counts are arguments for plausibility or implausibility. Every religious books makes claims of perfect truth. Clearly the presence alone of such claims means nothing. They must be corroborated.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you ask a Christian why he thinks the god Jehovah exists, he will usually answer something along the lines of “God has to exist. If he didn’t, people would run amok. They would have no sense of right and wrong.” This is not an argument for the god Jehovah existing, but rather an argument for the utility of lying to people that he does. The Christian seems to be doing a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, letting me know that he too does not believe in a mean old man spying from the clouds, but he wants me to help him perpetuate the lie on others. It is a supercilious way to view one’s fellows.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you believe Revelation 14:3-4, everyone goes to hell except 140,000 males who have never been with women, presumably all children or homosexuals. Why do Christians worship a god who hates them?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you believe that a god exists, that god is a monster. He stands idly by while Americans drench Afghan children in white phosphorus, arguably the most painful possible way to die. He lets pedophiles rape and torture children. This is not a being that deserves respect, much less worship. If you worship that bastard out of fear, you are a slithering cowardly worm. You don’t deserve existence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you believe the bible is the word of God, there is no way you could have read it cover to cover. It is an atrocious, erroneous, contradictory and silly document, nowhere near the quality God would compose. Churches discourage people from reading the bible cover to cover, because they know that will shatter their faith in it. I urge you to read the bible cover to cover. There is no faster way to expose it as a counterfeit. If you refuse, you are tacitly admitting I am probably right. You love a comfortable lie. You don’t want to discover the truth. You hate the truth, hardly the attitude of a true seeker of god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you claim to believe every single word in the bible, how could you honestly do that without first reading it cover to cover? I dare you to do that. I strongly suspect when you are done, you will not longer claim to believe every word Some of it is just too evil or too crazy . Further, you will no longer believe it is the word of god. It is just too lame and full of error. If you don’t read it, I presume you know I am right, and don’t want your tidy little world rocked. This is the bible I am daring you to read, not some scholarly commentary, not some work by Richard Dawkins.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you credit god for everyone who survives a plane crash, you have to also assign him the blame for everyone that did not survive. He is allegedly omnipotent, so he could have saved everyone, but chose not to, hardly consistent with the merciful reputation he enjoys.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you get any group of humans, children or adult, together, they will play games, perhaps in the form of dancing, sports, parlour games, or social rituals. Humans love to make up complex, fairly arbitrary rules just to test their wits against each other. Religion with its memorised myths and rituals is just such an one-upmanship game.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you had a very serious disease, would you want your doctor to accurately tell you your odds, or lie to you and give you hope? If you would prefer hope, you will also likely prefer the lies of religion. It matter of values. Which is more important to you, truth or feeling good?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you have any doubts that many American Christians do not respect separation of Church and State, do not respect religious freedom for others, or that they believe that as a majority they have the right to force Christianity on others watch this video: In God we Trust?.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you have any fears based on what people have told you about the bible and after death torment of gays, try reading the bible cover to cover. You will discover it is 90% blithering nonsense, including the parts about gays. Further probe any evidence God had anything to with authoring it. There is none; it was written mainly by people, who today would be on anti-psychotic drugs. The endless repeated assertions do not make it any more true. Fear of lurid biblical threats is as silly as fear of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It is just a book, proven inaccurate over and over and over.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you have ever run a group or club that meets regularly, you know it is like pulling teeth to get people to bring cookies once in a while or chip in a few bucks for the coffee. I have to marvel at how the leader of even the smallest religious congregations talks the flock into providing him a house, clothing, enough to live on, a dedicated meeting hall with gold ornaments, stain glass, organ, polished, hand-carved wood… It is a testament to the power of the big lie.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you have never been bullied, you probably still understand the fear of being surrounded by a threatening gang. What is even more important is the pervasiveness. It never stops. Bullies are like a swarm of mosquitoes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you have trouble proving there could not possibly be a god, Catholics will claim victory over you. But they did not just claim there might be some sort of god out there, perhaps Ganesh the elephant god or Sulis Minerva (the electrifying god worshiped at Bath in Roman times). They made much more specific claims about the nature of that god, e.g. Noah’s flood, that Moses hung out with the Egyptian royal family, that Noah lead people wandering in the wilderness for 40 years eating nothing but fungus. Each of those claims is quite is easy to show is not true. Catholics also make demonstrably untrue god-related claims about cosmology, geology and biology. The evidence is mounting Jesus was a fictional character, something like Nasrudin or Superman. Gradual development of the myth over time, starting with the Sayings of Jesus is what the latest documentary evidence points to. The Pagan Christ: recovering the lost light
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you heard a lecturer on the radio claim that male mosquitos paid no part whatsoever in mosquito reproduction, or saw a television documentary about Nero that said he was born in 1800, or your child came home from school where she had learned that Superman was real, and lived in Montr´al , would you not protest? Then why don’t you protest when Christians proclaim equally silly nonsense? Why do you suddenly have to be polite and pretend to agree with not only nonsense, but outright lies?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you must have a deity, there is much more evidence for a demonic one than a loving one.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you oppose fundamentalist Islam for it dogmatism and suppression of women and gays, then logically you should oppose fundamentalist Christianity for exactly the same reasons.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you oppose radical Muslims trying to destroy democracies and install theocracies, logically you should also oppose radical Christians attempting the same thing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you read fairy tales, you discover they have many common themes and borrow plot elements from each other. They are teaching stories, not literally true. If you study many religions, not just Christianity and Judaism, you will find their stories are constructed the same way. The same plot elements such as virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, being set adrift as an infant on a river… recur many times. This suggests these too are teaching stories, not literally true. Further, since they all claim a mutually exclusive hold on the truth, they can’t be literally true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you read the bible cover to cover counting how many times the god Jehovah counsels merciless genocide, murder, rape, theft, slave taking… not even counting times he takes sadistic pleasure hurting the innocent directly vs how many times he advocates mercy or kindness, you will discover he is far more wicked than the way the bible portrays even Satan. With such a vile god, who demands his subjects pretend to approve and love him just the same, the myth creates hypocrisy and cruelty in believers. No wonder Christian behave so badly and are such hypocrites. It not me saying the god Jehovah is vile, the bible is. Christians in general don’t know this because they have read only a few selected verses of the bible. Jehovah is just a character in fiction. He does not have a true character or a record of deeds any more the Hercule Poirot does.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64) source
If you read the bible, you cannot escape the fact that is accuses the god Jehovah of hundreds of heinous crimes. It describes his behaviour as psychotic, capricious and sadistic, reminding me a bit of emperor Caligula. Worshipping such a being is morally equivalent to Satanic worship. Some might argue, he is so powerful, he can get away with whatever behaviour he feels like. That comment applied equally well to Hitler, but it does not excuse worship.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you read the teachings of Jesus, you would expect Christianity to have a salutary effect on the behaviour of Christians. But the very opposite is true. Why?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- People are attracted to the vindictive craziness of the old testament rather than the difficult teachings of Jesus.
- The church does not preach the teachings of Jesus. They preach all manner of other doctrines that let them sell their political and financial agenda (such as Republicanism and tithing get rich quick scams) to the pre-softened sheeple.
- Christians imagine they are good simply by being Christians e.g. having been saved in a ceremony. That means it is easy for them to skip the hard word of actually being good.Matthew 16:27 points out “he shall reward every man according to his works” Belief is irrelevant. Nearly all Christians ignore this verse since it requires work.
If you saw a massive pillar of fire or smoke, or a river running red with mud, you would ascribe it to a volcano, not a god’s wrath, but millions of modern Christians insist on claiming that an ancient pillar of fire was a god’s wrath, just because the people of the time mistook it for that. Such is the power of tradition to make people behave like idiots.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you seriously think there is a god, how do you hedge your bets? How do you know which religion’s story about god is closest to the truth? One way is to look for what is common to most religions and focus on that. Trust that this must be the most important stuff, or that you will be forgiven for assuming so.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you spend any time with prosletysing Christians, sooner or later they will try the Pascal’s Wager pitch. Basically they suggest you pretend to believe in Christianity and love the god Jehovah so that their nasty god won’t torture you after you are dead. Granted the odds are very slim the god Jehovah exists, but the penalty for ignoring the threat, if it is real, is very large. What do I take from this?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Even Christians in truth don’t believe in their god with any certainty. They pretend to others they have absolute certainty.
- Christians acknowledge they worship an evil god.
- Christianity is based on moral cowardice, giving into threats from a bully.
- Christianity is based on deceit, pretending to love a cruel god.
- Christians think their god is a fool, who can be easily tricked into believing he is loved.
- Based on the above, Christianity is base religion without moral fibre or integrity. I can’t see why anyone would want to be associated with it.
If you stimulate a spot in the right temporal lobe with a magnetic field, the subject will tell you they felt the presence of god, even though nothing miraculous happens and no special knowledge is obtained. This is a highly unusual subjective experience, and people tend to label anything strange god even if that experience has none of the attributes of god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you think about it, Christians claim that Jesus was a zombie.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you travel the world, you will discover the Hindus and Muslims take their religion much more seriously than any American Christian. The religious artifact, a mask of Minerva Sulis, that impressed me the most with its emotional power was from Roman times. When I debate with Christians, all they can offer to support their odd beliefs is a gut feeling. Yet surely the gut feelings of the Hindus and Muslims are much more profound. Christians ignore nearly all of their bible. They just cherry pick a few verses to justify persecuting homosexuals or in earlier times, black people.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If you were to translate some random paragraphs of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the bible into modern English and show them to someone unfamiliar with either text, and tell them one was written by an insane mass murderer, I think the reader would presume those were the bible passages. The bible has a good reputation it does not deserve based solely on the fact almost no one but atheists have read it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If your child has an invisible friend, should you humour her? If your adult sister (a Christian) has an invisible friend called Jesus, should you humour her?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If your religion persuades you to do something stark raving bonkers, like kill people who have done you no harm, then your religion is stark raving bonkers, aka a false religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If your vision of heaven requires either the misery of or the elimination of some group, e.g. gays, blacks, Jews, Palestinians, Muslims… then you can count on them strenuously opposing your attempts to bring heaven on earth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Il Milione about the travels of Marco Polo to this day is mistaken for a true tale despite many fantastic elements, such as a race of people with their mouths in the middle of their stomachs. The Bible is a similar book. It has no more evidence for it than the exploits of Marco Polo, namely a single book of unknown authorship.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Illusionist Criss Angel daily performs magic that is much more impossible than anything Jesus reputedly even attempted. We are supposed to believe Jesus is the son of god based on anonymous third hand reports of his performances/miracles. Then should not Criss’s performances/miracles performed live also convince us that Criss is even more divine than Jesus?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine a cartoon showing a married couple in a bare room with nothing in it but a giant barred crib, dressed in sleepers like one-year olds wear, with buttoned flaps that fold over the behind, and floppy bunny ears. Each are desperately clutching a stuffed toy Jesus with halo. The wife says, “I’m afraid of the dark, the monster under the bed and rapist burglars.” The husband replies “Me too! but Stuffed Jesus™ will save us!”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine a country where the majority of the people had a sexually transmitted disease and most refused treatment. As a doctor, you would have a heck of a time making inroads against the epidemic. No sooner had you treated someone, they would be re-infected. This is what faces a rationalist trying to rid the United States of religious superstition.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine a psychopath who locked a family in a basement vault without food, and told them to feast off each other. He provided no tools for humanely dispatching each other. Christians tell us such an elderly bearded mega-psychopath lives on a cloud and directs all species of earth to play his sick game. That is such a perverse fantasy that this ghastly feature of existence was deliberately intended.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine a sadist who captured teenage girls, locked them in a dungeon, and told them they would have no food but each other. He then equipped them with tools that could only be used to kill in the most hideously painful ways imaginable. If there is a god, that is roughly what he did to life on earth — hardly compassionate.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine a several mutually-hating gangs of criminal psychopaths took over an asylum and held hostages. The police negotiated a truce. That is roughly what freedom of religion is. We tolerate untreated mental illness when the delusional patients have banded together in sufficiently large numbers to be dangerous.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine being whisked back in time to 1600. Most of the people around you believe in witches, and like to watch women burning alive. You know this is blithering nonsense, but you can’t seem to persuade the witch-burners. That how I feel today confronting Christians and their delight in tormenting gay people.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine finding yourself in a mental institution where the inmates had taken over and had enacted “laws” that rewarded insane, irrational behaviour and punished rational behaviour. Would you feel constrained to obey the law? That is roughly the plight of the average American living in a country where Christians control the government.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine how difficult it would be to allay your child’s fears of monsters under the bed, if there were at least four channels of “family values” TV at any one time persuading children the monsters were real. Ditto for the god monster who roasts children alive for playing doctor.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine if Hitler had prevailed. People would be mindlessly persecuting Jews, imagining it was the virtuous thing to do. That is exactly what happened when the Catholic church prevailed and sold the planet on its irrational hatred of gay people.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine that someone went to a psychiatrist and announced that they had joined a cult that followed the religious beliefs of an obscure primitive bronze age desert tribe. The cult’s holy book required members to murder those who made even minor violations of the social or dress code, even those outside the cult, attacking in groups to bash the victim to death with rocks, and possibly to bury him or her alive in stones or by burning the transgressor alive. How might he be treated? With a stint in an institution for the criminally insane? If that cult were the Christians, he would be sent out into the world as a perfectly sane man.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine the future where belief in a god is as quaint as belief in fairies, witches or ghosts.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine the future where people who believe in a god rarely mention it to avoid ridicule. It would by like admitting to having an invisible rabbit friend, named Harvey.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine the future where people who have a phobia of invisible spirits in the sky spying on them, get psychiatric help.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine the future where the Jewish, Christian and Islamic gods are just historical curiosities like Zeus and Apollo.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine the future where tormenting a gay person in the name of religion is seen as just as reprehensible as tormenting a black person.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine there were a pill that instantly cut your IQ in half when you took it. It allowed your pusher to control you, by making you susceptible to his every suggestion. It also made you mindlessly cruel by eliminating all doubt about your what you were told. That is what religion is.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine what today would be like if thousands of cults had not grown up to confront the Catholic Church which held a monopoly in Europe during the middle ages. Given how corrupt the church was at the time of the reformation, by now they would have cowed the faithful into handing over their children for the priests to molest, much like the Branch Davidians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine you were a crooked businessman. What would be your ideal world? You would want gullible customers who did not complain. You would want gullible customers who believed whatever you told them no matter how many times in past what you said had proved untrue or how preposterous your claims were. You would want gullible customers who would hand over their money and demand nothing in return. What would be the best school to create such customers? Hmm. Hint, it begins with “Christian Church”. It is school for making people stupid and gullible.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine you were an astronaut living on a space station. A fellow astronaut, who was a Christian, got into the emergency dental kit and was high as a kite on nitrous oxide N₂O . He was smashing the life support equipment that controlled the O₂ /CO₂ balance. You said “Cut that out; you will kill us all, you idiot!” He replied, “I don’t believe in the O₂ /CO₂ balance. I have faith in God, not man’s science!” You would not put up with him. You would be justified in sedating him, confining him or worse if necessary. That is exactly what is happening here on spaceship earth with the Christian global warming deniers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In 13 states of the union, religious childcare is exempt from the regulations on secular child care facilities. At religious day care, kids routinely die from things like being left alone in vans in the sun. They are left in their own feces. Similarly religious schools have greater leeway to physically abuse children that public schools. All a scoundrel or child molester has to do is claim religious affiliation, and he’s in. Secular people are trying to protect Christian children, but Christians do whatever they can to endanger their own children. The expression TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) applies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In 1961 there was an episode of the Twilight Zone called The Good Life about a monstrous six year old boy called Anthony with god-like powers. The townspeople were terrified of him, and pretended to love him and approve of all his freakishly evil deeds. It struck be this was a great metaphor for Christians and their pretended love for the out-of-control vicious bastard the god Jehovah.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In 1996 96% of Americans told a Gallup pollster they believed in god; 90% in heaven; 79% believed in miracles; 72% in angels. Why? It certainly was not because of the preponderance of evidence; there isn’t any. I see two reasons: wishful thinking and herd conformity. Other nations are not nearly so superstitious, (e.g. 36% believe in god in the Czech Republic), so I suspect herd conformity is much more important than wishful thinking.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In a court of law, anonymous testimony is not permitted. Hearsay is not permitted. If a witness is caught in inconsistent or false testimony, that disqualifies everything else he says. Yet Christians accept all this inadmissible evidence as 100% reliable when it comes to religious dogma. Further, they accept gut feelings as fully reliable even when there is absolutely nothing in objective reality to back them up.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In a just universe, those who have ordered or urged others tortured like Idi Amin, Bush, Cheney, Harper, Hitler, Karzai, Limbaugh, Pinochet, Pol Pot, Saddam, Stalin… would die of torture by the very techniques they imposed on others, but this is far from a just universe.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In a murder mystery, you detect the criminals by looking for inconsistencies in their stories. You look for motives to lie, dissemble or exaggerate. You take hearsay with a large grain of salt. You look for physical evidence to back up or refute testimony. You look for corroboration. If you brought the same skills to religion…
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In a sensible society, your body parts would naturally be recycled for medical purposes after you are dead and have no more use of them. However, superstitious Christians have rigged the law do make it difficult for even non-Christians to give away their organs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In Arabic, the word jihad just means effort. It has nothing to do with war. The Qur’an says you must defend yourself, and the non-Muslim citizens of your town if attacked, but only after repeated and serious provocation, and all other means have failed. You not are supposed to go out killing people to convert them. Of course, some Muslims have done this, but they don’t have a scriptural OK for it. The notion of holy war was invented by Pope Urban II, who offered indulgences to anyone who would go to Jerusalem to slaughter the Muslims living there, thus starting the Crusades.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In balance, mankind would be better off if all the Christian churches disbanded. Why?
- They encourage followers to discriminate against, persecute and beat up gay people. In my years as a gay rights activist, I received thousands of death threats from these loons.
- They interfere with efforts to control the HIV epidemic.
- They interfere with efforts to slow the population explosion.
- They spew FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) about global warming which will kill as all if they succeed.
- They spread lies about evolution, astronomy and other sciences. It interferes in what it has no understanding of, such as stem cell research.
- They are trying to destroy the great truce — the separation of church and state.
- They con the foolish, elderly and poor out of their life savings.
- They aided and abetted child abuse both physical and sexual, and helped priests find ever more fresh victims. This alone is sufficient justification to disband both the Catholic and Anglican sects.
Alain de Botton, in his book Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion suggests extracting the good of Christianity, e.g. the fellowship and singing and ignoring the insanity, inanity and cruelty. I am not about to cherry pick Christianity. I don’t want to encourage them in any way.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In biblical days people assumed disease was caused by evil spirits. Treatment consisted in punishing the afflicted. Christians still subscribe to this primitive treatment of the ill when it comes to problems with the brain or the genitals.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In Canada, freedom of religion means freedom to persecute homosexuals.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In earlier times, people dealt with Christians trying to impose their brand of religion by killing them. Today we are roughly equally effective by pointing out the flaws in what they are selling.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In Franco Zeffirelli’s film Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Saint Francis of Assisi berates the pope for his obsession with amassing gold. We could use a modern day Saint Francis to chide Pope Ratzinger.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In general, the poorer a country is, the stronger its belief in a god. The hollow reassurances of religion help people deal with the uncertainties of life in a poor country. The odd exception in the USA which has both very high belief and high wealth. Oddly, the historic separation of church and state may be responsible. It fosters extreme competition between religions, which strengthens religion generally, as does any Darwinian competition.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64) source
In Greek mythology, the hydra was a many-headed beast. Every time Heracles hacked one of the heads off, two grew it its place. This reminds me of the religious right meddling in everyone else’s affairs, from birth, to school, to marriage to end-of-life decisions, insidiously inserting their psychotic religious superstitions into every aspect of everyone’s life, like some foetid cancer. Heracles finally defeated the hydra by cauterising each of its wounds as he hacked off its heads.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In his book Dreams From My Father Barack Obama explains the appeal of Christianity to poor blacks, though he did not put it in quite these words. They have almost no reason for hope. The deck is thoroughly stacked against them, but that is so damn depressing. So they cheer themselves up by pretending to each other to believe that Jesus will rescue them, someday. To help foster the illusion, they publicly give thanks for their suffering, as if this were evidence, any day now, Jesus would deliver them. To them, giving up belief in God is exactly the same thing as giving up hope that conditions could ever improve. They can’t imagine any other mechanism than the supernatural by which significant good could come to them.
To me, relying on God to help me would be like relying on winning the national lottery. It would be just a crazy pipedream, a playful fantasy — nothing I would take seriously. In contrast to the poor blacks, my basic needs are met. I don’t feel any need for outside aid, so I am not tempted to fantasize about supernatural rescue. Also, because I am gay, there no way on earth the god of the Christians would ever help me. He hates me simply because I am gay, not for anything I do, but for what at the core I am. So a cruel, bigoted bastard like the god Jehovah is about the last fantasy rescuer I would turn to.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In Indonesia there is freedom of religion if you pick one of six faiths: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism or Confucianism. You must pick one. Atheism is not permitted. It could get you killed. This reminds me of criminal gangs or colluding monopolies carving up a territory to exclude the competition. Religious insanity has turned Indonesia from a paradise to a cesspool.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In nearly every species males try to prevent fellow males from breeding, but human Christians attempt to force male homosexuals not only to copulate but to sire children. What motivates this desire to propagate gay genes?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In the 1800s, two children bamboozled Sir Author Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini into believing fairies existed using primitive trick photography. No wonder Peter Popoff with a radio transmitter can still bamboozle his flock into believing the god Jehovah chats with him about defective kidneys and arthritic knees. People so thirst after the miraculous that they refuse to consider fraud.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In the animal kingdom, almost no animals make it to old age, and even then, a predator will pick them off once they become weak. Humans, on the other hand, through technology, have come to expect a long period of aged enfeeblement as their natural birthright, and something they are obligated to endure as a religious obligation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In the game of evolution, it is not enough that you win, others must lose, because there are limited resources for the next generation. Cruelty of competition is at the very core of life. I find this fact a life a convincing argument that life could not have been designed by a benign god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In the interest of dramatic tension, dramas and other entertainments show us primarily violent, angry and dysfunctional people. They teach us to separate people into two categories: the good guys and the bad guys. Since people learn unconsciously by mimicking what they see, is it any wonder we have now a society of rude, drug-addicted, violent people?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In the late 1800s, John Shelton, an American, claimed he had reached the north pole. He said at the pole was a gigantic diamond and a becalmed ship where sailors had nothing to eat but a drowned horse. Today, you might see this as allegory, but many took it as literal truth. Humans love to speculate about the unknown with tales feigning absolute certainly. Christians did the same thing about death.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In the movie The Sting, Henry Gondorff, played by Paul Newman, explained the best con is one where the mark never even figures out he has been had. By that criterion and by the total take, Christianity is the greatest con of all time.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In the movies, prayer always works; in reality it works no better than doing nothing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In the USA, freedom of religion means the right to praise Jesus in any way you please.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In Zimbabwe, superstitious tribesmen rape as many prepubescent girls as they can, inserting sharp sticks into their private parts in order to collect blood which has the magical power to make them rich or to cure HIV. In North America, Christian gay bashers stalk gay males to beat and/or kill them to curry favour with their deity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In Zimbabwe, superstitious tribespeople persecute women who give birth to twins and drive them away fearing their presence will block the rain. In North America, superstitious Christians persecute gay people and deny them civil rights fearing their presence will cause earthquakes and fire to fall from the sky.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In Zimbabwe, superstitious tribespeople persecute women who give birth by Caesarian, and deny them the right to marriage saying they are no longer real women. In North America, superstitious Christians persecute gay women and deny them the right to marry claiming they are not fully human.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
India was partitioned on 1947-08-14. Why? It was a desperate attempt to deal with the mutual hatred of Muslims and Hindus. It caused untold misery at the time dramatised in the movie Gandhi. It has caused all manner of misery in the 64 years since. Nobody puts the blame where it belongs, on the two religions which make people believe things that are patently untrue and kill people who refuse to believe them too. We must stop respecting instructions that cause people to behave so abominably. In theory religions, are supposed to make people behave better, but clearly they do the opposite for the majority of adherents. This has even been proved scientifically. We should stop excusing religions simply because they have good intentions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Instead of searching for a lost child, Christians petition the sky God to do the looking. Instead of enacting mining safely laws, Christians ask the sky God to suspend the laws of causality to rescue the trapped miners. Instead of moving their belongings to high ground, Christians pray to the sky god that their homes be spared the flood waters. Praying is not only useless, it is counter-productive because it displaces useful action.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Intelligent criminals prefer to con their victims rather than bludgeon them. The church uses cons to extract money, to persuade people to hand over their power and to cover up sex crimes against children.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Intelligent design infuriates me for the same reason phony faith healer Peter Popoff infuriates me or the same reason I fume when Republicans explain they want to take money from the poor and give it as tax cuts to the rich in order to make the poor more prosperous, or when people try to trick the gullible into investing in free energy machines. I can’t stand seeing people conning others and getting away with it. Intelligent design is not a just a naîve competing scientific theory. It is a malicious, unscrupulous scam. It stinks to high heaven of ulterior motives.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Intercessory prayer does not work, period. It has been proven not to work over and over in experiment after experiment. It is just wishful thinking that it works. It is just a social convention, like saying “How do you do?” Pretending that is does work is lying, if not a criminal. You are trying to bamboozle people for some unconscious motive. The usual motive is to trick people into donating money. Perhaps you think the lie is just a white lie is similar to lying to children about Santa Claus.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Is faith a virtue or a vice? Faith in hard work and study at university is clearly a Good Thing™ However, faith that a slot machine must soon pay off is not. Faith in being rescued from a boating accident is a Good Thing™, even when the odds are slim, because it encourages people to persist in life-sustaining behaviour. Faith that Jesus will come and restore all the denuded forests is a dangerous delusion because it encourages Christians to abandon stewardship of the forests. Faith in an afterlife, for which there is no evidence, encourages people to neglect the real one. Faith in clergy leads people to hand their children over to them to be molested, ignoring all the danger signs. Faith in TV evangelists leads people to hand over their life savings to these charlatans pretending to be god’s accountants.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Is it true there is a pancake mix made from middle eastern grains called “Risen Jesus”?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Is there any argument for the existence of some particular god or god(s) in general that would not apply equally well to unicorns?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Is there anything good about religion?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- The main thing is music. The church paid Bach, Handel and Mozart to write some of the best music man has ever heard.
- They put on one heck of a party every December 25. It brings out the best in people. It induces people to be kind to the poor and to ensure for at least one day a year everyone is warm and well fed.
- Christmas gets people singing together.
- The Muslim obsession with praying while pointing at Mecca inspired the invention of geometry, algebra and trigonometry.
- It inspired people to produce astounding architecture, dazzling stain glass, building that took centuries to complete.
- It gave civil rights workers the courage to face violent bigots.
Islam has historical beefs with Christianity it has not forgiven. One was the Crusades, when Europeans came to Palestinian and slaughtered every Islamic man, woman and child for no reason. The other was the capture and enslavement of millions of Muslims, forcing them to renounce their religion and work in the fields of the southern United States.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Islam managed to outsell Christianity by promising a sexier heaven and a crueler hell. The appeal of religion is promised outlandish benefits. It is sort of like a lottery where there has never been a winner before, but the pot is a trillion dollars.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It all makes sense when you realise the Catholic Church is a criminal enterprise, just like any other cult.
- It extorts money from people with threats and false promises.
- It uses threats and false promises to persuade parents to look the other way when priests abuse, molest and rape their children.
It such an old con game, and such a slick one, with such excellent public relations, that people forget what its primary activities are.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It burns me up that companies are allowed to sell products that bear no resemblance to the way they are advertised on late night TV infomercials. We let them get away with every imaginable deception. In that I include free religious products such as miracle green prosperity handkerchiefs, miracle healing manna bread offered, and magic red blood-of-Jesus anointing oil in return for tithes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It drives atheists nuts when Christians claim they believe in bible stories like Genesis or Noah’s ark which are simply impossible for a thousand reasons. Christians claim to believe every word in the bible, but they really don’t. Very few of them have even read the bible cover to cover. What’s really important to Christians are values:
- hating gays
- teenage celibacy
- breeding large families
- nominal obedience to some church
- anti-environmentalism. Trash the earth all you like because Jesus will clean it up.
When a mother fears her child will abandon the faith, it is not that he will stop believing bible stories, it is that he will abandon these values and shame the family by renouncing the church. However, Christian values are no longer suitable for the modern age.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Hurting gays accomplishes nothing. It is the same spiteful nonsense as motivates hurting Jews, blacks, Muslims…
- Teens are reaching puberty much younger than ever before. It unrealistic to force celibacy on them.
- The planet is grossly overpopulated. People should be encouraged to have smaller families not larger. This business about a single cell being sacred (where a single skin cell is not), and girls forced to bear the sons of rapists is just smoke to cover wanting ever more babies — an ancient and obsolete desire.
- Blind obedience is the royal road to evil.
- There are so many people now, even our inadvertent actions wipe out species after species and destroy the very environment that sustains us.
It drives me crazy when there is a news item about a lost toddler, and the relatives are all sitting around praying rather than getting out and searching. If the child dies of exposure because of their dithering, I think they should be charged with negligent homicide.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It has become fashionable for valedictorians to use the occasion for a spontaneous hour-long harangue on the necessity of converting to Christianity. Perhaps if someone were to press these young women for an hour on the necessity of submitting to Allah, becoming a Mormon or Jehovah’s witness or abandoning religion altogether, they would have a glimmer of how rude and presumptuous they are to their captive audiences.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is a cruel joke to ask kids to write letters to god. If they write to Santa, at postal code H0H0H0 there’s at least a chance he will write back.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is amazing that a known con-man like It is disgraceful that more Americans acted on religious lunatic/con man Harold Camping’ end of the world scam, than they did the warnings by geophysicists about earthquakes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is amusing that so many Christians believe that the god Jehovah is using a Mayan calendar associated with the pagan gods Kukulcan, the Feather Serpent and Gukumatz, the Lawgiver, to determine when to end the world.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is amusing that the universally recognised image of Jesus used in kitsch religious art looks absolutely nothing like a carpenter living in Judea in the year 20. Kitsch Jesus looks Polish. The actual Jesus would more likely look like Klinger in M*A*S*H.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is amusing to find out the term Hindu evolved from Europeans invading India referring to people who lived near the Indus river as Indoos. Hindu is not what the original adherents of the religion called themselves.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is amusing when Christians who drink, gamble, hunt, take drugs, ogle women, charge usurious interest and eat pork claim to be holier than Muslims who do not.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is considerably more likely the moon is made of green cheese than that the bible is literally true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is difficult for Christians and atheists to debate civilly because each considers the other to be a brazen criminal.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is difficult for Christians and gays to debate civilly because each considers the other to be a proud criminal.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is fairly common for people to feel uncomfortable around tattoos. Yet you never hear Christians demanding that tattooed people be killed, jailed or denied civil rights, unlike the way they persecute gays. This is odd. People with tattoos clearly choose them. Further they flaunt them in public. Further they often choose themes involving death and demons. Gays are much more discrete about their sexual activities that heterosexuals are. I spent the first 21 years of my life completely unaware that there were any other gays living in my city.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is highly unlikely all the Christian churches will disband in my lifetime, however, I work to that end. It may be possible to at least see they enjoy gradual negative growth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is ironic that a country with as many religious bigots as the USA would exclude gays from military service. They consider them, like university students, too valuable to waste as fodder in pointless wars.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is ironic that Christian bigots have elected to play the rôle of Pharaoh, oppressing gay people for no reason, other than the joy of creating misery, refusing to see the writing on the wall that their freedom and equality is inevitable.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is ironic that Christians fancy themselves as the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong, when they the group working hardest to drive man to extinction.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is little surprise that fundamentalist Christianity and global warming denying are strongly correlated. Fundamentalist Christians are schooled from birth in the art of wishful thinking and denying evidence that God cannot be counted to rescue you from your folly.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is no accident that fundamentalist Muslims, Christians and Jews have contributed so little, as measured by the number of Nobel prize winners. They are so busy lying to themselves about their religious myths they have no time left over to explore the truth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is no coincidence that con men so frequently target Christians. Christian are easy marks because they have been conditioned since birth to trust someone just because they frequently say “thank you Jesus”. Christians have been trained to believe outlandish claims without evidence. Christians have been taught to expect fantastic rewards without effort. Christians have been instructed it is improper to ask questions or doubt authority. Christians are softened up from a lifetime of being conned by the church without complaint.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is not enough to shake the Christian loose of his delusions. We need to give him a coherent, realistic, not-quite-so-rosy replacement view of the church.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is not normally considered religion, but it certainly superstition, and certainly fraudulent, — the harvesting of wild animal parts in order to stimulate fertility or male erections. The pointless suffering and destruction of wildlife for a lie is one more reason to rid the world of all superstition.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is not so much that Christians are a motley assortment of bigots, sniveling cowards, con men, superstitious twits, gullible idiots, and people who manage to lead decent lives despite their poisonous beliefs, it is that they imagine they are superior to everyone else and that their false beliefs are what make them so damn superior.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is obvious to most Americans that Islam makes lives miserable for the women who are indoctrinated into it during childhood. However, they are blind to the fact the same is true for Catholicism, Judaism, and Southern Evangelical churches. Forcing any irrational beliefs/superstitions on children cripples, harms and hurts them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is odd that Christians are so keen on torture. Have they forgotten their saviour was tortured to death by crucifixion?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is odd the way Christians and Muslims turn to God the worse God/circumstances treats them. It reminds me of the way abused children protest that their parents treat them well, perhaps hoping saying so will make it so, or that such lies will mollify the tyrant parent, or perhaps to hide their shame at having such a cruel parent.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is pathetic that Christianity is wrong on so many points of fact. It is infuriating that the leaders of Christianity are well aware they are perpetuating a fraud. It is alarming that evangelical Christians want to terminate freedom of religion and impose their beliefs on everyone through force of law.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is possible for a virgin to get pregnant without breaking her hymen. Sperm are determined little swimmers. How do Christians know this is not what happened?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is probably best for your mental health if, when you curse someone, you wish on them an affliction only severe enough to stop them from committing their evil. There is no need for them to be boiled in oil, even if they fully deserve it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is quite amazing that people will admit to being Christian. Usually people hide the fact they belong to a criminal organisation.
- The church runs the world’s largest pedophile ring.
- It cons more money out of the elderly than any other criminal organisation.
- It cons more out of the poor in the third word than any other organisation.
- It is the only criminal organisation to openly advocate denying of constitutional rights, murder and violence against homosexuals.
- It cons those with serious illness in the promise of miracle cures.
- It shills for the petroleum industry, lying that there is no need to be concerned about greenhouse gas emissions.
It operates its scams brazenly in the open. Its power is so great, few dare to challenge it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is quite astounding that believers and atheists get along as well as they do. It is a bit like an accommodation between inmates of an insane asylum and the townspeople where the townspeople agree to let the loonies proclaim their ideas as equally valid to those of Einstein and Darwin on the local radio station.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is revolting how Christian bigots behave, but we never know for sure how much worse or better they would have behaved without the influence of Christianity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is so infuriating having fundamentalist Christians injecting their willful ignorance into social and science policy. Imagine what it would have been like 200 years ago when nearly everyone had such beliefs, and also believed in witchcraft, spells and all manner of superstitions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is so odd that Jesus would preach you are your brother’s keeper, but the Christian right and the Republicans preach every man for himself, and the poor should effectively tithe to the rich.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is tempting for those whose hormones no longer course to demand celibacy from others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is time the Catholic church made a formal apology and token restitution for torturing 60,000 women to death as witches or for using herbs to help people restore their health.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It must be shocking for Christians to learn one of my life goals is to eliminate their religion. They must imagine I am sort of Hitler bent on harm. Quite the reverse. I want to stop Christians from doing harm including:~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Persecuting homosexuals, often driving them to suicide.
- Running the earth’s biggest pedophile ring that uses God as a bogey man to terrify children into compliance.
- Blessing and encouraging wars, especially against non-Christians.
- Telling lies about science and scientists.
- Interfering with efforts to stop global warming.
- Interfering in the private reproductive lives of non-Christians.
- Encouraging run-away population growth among Christians.
- Conning the poor, elderly and feeble minded out of their life savings.
- Interfering in the end-of-life decisions of non-Christians.
- And that is just my major complaints…
It seems odd that the god Jehovah, the alleged creator of the universe, would be so partial. Why does he ignore every sin of the Jews in Israel and roundly condemn every sin of the Palestinians?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It seems to me, if I were broke and suffering from nausea, incontinence and a toothache, that it would just add to my misery to imagine a vengeful invisible man in the clouds were persecuting me with these troubles.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It should be possible to get a restraining order against the Catholic church to stop it from trying to impose its religious superstitions on all non-Catholics. It might contain provisions like this:
- Cease and desist all meddling in end-of-life decisions of non-Catholics.
- Cease and desist interfering with birth control of all non-Catholics. This is tantamount to forcing on non-believers the unsubstantiated Catholic doctrine of the existence of disembodied consciousnesses called souls.
- Cease and desist interfering with abortion in the first trimester of all non-Catholics. This too is tantamount to imposing on non-believers the unsubstantiated Catholic doctrine that souls are like little demons who possess single cells. Stop erroneously and maliciously referring to people in involved abortions as baby killers. The term baby refers to a free-standing infant. Fertilised eggs are no more babies that blood cells are. They have no nervous systems, brains, hearts or anything that would distinguish them from future jellyfish.
- Cease and desist all persecution of homosexuals, including telephoned death threats, evictions, firings, calumnies, beatings and bullying of children whom Catholics suspect might grow up to be gay. Stop preaching that it is morally desirable to murder gay people. Doing so will be charged as abetting murder.
- Cease and desist all interference with marriages of all non-Catholics, which includes same sex couples.
- Stop censoring the books, movies and other entertainments enjoyed by non-Catholics. They equally capable as you of determining what is in good taste.
- Keep your priests at least 0.10 km (109.36 yards) away from any non-Catholic child.
- In general, curb your urge to meddle and micro-control the lives of non-Catholics. They too are adults fully capable of making their own decisions. They enjoy freedom of religion, and that includes freedom from having your religious superstitions imposed on them.
P.S. You damn hypocrites! You condone the slaughter of tens of thousands of fertilised eggs in the process of in-vitro fertilisation. So obviously you don’t really consider individual cells sacred. The only thing is sacred to you is outbreeding the other sects.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It wasn’t discovering evolution that shattered Darwin’s faith. It was the cruelty of the Icheneumon wasp grubs eating host caterpillars alive.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It would please me if it turned out crop circles were formed by some agent other than man, but I don’t run about claiming absolute proof that this is indeed so, when I have almost no evidence, much less proof. Further, I don’t call for the persecution of non-believers. I ask the same courtesy from the holders of religious", beliefs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Its a wonder that religious prudes don’s routinely suffer from multiple personality disorder with their repressed sexual side rebelling.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Its ironic that the creationist pro lifers would not have ever known there was a microscopic fetus to protect by blowing up abortion clinics were it not for science.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It’s odd that such a sleepy and staid church as the Church of England was founded by such a colourful scoundrel — King Henry VIII.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Jesus claimed he would return to earth within one generation. He did no such thing. He promised a miracle and did not deliver. Yet all Christians pretend not to notice, as if it would be disrespectful. They made up stories about the second coming to cover for the failure.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Jesus supposedly rose from the dead, yet even the bible points out even his friends did not recognise him. It seems infinitely more probable this risen Jesus was an imposter.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Jews don’t force their dietary kosher laws on others. Muslims don’t force their dietary halal laws on others. Where do Christians get off on thinking they have the right to force their religious laws about sex on others? Religious laws apply only to people who subscribe to the religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Joseph Smith left two big clues that he originally intended the Book of Mormon as a practical joke.
- He named the angel Moroni (one letter off Moron) as the spiritual author of the work.
- He name the people who fell for his story Mormons, (one letter off morons).
He later discovered telling such tall tales paid off big time in his ability to seduce young ladies in mass numbers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Just as fish don’t notice water, we don’t notice the crimes of Christianity:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Selling fraudulent science.
- Systematically sexually abusing children.
- Encouraging the murder of abortion providers.
- Denying homosexuals equal civil rights. Encouraging violence against gays.
- Using fraud to rip off the poor and elderly.
- Fraudulent faith healing.
- Violating freedom of religion of others by using the Christian majority and the Christian-dominated government to force their superstitions on others.
Just as investors talked their friends into investing with Bernie Madoff, Christians talk their friends into contributing to their church. It is a way of easing doubt. If their friends think the con is legit, they can feel better about it too.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Just as mathematicians postulate orders of infinity, there orders of improbability in religion. That the bible is literally true, strikes me as impossible. There is absolutely no evidence to support it, and a ton of evidence to refute it. The bible contradicts itself, so there is no possible way it could all be true, though parts of it could be. That after you die St. Peter does a review of your life and sends you to heaven or hell, strikes me as utterly silly, but not nearly as silly as the bible as a whole. There is almost no evidence to support after death judgement but then there is no evidence to refute it. The Buddhists describe an after-death experience and reincarnation that sounds downright plausible. It is impersonal, the way the rest of nature works. It handles all species, not just man. It has some evidence to support it, namely children who mysteriously have an intimate knowledge of the lives of dead strangers. These phenomena need to be properly studied scientifically. I hope the Buddhists are wrong since I have no desire to be a bullied child again, but I believe there is a slim possibility they could be right.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Just as there are Christians who cannot forgive the Jews for killing Jesus, I cannot forgive the Christians for what they did to Darwin. The difference is, the Christians I am angry with are still trying to kill Darwin.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Just as we look back in horror on slavery, whipping children and bull baiting, future generation will look back in horror at the way parents were permitted to brainwash their children into their culture’s religious superstitions with terror and punishment.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Just as you can be simultaneously dismayed at and frustrated with someone with Alzheimer’s, it hard not to simultaneously weep and get angry with a Christian, Muslim or Jew, when a God virus has destroyed crucial, specific critical-thinking parts sections of their otherwise intact brains.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Just because Jewish, Christian and Muslim nations love to make war on each other, and execute criminals for serious crimes does not negate the validity of their common moral tenet — thou shalt not kill.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Just how extreme do you have to be to be considered a religious extremist?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Believe in talking snakes?
- Lobby for nuclear war so you can have lunch with Jesus?
- Lynch a homosexual?
- Blow up a building?
Keats deceived the world when he said that truth is beauty and beauty truth. Mistaking beauty for truth is wishful thinking. Mistaking truth for beauty is callous indifference.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Killing is always abhorrent in Islam, but it is considered justified when a people is driven from their lands or killed for their religion. It is always wrong to start a war. Of course these three conditions all permit Palestinians to kill the invading Jews, and could well be said to require it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
King David arranged to have his lieutenant killed so that he could have sex with the lieutenant’s wife. Lot got roaring drunk and screwed his daughters. Abraham listened to voices in his head and attempted to stab his young son to death in a sacrificial ritual. Jesus counseled avoiding work and sponging off others through begging. Paul was homophobic. Joseph, as an elderly man, married a teenage trophy wife. And these are the heroes. No wonder Christians have such a warped morality.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Kristianity causes insanity, in the legal sense of being unable to distinguish right from wrong. Most Kristians consider it more wicked to get a blowjob, masturbate, abort a fertilised egg or smoke a joint than to torture and kill a child in Iraq.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Kristians happily commit murder simply because someone told them the bible excused it or commanded it. They forget that there is zero evidence that any god had anything to do with writing the bible. That the one and only god is the author of the bible is merely a traditional unexamined presumption.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Legend has it that Emperor Constantine had a vision of a cross in the sky and a dream of Jesus. He ordered his troops to paint crosses on their shields, and they beat the much larger army of Maxentius. Then Constantine built a giant triumphal arch right next to the Colosseum in Rome. The monument depicts the battle in bas relief with not a cross to be seen. This legend is yet another Christian lie.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Let’s say you wanted to get obscenely rich, and decided to do it the L. Ron Hubbard way, by founding a new religion. What are some of the tried and true tactics?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Target a small initial group. Tell them they are special, the deity’s chosen people, and that they have holy legal title to some extremely large chunk of real estate, currently occupied by some rival group.
- Tell the recruits though rape of virgins is normally not recommended, it is commanded if the victims are not adherents of the new religion.
- Tell the recruits that sexual urges, masturbation, even sex within marriage for pleasure are exceedingly wicked and will be severely punished after death. Guilt makes them easy to manipulate.
- Tell the recruits them that killing people who are not adherents to the new religion is a virtue. They can then take revenge on pretty well anyone for petty reasons guilt free.
- Tell them they must pay a tax, 10% of income is traditional, for “god”, actually a management fee for you. Tell them that failing to pay will result in after-death torture, and paying extra will be rewarded with after-death extravagant sensory delights.
- Tell them that plundering the property of non-believers is mandatory.
- Torture anyone who questions or contradicts you. Do not wait for their death.
Leviticus in the old testament is a collection of Jewish superstitions. They are as nutty as avoiding black cats or any of the other superstitions in The Encyclopedia of Superstitions .
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Like a drug pusher, a Christian has no logical arguments to muster in favour of his product, so he resorts to peer pressure arguments such as “I believe, with all my heart” or “Pretend to believe this doctrine and you will automatically become acceptable in my sight”.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Like Pélé, the god Jehovah started out as a local volcano god. Consider his lust for human and animal sacrifice, creating a geological formation, a pillar of salt 19:26, brimstone and devastation 29:23 . The god Jehovah appears in the form of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. . Jehovah likes to drop molten rock on people. He is petulant and angry all the time. He hurts people without reason.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Lions look for weak or injured antelope to attack. Christians are similar. They look for people who have suffered an illness or psychological trauma to pounce. In that state, people tend to feel what they were doing was not working, so are open to alternatives. They will foolishly follow anyone who appears confident and optimistic.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Logically a Christian should avoid taking advantage of what science has to offer in the form of modern medicine, including painless dentistry, since his infallible bible claims that diseases are caused by unclean spirits and exorcism is the proscribed treatment. When his own health is at risk, he ignores the faith, but when it comes to forcing Christianity on others, e.g. persecuting homosexuals, or teaching the Christian creation myth in public schools as serious science, then suddenly, he becomes an enthusiastic true believer.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Luke 14:27 says If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. whereas Matthew 5:43-44 says Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. Jesus has it rigged that nobody can be his disciples, yet he claims to have 12 of them. It makes no sense. Yet Christians pretend it does, like the townspeople admiring the invisible robe on the naked emperor.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Magic is the art of persuading people that they saw things that didn’t happen. Ditto for religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Many Christians admit there is no evidence for the existence of god and plenty of evidence there is no god. They make a virtue out of believing in god in the face of the counter evidence. It takes effort to believe the highly improbable and they are proud of their effort. To me it sounds like someone expressing pride that there were able, through great effort, to believe they could fly like Peter Pan.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Many Christians claim that the evidence that Christ was a historical person who rose from the dead is either incontrovertible or not debatable. Incontrovertible means “not able to be denied or disputed” Surely those Christians are aware that billions of people do dispute those claims, far more than those who accept them. So they are telling a bald-faced lie.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Many people claim they believe everything in the bible and regard it as an infallible moral guide. They have invariably never read it cover to cover to see what they are signing up for:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Jews are the master race.
- slavery
- killing gays
- subjugating women
- beating and killing children
- genocide
- death penalty for trivial crimes, like eating lobster
- killing the children of your enemies
- eating feces
Many people excuse cruelty, bigotry, lying, and all manner of idiocy in the name of religion. I don’t think religion is a valid excuse for bad behaviour.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Many religions wrap the dead in white cloth. They look like giant chrysalises. I wonder if the original intention was they, like butterflies, should awaken from the dead to a glorious metamorphosed existence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Married Catholics seek advice from gay, virgin priests. With that sort of help, no wonder the church had to make it illegal to divorce.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Mary prevailed with dogged use of the strategy “And that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Matthew 27:51-53 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. describes a rather remarkable event. But oddly the secular history makes no mention of it. Surely if such a thing actually happened, it would have blown people’s socks off.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Members of the Society For Creative Anachronism make believe it is 1000 AD. Christians make believe it is 1000 BC.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Men pray to imaginary gods to protect them from imaginary demons. The Christians thus spend more effort convincing the public of the existence of demons than of gods.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Mind-boggling stained glass sold Christianity in the middle ages the way computer-animated dancing clothes sell soap today.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Modern democracies have constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. This has two purposes, to ensure the government does not interfere with your religious beliefs, and to stop other people from using the government to impose their religious beliefs on you by force. Christians are in the majority so manage to run roughshod over the religious constitutional rights of others and nobody says boo about this violation of law. They shamelessly use the government to impose their barbaric superstitions about gay people. They manage to institutionalise discrimination, particularly in banning gay marriage and banning sexual acts between people of the same sex.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Modern humans satisfy their desire for a supernatural hero to rescue them from all their troubles by watching Superman movies. Christians do it by retelling ancient tall tales.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Modern tithing is not really tithing. It does nothing to help the poor. It is more like dues to a social club. The money goes to building maintenance, heat and paying the staff. It is spending for one’s own benefit, not particularly meritorious.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Monastics claim the ideal is continuous non-stop prayer. Have any of these people ever been in the presence of a child who constantly made requests for special favours?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Monty Python did a skit about a fellow who published a bogus Bulgarian ⇒ English phrase book. A phrase in Bulgarian, like “where is the train station?” became “Let me see your bottom.” in English. The Christians have done much the same thing with their literature promoting bogus Creation science, bogus Bible history, bogus crypto-zoology and general balls-up falsehood.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Most children fantasise about heroically rescuing someone from drowning, fire or other disaster. As an adult, by donating a trivial amount of money, they can heal blindness, cure disease, prevent starvation, provide shelter etc., but they invariably throw the opportunity away, instead donating to churches which is effectively paying dues to a private club.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Most Christians claim they have no doubts whatsoever about the existence of their god. Given all the evidence there is no god and the complete lack of evidence for any god existing, much less the Christian one, and given the thousands of errors and inconsistencies in the bible, I conclude these people are lying through their teeth. They are giving what they consider to be the socially acceptable answer.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Most North Americans dismiss all of the 10,000 god myths but one. The only thing that distinguishes the one they single out from the rest is that their parents exposed them to it at tender age and told them it was true. Had that not happened, that particular god myth would have had no power above the rest. It would appear just as absurd as all the others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Most of mankind’s problems stem from his monumental conceit and self-centredness. He believes in religions that preposterously flatter him that the entire universe was created solely for his benefit and he is the center of it. He believes no other species matters at all. He steals lands from them, and enslaves them, and even tortures them without even allowing the interests of those other species to be heard. In the process, he forgets that he too is an animal just as dependent on the other animals, plants, water, air and soil as any other animal.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Most of us don’t invoke the supernatural to explain the boiling point of water. It seems to me just as eccentric to invoke it to explain death.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Most pro-life advocates, such as Bill O’Reilly are anything but pro-life. They are invariably pro-war. They have no interest in the welfare of babies or children. They hoot like a band of chimpanzees calling for the blood of abortionists or gays or blacks or immigrants or… They posture that they hold the high moral ground. They pretend to be advocates for law and order, yet cheer on abortion clinic bombers. They claim they want to reduce abortion, yet block adoption, contraception, sex education or any other measure that would reduce the need for abortion. They are murderers as surely as any Muslim cleric putting out a fatwa. They are motivated by a lust for persecuting and controlling others, including women. Their self-righteous hypocrisy makes me vomit.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Muslims are strongly encouraged to read and memorise their Qur’an, cover to cover. Historically, Christians were not permitted to read the bible at all; only the clergy had the privilege. The church tortured people to death who dared even to publish copies in English. Today, Christians are discouraged from reading the bible cover to cover, presumably because when you do that, you discover the document is absurd, inconsistent and downright evil. Very few Christians have ever read the bible in its entirety. They have only been exposed to a relatively small number of selected readings. This suggests the Muslims have quite a bit more confidence in their holy book than the Christians do.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Muslims like to claim that the Qur’an is the literal, pristine and unadulterated word of Allah, with not so much as a comma changed. The problem is some the Qur’an is clearly Mohammed speaking to Allah, and one part is clearly some angels speaking to Mohammed, completely setting aside the issue if any deity had any part at all in its authorship. I am not referring to the Hadith, the commentary which were added later by Islamic scholars. I don’t even see the point of this pretence. The convolutions, justifications and surreptitious amendments to support the lie just throw the whole book into disrepute. There is nothing shameful in Mohammed recording some of his own thoughts too, especially when he clearly labeled them as his own.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
My blood boils when even an august body like the National Geographic twists science to validate Christian superstition. In their Scientific Adam documentary on tracing mutations on the Y chromosome back in time, they suggested the scientific findings vindicated the story in Genesis. Yet even their own documentary showed the common male ancestor lived 40,000 years ago, not the 4,000 years claimed by genesis. Further, this common male ancestor was far from the first human, just the first whose descendants prevailed to the present day. To cap it off, the documentary whitewashed the racism and genocide of the old testament to claim its essential message was that all men are cousins.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
My younger sister believed humanity lived on the inside of a giant sphere with the sun at the center. My best friend Pete when I was 13 believed humans reproduced by going into an amnesiac coma, and the male’s testicles burst open spraying blood containing sperm cells everywhere. As a child, musician Nile Rodgers thought that adults slept standing up. These strange notions were all based on misinterpreting what adults had told them. Children are hard wired to believe whatever claim is true, no matter how bizarre. In pre-history, children who ignored or questioned their parent’s survival advice usually did not survive. This is the vulnerability by which the god virus reinfects each generation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Naming a school, university or hospital after a Christian saint is an oxymoron.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Nature is utterly indifferent to human notions of morality.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Nearly everyone selects a religion/life philosophy by looking to what their parents believed. The choice has nothing to do with the merits of the religion. That is why such outlandish and patently false belief systems can persist.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Nigeria is both the most religious nation on earth and the center of the world’s biggest email fraud. I doubt that is a coincidence. Christianity is one of earth’s most polished con games.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
No amount of reason will be as effective a string of personal catastrophes in persuading someone that his god does not exist. Discarding faith is preferable to acknowledging his god hates him or could not care less about him.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Normally, issuing threats of violence to convince people to hand over their money is called extortion, but when a TV evangelist does it, it is called spreading the gospel. Normally, promising a hundred fold return on investment and delivering nothing is called fraud, but when a TV evangelist does it, it is called preaching God’s word. Its a wonder this God fellow has any credibility left.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Not only does Christianity teach falsehood, it teaches how to defend against truth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Not only is Christianity untrue, believing its lies makes 2/3 of people behave worse than they would have otherwise.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Novelist Malcolm Lowry convinced his friends that he had just changed water into wine, using only his charisma. It would not be that much of a challenge for illusionists Doug Henning, David Copperfield, Penn and Teller or Criss Angel or for a hypnotist like Milton Erickson. Oddly, today, this ability no longer gives these fellows the status of prophets.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Odd as it sounds, by experiment I have found Islam to be the best religion. Why? I define best to mean “successfully encourages people to behave in a kind way toward others”, not truest. When I was in Indonesia, I missed my rendezvous, and there was no a way to make contact. The name of the hotel I was supposed to meet was the wisma which its turns out means hotel in Indonesian. About ten strangers brainstormed and ran around helping in various ways. Everywhere I went, people talked to me, and were friendly. I once passed out from heatstroke, and strangers ran to me with water. Islam is the prevalent religion in Indonesia. Back home, embezzlers wiped me out. I was left alone to shut down my business and somehow find room in my apartment for all the equipment. The person who came to my aid was a stranger, and a devout Muslim. I have met some individual Christians who are exceptionally caring, but the average Christian closes his heart completely to strangers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
On 1999-01-26, the Vatican issued updated documents on how to perform exorcism rituals. How much longer must we wait for updated witch dunking rituals?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64) source
On 2010-06-14, when lightning destroyed a 18.90 metres (62 ft) Touchdown Jesus statue near Cincinnati, no one invoked divine displeasure at the kitschy artwork.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
On 2012-04-12 the Catholic church complained the Obama administration was restricting their religious freedom. The two examples they gave:
- Hospital employees are covered for birth control. Of course no one is required to use birth control or make claims on the insurance. They want Catholics blocked from being covered.
- They want to persecute gays, especially deny marriage equality. Their bible calls for their execution. Obama won’t do this for them.
They are not upset about their own freedom; they are just not as free as before to restrict other people’s freedom.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
On 9/11 a tiny band of terrorists armed only with box cutters outwitted and overpowered the entire US military. If this were a bible story, surely divine or satanic intervention would be invoked to account for such an improbable outcome. Yet no American ever mentions a deity when describing this miracle. I wonder why. Hmm, I guess you”d have to invoke Allah rather than the god Jehovah, even though they are supposed to just be two different names for the same deity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Once a man convinces you that he speaks for God, he has you by the balls. You will give him all your money, without resistance. You will hand over your wife. You will let him rape your children. You will kill whom he tells you to. That power over you is a great temptation to anyone holding. If anyone claims to have a special pipeline to God, he is either deluded or a con man. Be aware especially of people who use costumes, ritual magic or eccentric ways of speaking to bamboozle you.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One big difference between science and religion is that the experts in science claim to understand the science, and they agree with each other. Religious experts, on the other hand, insist the tenets of their faith are incomprehensible and mysterious, and they have reached no consensus.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of my boyfriends, a Phillippino, was so afraid of Christians he insisted on walking seven paces behind me whenever we were in public. He did not want them assuming we were a couple and causing trouble.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of my favourite things to watch on TV are documentaries about animal behaviour. I have yet to encounter any creature more irrational than the Christian.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the craziest things about Christians is that they are more loving, gentle and respectful of someone after they are dead, than they ever where when they were alive. They will risk their lives to protect a corpse where they would not take such a risk to saving a living being.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the darker consequences of Christian superstition is it discourages people from donating their organs after they die. Christians vaguely imagine they will need them or having them removed will be painful. That same nuttiness makes Christians try to preserve their bodies from decay after they are buried.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the great aha moments of my life was realising that the churches were for the most part, not mistaken, they were deliberately fraudulent, running an ancient con game to cheat people out of their money and political power. They are the wolves in sheep’s clothing we were warned about.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the least attractive features of Christians is their complete lack of shame or embarrassment about discussing the details of other people’s marital fidelities in public, even on national TV. To me this is an intrusive and as in bad taste as exposing details of domestic disputes over who left the toilet dirty or who emitted too much gas as they slept. It is a private matter.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the more important legacies of the church is the absolute faith that punishment will both erase the effects of wrongdoing and deter repetition. Most of the time, it does little to ameliorate the crime. It just adds to the suffering. Further it creates the seeds of revenge. We need to look for better solutions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the most brilliant metaphors about Christianity and its insane adherence to barbaric traditions was a short story written in 1948 by Shirley Jackson, called The Lottery
In a small village of about 300 residents, the locals are in a strange and nervous mood on June-27. Children gather up stones as the adult townsfolk assemble for their annual event, that in the local tradition has been practiced to ensure a good harvest. Everyone has to draw a stone. The person who selects a specially marked stone is stoned to death. Nobody likes this, but everyone is enthralled to the tradition.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the most cheerful documentaries ever made is called After People that explores, in one episode, what would happen to various religious buildings, statues and icons if people suddenly disappeared. It is so pleasant to remind yourself that the symbols of cruel and irrational religious bigotry require constant upkeep by the fanatics. Without that attention they would instantly start deteriorating.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the most commonly used tools a religion uses to gain converts and to control them is the after-death myth. Which one of these myths appeals to you most?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Nothing at all happens. You just stop existing. This is my favourite. It fits what I know about death and dying. It its not fanciful. Also it does not condemn me to some boring activity for eternity without escape. It is painless.
- You are reborn as a human or animal. Your new life depends on how well you behaved in this one. If you are really good you get to stop the cycle of rebirth.
- You are reborn. You get to choose how.
- You are reborn. You have to be the person you most despised and live their life.
- You are reborn. If you are very good, you get to be a god and do a lot of dancing. An hour of your subjective time is a century on earth.
- You are reborn. You are given an assignment appropriate for your ability to serve the universal good. If you do well, you are given a more challenging, interesting assignment.
- You are reborn. You relive your old life, only from the point of view of one of the other players in it, usually the one you were most unkind to. This means people being unkind to you now, are you in a former life.
- You join the cosmic consciousness. Later a piece of the cosmic consciousness may decide to incarnate again. But it does not really make sense to say that it is the same as some previously existing individual. It is more like a fresh bucket of water taken from the ocean. It has no relation to any buckets previously dumped into it.
- You are judged. If you are bad, you get poked with pitchforks and burned with fire. If you are good, you get to wander about in a park or floating on a cloud, playing harps and singing hymns forever.
- You are judged. If you are bad, you get roasted alive, then when all your flesh is burnt, it is reconstituted to be burned off again. If you are good, you get to have sex with cute males or females and eat delicious fruits.
- You get to live your life over again, this time with a coach. You keep reliving your life until you get it right.
- Everything you ever wished for but did not happen, now happens to neutralise your desires. Then you get to live in some other part of the universe.
- It is so pleasant it is beyond description. You can’t possibly imagine how wonderful it is since their is nothing remotely that pleasant here on earth.
- Dying is like having a huge orgasm.
- Dying is like feeling totally supported and loved.
- You hang around as a ghost for a few years, then head off on a long walk to a place where other dead people congregate.
- Death — I’m strongly against it.
~ Woody Allen- You know the chicken at Tresky’s Restaurant? It’s worse.
~ Woody Allen- It is very confusing and chaotic, like an acid trip. If you freak out with fear, you will have a bad trip. If you go with the flow, you will have a pleasant trip. You have to be careful not to focus on things that terrify or disgust you. Just observe them objectively.
One of the most irrational things Christians do is seriously risk the lives of young men to retrieve dead bodies. That is the triumph of superstition over logic.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the most odious things about Christians, and believers in general, is their monumental conceit. They believe they are the center of the universe, and everything they see was custom created for their personal pleasure. In their view, no other species but man has inherent value. Other species have value only as they are useful to man. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is an epitome of the type. Their religion gives them an absurd sense of importance and entitlement. Even when science demonstrates this is preposterous, they cling to the lie. Only money and religious dogma are real to them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the most revolting chapters in human history are the witch trials. They were triggered by a book called The Malleus Maleficarum, The Hammer of Witches. It was written in 1487 by a pair of sadistic German perverts Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. Celibate clergy bought thousands of copies of its and masturbated themselves senseless, and then set out to make their sadistic fantasies real. This would not have happened if the clergy had normal sex lives.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the most revolting things about religions in the way they pressure their flocks to have giant families. They do this to expand their base. The bigger the base, the bigger the take. They don’t care if these kids will grow up in poverty, with little attention from their parents. They don’t care if this stops the parents from accomplishing anything in their lives but daycare. They don’t care if they destroy the environment by pressing more people on it that it can sustain.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the most serious consequences of a Christianity infection is the subject believes they are more qualified than other people to run their lives, and attempts using means legal and illegal to control others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the oddest things about Christianity is its superstitions surrounding death. They treat the dead with greater respect than the living. The are far less likely to speak ill of the dead than the living. They are more likely to comply with the wishes of the dead than the living. They get more upset about desecration of a corpse than they do an attack on a living child. They consider “rape“ of a corpse a more serious crime than rape of a living person. This is all part of their fantasy that dead people are not really dead. It is part of the play acting to keep up the pretense.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the original intents of the Jewish kosher (and Islamic Halal) rules for slaughtering animals was humane treatment of animals. Islam tells a story about a man who watered a thirsty stray dog, and Allah forgave all his sins. Now at prodding from Dutch animal-rights activists, the Dutch parliament has voted to upgrade to even more humane slaughter standards. Oddly, the head rabbi of the Netherlands, Binyomin Jacobs, opposes this, claiming it reminds him of the holocaust. He believes his religious right to kill animals inhumanely is being challenged, and the motive for such changes is to destroy his religion, not the welfare of animals. I think he is an idiot. More humane standards are logically upward compatible with the old kosher rules. They are in keeping with the spirit of both the Jewish and Muslim religions. I could imagine this foolish old rabbi complaining about stricter hygiene standards in restaurants on the grounds they were preventing him from eating clean food. The standards for treatment of animals even 200 years ago were atrocious. Adhering to the standards of 4000 years ago is barbaric.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the primary functions of a religion is to lie to the followers about what happens to them after death. They pretend to have absolute certain knowledge, when it actuality all they have is idle speculation based on nothing at all. This is a wicked thing to do. Why?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- It makes people lazy about improving conditions here on earth. If people falsely believe they are just passing through on their way to heaven, they don’t invest effort.
- It makes people waste their lives. If they falsely believe they have an eternity ahead of them, there is no reason not to massively postpone work here on earth.
- It is a dishonest trick to control people. The priests can make people jump through hoops gain favour in the hypothetic after life, from giving them money to following their rules of conduct.
- It makes people sloppy about criminal justice. They imagine a sky god will handle it all later.
One of the primary functions of god is to facilitate murder. Soldiers who have swallowed the god myth are mindless puppets who will kill simply by telling them that god commands them to. Telling them they killed in god’s name anaesthetises their guilt afterward.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the reasons Americans tell me they are justified in killing Muslims (men, women and children) is stop them from segregating women, e.g. women must pray in a separate room at the mosque. Oddly these bigots don’t use this as justification for killing Orthodox Jews who do the exact same thing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the reasons black people do so badly economically is Christianity has tricked them into relying on Jesus to provide prosperity. Jesus never delivers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the reasons people pretend to believe in god is they want others to be sucked in. They think this delusion is what keeps other people in line. They fear what would happen to society if the delusion generally collapsed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the reasons people pretend to believe in god is they rightfully fear ostracism from their religion-based social circle. Jehovah’s Witnesses will even permanently shun immediate family members if they lose confidence is the faith.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the reasons the USA is collapsing as a world economic power is the population is retreating from science into medieval religious superstition.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the strongest American religious taboos is against questioning any person who talks about what she/he will do after she/he is dead, or about her/his experiences talking with angels or dead people. It is similar the way American adults pretend to believe the Santa Claus myth in front of children.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the symptoms of infection by a god virus is a delusion that the universe is fair.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the unconscious tricks Christians use to snare new converts is to wait until they are grieving over the death of a loved one. They say “I’m sure they are watching you now.” They have no evidence whatsoever for this. The lie however, is so emotionally seductive at this weak point, it becomes the entry point for the entire Christian poison pill.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the world’s oldest cons is that if you give money to god, god will supernaturally bless you with abundance. The only people who get rich from this scheme are the con men who accept the tithes in god’s name. The people with the really big money, like Soros, are all atheists. They don’t succumb to wishful thinking.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)It is a rather strange conception — god as high interest savings account. Further, who needs the corrupt intermediary? You are much more capable and efficient than any TV evangelist of spending the money directly on god’s work.
One religious Sikh zealot, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, was able to trigger a spiral of violence that grew into a nightmare of slaughter and torture beyond belief. Each side, fuelled by religious bigotry, greatly escalated the violence, justifying it as revenge. If Sikhism and Hinduism were drugs that caused people to behave that way, they would have been long ago banned.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One strategy to deal with Christians trying to destroy separation of church and state is to let them set up their theocracy. Within days, the various denominations will be fighting and killing each other just as they did in the early days of the USA.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One technique the church has used to persecute and exploit others is to convince people that certain topics are unspeakable, e.g. homosexuality and pedophilia. The children were then defenseless against the sexual abuse by priests. Gay people imagined they were alone in the world with nobody they could talk to.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One way to interpret the Genesis myth is that the sin of excess consumption is punished with banishment from an abundant environment — in other words greed leads to environmental collapse.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One way to mock the church is to pretend to take some of its nuttier doctrines seriously — exploring their ramifications, much the way Stephen Colbert does.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One week of saturation Christmas music is surely sufficient. How would Christians like a month of nothing on the radio but lectures from Dr. Richard Dawkins?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Only about 15% of the world’s population have succeeded is discarding their religious superstitions. This sounds depressing until you realise that in 1969 where I lived in Vancouver, BC Canada, about 99.9% of people, for religious reasons, believed that gays deserved to be harassed. Today, 42 years later, that has dropped to about 40%. Further, in many countries religious attendance has dropped and religious fanaticism has softened. Similarly, religiously inspired racial prejudice has greatly reduced. I think it will be like defrosting an old-fashioned fridge. Nothing much appears to be happening, then suddenly great hunks of ice start dropping off.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Only countries where nearly all the citizens are atheist should be entrusted with nuclear weapons. Lunatics who believe they cannot die, such as the Christian Americans, Hindu Indians, and Muslim Pakistanis are delusional and hence don’t take global nuclear war nearly seriously enough.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Originally Christians were burned alive for expressing doubt, even if they recanted, the that the wine in communion literally changes into Jesus’s blood, and the wafer into his corpse. The medieval Christians has the excuse of torture for believing this blithering nonsense. What’s yours?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Originally the priests and scientists were the same people. Priest-scientists at Stonehenge and Machu Picchu computed the solstices in order to determine the best time to plant crops. The wise men in Christian myth were astrologer-astronomers interested in a super nova. Then the groups split. The scientists were overjoyed to discover they were wrong and embraced new data. The priests were mortally embarrassed to be found wrong and tortured to death those who presented the new understanding.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Other than in a movie, when have you ever seen the god Jehovah do anything, or even make his wishes known? The closest you will ever come is some pompous human claiming to act or speak for him.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Our earth is in such bad shape right now, it cannot survive with people actively trying to harm it or doing nothing to protect it. Earth can no longer afford parasites who dedicate their lives to selfish pleasures or trivia such as fashion, money, sports, cars and hunting. It is like chores needed to maintain a house. It works fine if everyone does their bit.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Over the millennia we humans have learned to be skeptical about any story we were told, but we automatically trust anything we see with our eyes. Unfortunately, we humans still tend to take as real anything visual. Photos and movies, even ones we know rationally are staged, fool us. Oliver Stone’s fictitious film version of history is more real than a printed page in a history book. Christians have exploited this visual gullibility to sell us all manner of fanciful supernatural notions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Over ¾ of North Carolina Republicans believe President Obama is not a citizen of the USA. Granted 8% of them don’t know that Hawaii is part of the USA. There is no evidence of any kind to support this view. There is plenty to disprove it. The delusion survives solely because racists tell it to each other, much the way the myths of Christianity survive in a body of believers. Average and below average intelligence humans tend to believe what they believe their fellows believe. It has nothing at all to do with evidence. It works much the way dogs in a pack don’t think for themselves. They defer to the alpha leader.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Parents who interfere with the equal balance of male and female babies are condemning their children to a much lower chance of finding a life partner.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Parents who treat their children biblically as chattels, beating them, denying them any privacy, sexually abusing them, or terrifying them must be made to stop. If they refuse, they should not be permitted to be left alone with children or to acquire any new victims through pregnancy.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Paul Jean Paul II is being fast tracked to sainthood. I guess they need a patron saint of pedophiles.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People champion religions, not because they believe them to be true, but because it tickles them to imagine they might be true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People choose to become Christian. People choose to become bigots. They have no excuse.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People do spontaneously heal from serious diseases, but making offerings to televangelists won’t change your odds one iota. The televangelists should be criminally prosecuted for fraud for suggesting they do.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People hold irrational beliefs for irrational reasons. Thus even perfect reason is not that powerful a tool to remove them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People normally fight for their self interest. They want better pensions, better schools, better working conditions, lower taxes, better protection from criminals, freedom to do as they please…. But the bigots who fight gay marriage are fighting purely out of malice, to make others’ lives miserable. They have nothing to gain. Whether gays can marry or not has no effect whatsoever on the bigots’ lives.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People scold the author of Angel At the Fence for presenting his tale of concentration camp hope as fact. The same complaint also holds for those who attempt to pass off the Bible as fact. Where do people get off thinking they have the right to mislead other adults for their own good?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People seem to be ridiculously polarised. Either they refuse the accept the possibility anything ever happening to them that is not fully understood by science, or they are completely gullible believing any supernatural/religious tales without any evidence to support them. Surely there is a middle ground where you acknowledge that science has only begun to understand the universe, and that humans are smart enough to understand only a minute fraction of what is so.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People sometimes chastise me for being tough on Christians. I figure they deserve it. I am gay. They have threatened to kill me over 1000 times. They have tried to get me fired, kicked out my apartment and put in jail. They have abused me over the phone about 400,000 times. Historically, they burned us gays alive. Even today, from time to time they still crucify us ( Matthew Shepard).
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People who have few troubles imagine they will want to live as long as possible. Those burdened with heavy problems, especially terminal disease, would be happy to get it over with. The happy people cannot understand them, and, if they are Christian, feel compelled to do all they can to interfere with any plans the burdened may have for an early exit.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People who pray are suffering from an extreme delusion of grandeur, that the creator of the universe takes correction from them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People who revere the Catholic church as God’s agent on earth, knowing how it exploits the poor and abuses children emotionally, physically and sexually, must have a pretty dim view of God.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People would sooner take a pill, write affirmations about gaining health and beauty, or pray than go the gym or go on a diet. It doesn’t matter that these methods don’t work. They are easy and you can always find people who will take your money and promise you they do work.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Perhaps the biggest appeal of Christianity is that they might just manage to torture for eternity those who smoke cigars in public.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Perhaps the greatest blessing of the Beached Petroleum oil spill is it will disabuse the nutty Christian delusion that god won’t let us destroy ourselves.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Perhaps the most galling thing about Christians is their conceit that if Christian morality were rejected there would be chaos, when they traditionally have been a force for evil: pro slavery, persecution of blacks, Jews and homosexuals, overpopulation, suppression of equal rights for women and gays, encouraging the spread of AIDS, intolerance, pro child rape and child molesting, suppressing all manner of freedoms, promoting Americans/Jews as the master race, pro war, anti-environment, pro-pollution and pro doing nothing about global warming. They imagine they have the right to micromanage the lives of others. They have no clue what constitutes moral behaviour.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Periodic Table Surely if the god Jehovah were the true creator of the universe, he would not forget that he composed the earth mostly of atoms of 92 elements, each composed of protons, neutrons and electrons in patterns based on standing waves and the magic number 8.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Pew Research tested people on religious facts. They discovered atheists and agnostics scored best and Catholics worst. Why is that? The main reason is studying religion and reading the bible cases atheism. You can’t help but notice what trash the bible is when you read it cover to cover. It becomes clear it could not possibly be the work of a deity incapable of error. The other reason is Catholics are taught it is wicked to learn anything about any other religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Pity the poor evangelical. He must home school his brood to ensure they never encounter any fact that would endanger the delicate tissue of lies he had brow beat into them as their religion. He can’t send them to Harvard. They don’t have the grades, and surely there they would be exposed to people whose beliefs were not identical to his. So they have to go to a second rate bible college like Liberty University, where followers of the late Jerry Falwell pretend to educate them while shielding them from anything that might make them question the dogma of their denomination. Without a proper education, the kids are doomed to dead end jobs and repeating the cycle of ignorance.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Please fund research for the mentally-disfiguring disease of Christianity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Politicians parade their faith as if gullibility were a positive trait.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Politicians, Christians and used car salesman have a similar way of speaking. They will never give you a straight answer. They divert with an octopus-squirt of word-salad.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Pope Ratzinger has been caught in coverup after coverup of priests molesting and raping hundreds of children of both sexes. If you tithe to the Catholic church, the world’s biggest pedophile ring, you are complicit in these crimes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Pope Ratzinger pontificated that if one has HIV, one must not use a condom when having sex with one’s wife. Presumably the intent is to infect her with HIV, conceive a child and infect the child too with HIV. This reminds me of the story of Abraham getting the nutty idea is his head that god wanted him to sacrifice his son Isaac. He also said it is preferable to rape a child than to feel sexual attraction to someone of the same sex without acting on it. Ratzinger is mad and apparently a pedophile himself. He belongs in a cell for the criminally insane.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Pope Ratzinger pretends to be more gullible than a 4-year old at birthday party. He claims Jesus, an invisible magician, converts a wafer into his own corpse. The wafer looks no different. There is no corpse anywhere to be found. These inconsistencies in the magic trick as advertised and the magic trick as performed don’t seem to embarrass Pope Ratzinger in the least.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Popular culture treats the myth of Moses and his flight across the desert as a historical fact. Yet despite centuries of intensive archaeology not so much as a single shard of pottery been found to substantiate the story or even the existence of Moses.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Prayer is like those fake screensavers that employees can rapidly flip on to fool the boss they have been working. Prayer appeals to the laziness in humanity. To others it looks plausible you are doing something useful, but you are doing something pointless, but approximately as easy as resting in a chair.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Prayer is so ridiculous. I can’t even make a cup of tea by wheedling verbally with the universe. What on earth could delude me into thinking people could be healed by me muttering a few words?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Praying for rain is one of the most innocuous forms of prayer because there is no practical activity to bring on rain that prayer displaces. Praying for healing from an infectious disease, on the other hand, is irresponsible because it delays seeking effective medical treatment which hurts not only the superstitious patient but everyone she infects.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Praying to the creator of the universe to set aside the normal rules of the universe and treat you as a special case is a bit like requesting Bill Gates make a personal house call every time Windows 7 crashes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Praying to the god Jehovah is as pointless as praying to the Great Pumpkin. People know it, but they still do it because it makes them think they have actually done something useful. It is a procrastination device.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Preachers create the magic of Christianity. What magician does not know his tricks are an illusion?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
President Obama invoked god to help clean up the BP oil spill. He explained the god would not actually do anything, just be there. I gather this was intended to give heart to those working on this Herculean task. Even if this conceit did give heart, any feelings generated are in no way evidence for the existence of this capable deadbeat.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Promoting religion makes as much sense as promoting gullibility, stupidity, ignorance and superstition.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Prophesies are such nonsense, they could never be sold without stirring music and theatrical lies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Proving the truth of the bible also entails proving it is superior to every other holy book since it claims an exclusive handle on the truth. This must be extremely difficult for Christians since most have never read any other holy book. They must take somebody else’s word for it all other books are inferior.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Psychiatrists study people who have their own unique delusions. Anthropologists study groups of primitive peoples and their beliefs/delusions. But nobody seems to study Christians and Muslims in the modern world, their delusions, what holds those delusions in place and how they are transmitted from person to person. So many people share the delusions, and so much media propaganda rains on those who do not share them, it becomes impossible to look objectively at them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Putting the fear of God into a child is as reprehensible as deliberately instilling a phobia of monsters under the bed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Radical Muslims who dynamited the ancient Buddhist statues have no right to complain when a radical Christian burns a Qur’an.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Rapid pro-lifers have absolutely no idea what is like to be severely ill or disabled. They harbour romantic notions about the value of all life no matter how painful or constricted based on never having experienced suffering close up. Let us educate them by locking them in iron lungs for a few months, with a nest of army ants, and give them nothing to eat or drink but sea water. They are the people most deserving of being tortured to death. They gain nothing from their meddling. They have no excuse for it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Raymond Taavel was a well-known gay activist in Nova Scotia. He served as co-chair of Halifax Pride Week and was once the editor of Wayves magazine, a local gay publication. A burly psychiatric patient out on unescorted leave beat him to death while shouting anti-gay slurs.I put the blame squarely on the churches, and in particular the Catholic Church which is the original source of anti-gay propaganda.
I was a gay activist in the 1970s. I received about 380,000 abusive phone calls and 3000 death threats. Every homophobe justifies his violence with church doctrine. The churches no longer preach stoning adulterers or burning witches. It is high time they laid off encouraging violence against, bullying, harassment and persecution of gay people.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion appeals to those with no curiosity about how the universe is, only how they would like it to be.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion flatters second grade dropouts into claiming they know more about science that PhDs in particle physics do.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion has very little to do with beliefs about God. It is mainly about picking a tribe, and having fun making life miserable for the tribe’s scapegoat. It also provides a place where the untalented can enjoy the pleasures of a pecking order.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion invented the principles of modern marketing:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Sell a worthless or shoddy product for an exorbitant price.
- Make extravagant, false and unverifiable claims for said product.
- Induce customers to sell it to others by offering free toasters.
- Pitch it to children as soon as they can talk.
Religion is about belonging to a team, and surrendering your mind to the group. To belong to the group, you must at least pretend to believe whatever the group believes. What you believe has nothing to do with reason. It requires numbing the brain with cant provided by the group. The most intelligent people can’t stand this thought-denying strait jacket and leave.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion is believing in something that is clearly not so. Similar beliefs include racism, attitudes toward drug enforcement, the efficacy of prisons, homeopathy, alien abductions, attitudes towards the poor… Oddly, of these, only religion has a good reputation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion is designed to turn a believer’s mind to mush by force feeding it nonsense. The believer can then be lead about like bull with a ring its nose with no will of his own, unaware even of his own self interest.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion is how the herd instinct expresses in humans.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion is just another name for tradition, an ingrained habit. It is used to excuse all manner of wrongful behaviour including animal cruelty, beating up children, treating women as inferiors, persecuting gays and members of other religions, stealing land… Freedom of religion should protect you when you want to perform ceremonies, sing traditional songs, dress in traditional clothing etc. It should not give you special licence to make others miserable or to impose your religion on others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion is like penis enlargement spam. It is a torrent of lies, that you can’t stop legally even though there is not even the tiniest shred of evidence to support the outlandish claims. Gullible twits keep buying it because they wish so strongly it were true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion is like some twisted role-playing game where long ago the players forgot it was all make-believe.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion is man’s worst invention. What about war? We humans did not invent that. Hornets and ants were waging war for millions of years before humans stepped out on the planet.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion is the belief that the universe is capricious, that it is not predictable, that it does not work with mathematical laws.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion is the primary cause of all cruelty to gay people and most cruelty to women. It sharpens the differences between ethnic groups justifying violence. We must stop pretending religion is a force that makes people behave better. It clearly does the exact opposite. It makes people cruel, intolerant and self-righteous.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion makes certain enough to murder for the silliest of ideas.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion makes people cling like limpets to ideas that are obviously not true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion often drives men to do irrational and destructive things. For example, the ancient Egyptians collected millions of wild animals from all over Africa, including falcons and baboons. They slaughtered them and mummified them as offerings to their gods.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion places a holy shroud over the behaviours of the deep past. It is as idiotic as worshipping the way Neanderthals slaughtered their meat, captured their mates, resolved disputes, ignored hygiene and practiced primitive science.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion teaches people to be proud of their ignorance.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religion: a mental illness kept out the DSM-III for fear of upsetting those that have it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religions are a lot easier to fall into that get out of. Aren’t things like that usually called traps?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religions are galling because silly ninnies imagine they are vastly superior to me because they believe idiotic dogma. It is annoying having half-wits look down their nose at me.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religions protect themselves from critical examination by teaching their adherents to affect massive offense when anyone even asks what the evidence is for some religious belief.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religions tend to focus on petty thou shalt nots. This allows believers to ignore the two big issues of morality — what do you do with your time, and what you do you do with your wealth to contribute to your planet?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religions, while they provide rich traditions, encourage people to hang onto ancient grudges. The Shiites flagellate themselves over the death of Imam Hussein. The Christians flagellate themselves over the death of Jesus. The Jews still celebrate hold present the memory of the Masada mass suicide. And of course they still hold a grudge against the descendants of the villains in their view of the events.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religious fanatics argued that they had the right to keep their children from learning about any other religions in school. They worried their children might discover the truth that their religion was not the only religion, just one of many possible religions. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that learning about other religions was a necessary part of living in a multi-cultural society, and did not interfere with expression of any particular religion. I think that was a wise decision.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religious fanatics behave worse than anyone else when they are given power because they are delusional imagining every crazy notion that pops into their head is a command direct from their god. That belief compels them to commit unspeakable atrocities they might even consciously find repellent.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religious Nazis who impose their religion on others by opposing euthanasia under all circumstances, have never been sick a day in their lives. They have never held the hand of someone begging to die. They imagine that a pill or a shot can fix any conceivable suffering. If you have ever had a gallstone or a kidney stone or endless nausea from HIV medication, you know that modern medicine can do almost nothing for the pain. Even the most potent prescription pain pills do almost nothing for a toothache. How then, do these optimistic ninnies expect medicine to deal with the pain of terminal cancer month after month?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religious people often wonder why non-believers are so eager to debunk their magical claims. If somebody claimed that trees could be grown from pebbles without seeds, and peddled tree pebbles, they too would find people angry with them. People don’t like to be lied to even when the lies are transparent.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religious people pretend to know for certain that which is clearly impossible and counter to fact. They also claim to know for certain things that no one has any way of knowing. What if they could be persuaded to stop doing this? It would then be possible to resolve disputes by appeal to commonsense reality. We could enjoy the diversity without the insane violence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religious prudes will accuse someone of sexually abusing a very young girl. When you dig into the matter, you discover he had consensual sex with a 19-year old. This sort of exaggeration is a scurrilous lie.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religious schools oppose programs to stop bullying of gay and lesbian students. In other words, they want to encourage bullying of gays by looking the other way. These bigots believe that tormenting gay people is a virtue, but they refuse to acknowledge their bigotry.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Religious tolerance has gone to far when it causes people to look the other way at wrongdoing committed in the name of religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Republican Christians ignore evidence of holes in the official 9/11 story. They ignore holes in the bible story. They vote to preserve the privilege of the elites. Why? They have been trained since birth to defer to authority even when authority is apparently incorrect.?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Republicans claim to be opposed to abortion. The best possible way to reduce abortion is effective contraception. Yet Republicans also fight contraception tooth and nail. What they are really about is imposing their fundamentalist religious beliefs on others, and punishing those who resist.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Republicans suffer from terminal wishful thinking. In particular, they imagine their bodies will go on and on in perfect health, never growing old or decrepit. Thus they imagine health care insurance to look after them when they eventually do get sick is not only unnecessary, it is an affront to their freedom. They crave the Philippine system where the hospital literally tosses you out onto the street the day you can no longer pay the bills. The hospital doesn’t care if expulsion is your death warrant. Republicans may think they want that, until, of course, they need medical care and their private insurance company decides they are not profitable enough to insure or too costly to pay out. This happens to everyone eventually. The only people who can feel secure under such a system have at least five million dollars socked away to deal with their own health problems and their significant other’s. Republicans are under the delusion, that real soon now, they will be that rich. That’s also why they lobby for the interests of those much richer than they are.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Republicans want to deny gays civil rights because gays are wrong. Well, I think Christian and Republicans are a hundred times as evil as gays. By their goofy reasoning, we should deny Christians and Republicans every conceivable civil right, including the right to vote. It does not work that way. The constitution guarantees all citizens equal rights.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Ridding the earth of religion is roughly the same task as ridding the earth of delusion and mental illness.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Right wing Christians in the USA are trying to force women who have been raped to bear the child. Think for a second about the practical consequences of that for the child:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Knowing they were the product of rape.
- Their mother shudders every time she look on his face because he reminds her of the rapist.
- He bears the genes of a rapist. He could well become one too.
- Strangers will look on him as a rapist in training.
- He will feel hated and shunned through no crime of his own.
Right wingers believe that “freedom of religion” means the right to worship Jesus in the Protestant church of your choice.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is the most psychotic, sadistic dictator alive today. Guess who are his main supporters? All of the 130 Christian churches!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Rwanda is the most Catholic country in Africa. During the genocide, priests and nuns broadcast from their church radio stations urgings to murder fellow citizens.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Sanal Edamaruku, an Indian skeptic, went to Mumbai and revealed that a “miraculous” weeping cross was really just a bit of statuary located near a leaky drain whose liquid reached it by way of capillary action. The local Catholic Church demanded that he retract his statements, and when he refused, they had him arrested for blasphemy. Why does the Catholic Church get any respect at all? It is a blatantly criminal organisation. What is the matter with people? Do they fear its magic mojo?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Satan is described simultaneously as the most beautiful of the angels and as a hideous, cloven hoofed, horned one. Will the Christians please make up their minds.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Science brings us the miracles of our daily lives, abundant food, clean water (hot, cold or warm), rain-proof shelter heated/cooled to precisely 20°C (68°F), antibiotics, anti-virals, electric vehicles, lighting, artificial Christmas trees, replacement hips… This abundance depends on skilled labour who understand the methods of science. If you insist on polluting their minds with religious claptrap, you will generate a quite different society, one that burns witches and homosexuals and is powerless against the plague or clouds of locusts, namely the middle ages when the church had everything its way.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Science is simple if you believe a god created the earth to perfectly delight his pet humans. All you have to do is figure out how you would like science to work, and presto you know how it does, without even checking.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Scientists estimate there are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. It takes light 100,000 years to cross it. There are 125 billion such galaxies. We have visited none of them. Yet Christians arrogantly announce the entire universe was created expressly for them. It makes me want to whack them with a shovel for being so conceited. It is sillier than a microscopic jellyfish announcing the entire ocean was created solely for its personal delectation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Scientists have studied the stars and discovered the universe is homogeneous, and there is nothing special about our position in it. Yet Christians continue to spout the old lie that earth is the center of the entire universe created for man’s delectation. It is a monstrous conceit.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Secular con men rarely kill those who refuse to fall for their stories; you can’t say the same for Jewish, Christian and Muslim fundamentalists.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Secular con men view the church’s various con games as playing tennis without a net.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Separation of church and state is a temporary quarantine measure, an expedient truce, to deal with an epidemic of mental illness.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Shakespear based his play Romeo and Juliet on various Italian and English versions of it. In those other versions much is made of the idea Romeo and Juliet will meet in the afterlife. Shakespear took all that out. Why? Dramatic reasons to enhance the tragedy? Because he thought it was untrue? Most likely the latter. You don’t find it in other plays either.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Shitala is the goddess of smallpox. To this day Indians pray and give offerings of fruit to her. The belief that the most effective way to prevent disease was prayer stopped people from looking for practical causes like rats and fleas or feces in the drinking water. There is no evidence that prayer has any effect. People do it out of wishful thinking and laziness. It is much easier than taking effective action.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Since all the religions of the world disagree, they can’t all be true, however, they can all be false. Indeed, they most certainly all are.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Since neither Scientology nor Christianity can present any evidence for their beliefs, I conclude that the odds either is true is vanishingly small. Since there is no truth in either religion, it makes sense to judge the religions by how well their adherents behave. In that department, the Christians have a long history of killing and torturing non-believers, supporting slavery, exploiting people in the third world and enabling pedophilic rape, something the Scientologists have not done on a mass scale.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Since the clergy claim to be able to convert wine into blood, and wafers into the flesh of a dead man, we should call them by their proper names: magicians, shamans, con men…
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Since there is no evidence for souls, angels, hell, demons, superstition etc. Christians have resorted to using Hollywood to sell them. Just count the number of ostensibly secular TV shows on at any one time selling this world view.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Since time immemorial people have pretended they had supernatural powers if they spoke in ceremonious tones and wore special garments. A priest leading a congregation to protect soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan from bullets is just as silly.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Slaughter using Kosher and Halal rules originally provided for more human slaughter and somewhat more sanitary killings. Today Jews and Muslims defend these techniques based on nothing but tradition. They realise these ancient techniques are less humane than modern techniques. They claim the Kosher and Halal slaughter are painless. We know that is not true by asking any human who had their throat slit. They are fighting against the spirit of Kosher and Halal. I don’t see any reason to humour them in this cruel behaviour.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
So long as there is a single child on earth without a loving parent, it is immoral to spawn yet another.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Some claim that religion is pure evil. I think that is an overstatement. I am pretty sure there are people out in the most desolate parts of Africa attempting to help the people there. They would not do this if they were not deluded into thinking God would reward them abundantly after they died, but that is not evidence for the existence of a god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Some day the world’s synagogues, churches and mosques will join the great pyramids of Egypt, the Parthenon and Machu Picchu as tourist attractions where guides boggle young visitors with stories the ghastly things once done there. The names of the gods that inspired the malice will be forgotten except by Jeopardy contestants.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Some district attorney should nail Peter Popoff on murder or attempted murder. That bastard talks old ladies into discarding all their medication, including absolutely necessary medication e.g. their insulin, claiming he successfully interceded with the god Jehovah to completely heal them, without doing any tests of any sort to see if his crazy claims were true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Some people fantasise about winning the lottery and buying a lakeside cabin. Christians fantasise about having an afterlife and owning a house made of solid gold.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Some people go all gooey inside when they hear readings from the bible. Some go gooey on hearing the strains of their national anthem. I go all gooey when someone talks about preserving our planet.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Some people succumb to the lure of belief in reincarnation. But do they really want to be a baby again, unable to speak or move about, to be a child forced to eat food they detest, with every move controlled by others, to be a teen with the extreme sexual frustration and embarrassment of puberty or a young adult facing the brutal rejections and being suddenly dumped?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Someone who loudly trumpets his devotion to Jesus is trying to sell you the notion that he is trustworthy. We have seen how televangelists use this trust to extort money and how priests use this trust to molest children. We should look on it as a warning sign.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Sometimes I dream about computer programming in my sleep. It is very frustrating. I am not clear on the goal, and things happen that make no sense. When I wake up, the ineptitude of my dream thinking comes instantly clear. I suspect Christians live a perpetual dream-fog when it comes to science. When nothing makes any sense, no wonder they cling to the most simplistic explanations. Christianity can be looked on as a kind of retardation. The words cretin and Christian share the same etymology.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Sometimes I wish I could be young again so I could have sex with cuties. If I catch myself wondering if reincarnation or an afterlife would let me satisfy that desire, I tell myself ”grow up!”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
St. Boniface had ancient holy oaks felled in the 8th century as way of smiting pagans who revered them. You might say he is the patron saint of Republicans and other anti-environmentalists.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
St. Patrick was made a saint because he allegedly got rid of all the snakes in Ireland. The pagans there venerated them because they were so helpful keeping down the rodents that ate their crops. That is why he got rid of them, as a sort of ecological warfare, fueled by a Christian phobia of snakes. So St. Patrick is the patron saint of species extinction, vandals and poachers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Straight men can’t help but think that gay men secretly find women attractive, but for some inexplicable reason refuse to admit it. Straight women have less of a problem since gay men find the same people attractive that they do. As a gay man, even though I have ample scientific evidence that straight men prefer women, I can’t help but feel they are forcing themselves to pretend to enjoy women out of duty/pressure and to avoid men out of prudery.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Surely Christians can’t be serious that entry to heaven is based on which branch of which religion you subscribed to. Given that nearly everyone takes up the religion of one’s parents, and given that religions work hard to prevent their adherents from learning about any other, that choice means almost nothing about the person. Surely such a winnowing would have to be based on something far more substantial.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Surely Joseph Smith was putting people on, naming both his angel (Moroni) and his religion (Mormon) variants of the word moron. He pulled the rubes in with tales a lost gold treasure. He claimed to have translated heiroglyphics without any study of Egyptology, without even looking at the figures, but by burying his face in a hat.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
That Jackass 3D is the top grossing movie in Canada on 2010-10-22 is cause for despair.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
That prayer is effective is not only a lie, it is a malicious lie:~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- It stops people from doing something effective. They procrastinate taking action that would help, lazily sitting on their butts and wishing.
- It has never been shown to work. Randi the Magician offers a $1 million prize to anyone who can demonstrate otherwise.
- It is often part of a con. If you donate money to the crook, supposedly God will give your prayers higher priority.
- Parents will even allow their children to die, preferring to pray than take effective action to save them. It is the ultimate lazy excuse for inaction.
The abortion debate becomes more clear cut when you realise that the anti-abortion folk are motivated purely by religious motives and they are trying to force their religious beliefs on others. I call them anti-abortionist because they are not pro-life. They could care less about the life of the mother or the life of the baby after it is born. They want hospitals to refuse to perform abortions even when the mother’s life is threatened. They even want hospitals to refuse to tell women whose life is in danger because of pregnancy complications where they can get help. They are not about protecting life but about punishing women who have unwanted pregnancies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The afterlife: never was an idea more firmly believed nor that had so little evidence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The American constitution forbids congress from making any law concerning religion, but they went ahead anyway and the majority Christian population let them get away with it. Examples include:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Churches get a special tax exemption that equivalent secular organisations do not.
- Soldiers can get an exemption from military service on religious grounds where there is no equivalent exception for atheists.
- Gay marriage is forbidden in most of the USA. This is a Christian religious superstition imposed on the entire population.
- National holidays correspond with Christian religious festivals and are even officially named after them.
The American constitution says the government shall make no law concerning religion. How then does the US supreme court justify giving the church exemption from taxes? To do that they have to treat religions specially, and make laws on just what constitutes a religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Amish are resisting mandatory RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags on their cattle. I find it ironic that they would have almost no chance of prevailing in court even if they could prove the tags increased infection or were not necessary, but will have a very good chance with an irrational religious superstition that the tags are the “mark of the beast”.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The ancient Greeks discovered that rational thought works first by deciding on a set of self-evident postulates, then reasoning out from them. The catch is, if the postulates are wrong or inconsistent, everything that follows is nonsense. Even a genius like Newton made the error of accepting as postulates the unsubstantiated religious beliefs of his contemporaries. We went into a dreamlike mad churning of fruitless deduction unaware of the root of the problem. Religion destroyed one of the finest scientific minds of all time. Granted mercury poisoning weakened his mind, setting it up for religion to kill.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The ancient Mayans sacrificed youths to the rain god. At least they had the decency to sacrifice one of their own. Right wing Christians sacrifice gay people in the hopes of placating the god Jehovah.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The ancient Romans fed Christians to the lions because they were atheists, who refused to worship Jupiter and his friends. Muslims slaughter Buddhists because they are atheists, who refuse to worship Allah. American Christians persecute anyone as atheist who does not worship Jesus. Religious folk clearly use the term atheist in a much weaker sense than we atheists do. We atheists refuse to worship or even believe in the existence of any gods.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The ancients saw the sun rise in the east, and disappear into the west only to magically reappear again on the eastern horizon the next morning. How did it get there? Surely it did not burrow through the earth! So many assumed it was reincarnated afresh each morning. The odd thing is most Americans revere these early notions of how the world works as more accurate than our modern understanding based on astronomy and lasers. They assume because a belief is ancient it must be correct. Oddly, they have no such exaggerated respect for religious traditions other than their own. Even more oddly, they are quite happy to entrust the navigation of jetliners and ships, space exploration, medicine, agriculture, oil exploration etc. to experts who use modern scientific thinking.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Anglican church was founded by Henry VIII, arguably the vilest character in English history. Oddly, adherents of the religion don’t seem to think this matters.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The anti-euthanasia groups are clear on their reason for opposition. The want their god Jehovah to determine the time of everyone’s death. In other words, they want to impose their religious beliefs on everyone. If they want to impose unnecessary suffering on themselves for religious reasons, that is their right, but they have absolutely no business imposing them on me. The constitution forbids the government from enforcing majority religious superstitions through law.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The appeal of Christianity is utterly baffling. It is like an addition to kitsch, falsehood, hypocrisy and the phony.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The arguments against god go like this:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- There is no necessity for a god. Even the big bang, even the creation of life turns out to be a natural process.
- There is no evidence that god exists. Those that believe, do so purely on faith.
- The book that is often passed off as god’s penmanship is full of error and inconsistency. There is nothing supernatural about it at all. It is not authorative.
- There are 10,000 gods. Those that sell some god dismiss 9,999 of them. Any arguments for or against god apply equally to all 10,000 gods. In other words, the deists already admit the notion of god is silly. They have already dismissed it themselves for nearly all gods (most of which they have not studied), but have an infantile attachment to one exception, no different from any of the rest.
The belief is prophesies that predict wars, famines, floods and hurricanes is so lame. Was there ever a year without wars, famines, floods and hurricanes? It is like a prophesy predicting rain or income tax.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The best cure for Christianity is prevention.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The best estimate of the number of planets in the universe is 1022 in other words 1 followed by 22 zeroes. The Christian is so conceited he figures his planet Earth is the only one in the entire universe supporting life. The rest were allegedly created by god purely for man’s entertainment. He does not believe in god. He believes in astronomical luck.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The best feature of Pope Joseph Alois Ratzinger is that he did not attain office until he was 78. If all goes well he will die soon. After he dies, perhaps they will make him the patron saint of pedophilic clergy.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The best music in the world by Bach, Mozart and Handel was written to sell Christianity. That’s like discovering Nureyev did ads for Kentucky Fried Chicken.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The best way to sell a lie is to set it to music.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The bible accrues its authority because its age. The ancient Egyptians asserted the earth was formed when a black pyramid arose from a turbulent ocean. The Egyptian religion goes back thousands of years further that Christianity or Judaism. Surely then, by the age criteria, (and the provenance criteria) the Egyptians writings and engravings trump the bible.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Bible contains passages that encourage war, cruelty in war, slavery and persecuting blacks and gays. The church has always refused to amend, repudiate or reinterpret these passages. They are thus responsible for the evil that flowed from such verses in the bible.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The bible has no intrinsic validity. As science or as a history book it is on par with Paul Bunyan. As literature, it is dreck. All its value comes from the fact so many people like to pretend, without any evidence, the creator of the universe wrote it. Too me, it is painfully obvious that it is a forgery. God could not possibly produce such poor quality work. If there is a god, I would imagine He would feel insulted, or perhaps amused, at having that piece of racist humbug ascribed to Him, the creator of sunsets, mountains and quantum physics.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The bible is a book written by anonymous men. Some claim these men were inspired by god named Jehovah. Now watch a preacher pull a sleight of mouth. “The bible says we should not suffer homosexuals to live. God demands that we rid the world of homosexuality. Some men say we should be tolerant of these perverts. Whom should you trust man or god?“ There is no evidence at all that god had anything to do with writing the bible, much less certainty. All that is certain is what the bible states, not what god wants. Preachers argue by repeated assertion that the bible is the word of god, but they can’t give you any reasons at all why that might be so. Granted, the bible claims to be the word of god, however it is trivially easy to make such a preposterous claim. I make it now, “everything I have written on this website represents the word of God”, but I hope it is obvious that making an outrageous claim in writing does not make it any more likely to be true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The bible is just a book, mostly about people who behave abominably, and yet another evil deity. There is nothing that justifies believing it contains extraordinary knowledge about the creator of the universe, not even one sentence. Why then do people believe with unshakable faith that it does? Because their parents forced that belief into them by whipping or terrifying them when they questioned and pounding the belief into their infant heads. Beliefs brainwashed that violently and that young become hard-wired. Reason has nothing to do with it.
Even though I was raised atheists, various Christians tried to terrify me as a child with hellfire into believing their crap.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The bible is mostly nonsense, hate speech, racism, irrelevancy and falsehood. If the Christians don’t mean the nutty verses any more, they should formally remove them and produce and abridged document. They refuse to do this, so they should be held responsible for all the idiotic crap they claim in the bible.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The bible is no more evidence for the existence of god than The Tales of Paul Bunyan is for the reality Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The bible is so utterly weird. It makes no sense. It is the ramblings of a lunatic, but Christians somehow pretend not to notice all the whacko parts.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The bible is the ultimate blasphemy. It claims to speak for God, yet it was written by men.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The bible never specifies what species the tree at the centre of the garden of Eden was. Protestants presumed it was the apple, since that was the main fruit that grew in Northern Europe. But apples don’t grow in the Euphrates fertile crescent, where some claim the garden of Eden was situated. It is too hot. Some scholars think it might have been a pomegranate. Sane scholars are quite sure the question is meaningless since the whole story is just a myth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The big problem with religions is they were founded by deeply unhappy people who fantasised what they would do with unlimited power to get even with those who had wronged them. Then they put those twisted thoughts into the newly constructed deity’s mouth in the holy books. Even in imagination, absolute power corrupts absolutely. If I personally were to construct such a vengeful god, He would go after people who poisoned lakes, destroyed trees, polluted the air, attempted to drive a species to extinction, made a lot of noise, indulged in conspicuous consumption, consumed more than his fair share of the planet’s resources, deliberately tormented animals, knocked on the door to sell religions, sold merkles on TV, filled boxes of breakfast cereal only half full, sang country or rap music… I would tell myths about how in the mist shrouded past my deity had caused weapons of war to blow up in the faces of all who tried to use them. Because the founding myths are personal fantasies only, they are necessarily silly. Read Leviticus to see what I mean.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The biggest problem with religion is it teaches the flock that its dogma represents universal truth, and the believers have the duty to impose these beliefs on others through law, for example, concerning matters such as public prayer, abortion, end of life decisions, evolution and homosexuality. Religions refuse to accept the freedom of religion and freedom from religion of others. They believe only in their right to do whatever promotes their religion no matter how onerous it is for others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The body has a natural contraceptive hormone called progestin. The body uses it so suppress a second pregnancy after one has already started. The secret of oral contraceptives is to use this natural hormone to prevent even an initial pregnancy. The church seems to think this hormone is wicked. Then, to be consistent, Catholic women should be forced to take drugs to suppress it, thus causing them to become fertile at all times, even when pregnant. If it is not a sin to be infertile when pregnant, then why not permit infertility at other times as well?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The bright yellow god helmet stimulates a spot in the right temporal lobe with a varying magnetic field creating an extremely strange subjective experience which Christians interpret as god’s presence. How long will it be until the faith healers develop this technology to the point they can use it to bamboozle the flock into handing over their life savings just by putting their hands on the sides of the mark’s head.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Buddhists have a more plausible theory of the afterlife. It includes all beings, not just one special conceited species — man. They also have some weak evidence to support it. The Christians just say “Have faith” without offering even the tiniest shred of evidence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Catholic church complains it can no longer find young men to enter the priesthood. So it violently spits on gay people, while quietly holding out a hand to them, saying, “If you join us, we will protect you and give you an aura of respectability.” But young gay men don’t want to join such a hypocritical organisation — one run primarily for and by pedophiles.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Catholic church convicted Galileo of heresy in 1634. This was 40 years after Columbus, 100 years after Copernicus and 110 years after the reformation. The church to this day spreads FUD to block the advance of science. Science, without consciously meaning to, debunks religious myths, which erodes ecclesiastical power and wealth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Catholic church demands immunity from prosecution when its priests rape or molest children. Similarly it demands immunity when it preaches hate and persecutes gay people. Just because they have been around for hundreds of years should not exempt them from them law.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Catholic church has been a crime syndicate masquerading as a religion for at least 900 years.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Catholic church has been tottering ever since 1347 when the great plague that kill half the population in Europe proved the church has no supernatural power whatsoever. Like a great tree, rotten to the core, it can still take centuries for it to fall.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Catholic Church has done so many unforgivable things. Among them was convincing gay people throughout the ages that their only acceptable sexual expression was to serve the church in celibacy and make do with Jesus as a fantasy male lover.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Catholic Church has paid out over $1 billion in settlements for child sexual abuse cases since 1980. Over 100,000 victims of clergy abuse have come forward. If they were a chain of summer camps we would have shut them down long ago. They are protected from prosecution by primitive awe of religious magic.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Catholic church is complaining it is not being permitting to ram its religious superstitions down the throats of others. Nobody is in any way interfering with what Catholics do vis a via abortion or contraception. Their claim that a single cell should have the rights of a full grown human makes no sense without the goofy notion of souls possessing single cells like little demons. There is zero evidence for them. It is thus highly improper to force this superstition down the throats of non-believers, much less put skeptics in jail or kill them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Catholic church is run by ecclesiastical drag queens who have conned the poor into paying for their gowns.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Christian bible condemns murder but condones drunkenness, and presumably by extension drunk driving. Most people avoid drunk driving because it is foolish, wrong, antisocial and dangerous to one’s self and others. It does not matter whether the god Jehovah approved or not. If it were universally accepted that the god Jehovah is a myth, people would still avoid both murder and drunk driving because they know they are wrong, frowned on and severely punished. People who think the god Jehovah is a crock are no more likely to commit crimes than believers. I suspect it is the reverse, since Catholics erroneously believe all it takes is a confession and some boring prayers to erase the effects of any wrongdoing. Christians often argue for the existence of the god Jehovah by claiming everyone would run amok if belief ceased. That is an argument for lying, not for the god Jehovah’s existence. Because atheists, in general, behave more ethically that Christians, the argument is invalid for either purpose.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Christian churches teach their flocks that donations to charities that actually do something don’t count; only donations to the church count toward salvation. This deflects billions of dollars from useful to useless activities.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Christian conception of god is much like a mafia don, who pretends to be a great philanthropist while, behind the scenes, ordering his henchmen to shake down, beat up and torture.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Christian makes two claims:
Christians pretend that if there is even the remotest possibility that (1) is true, then (2) must inevitable follow. That is both absurd and preposterously conceited.
- There is an intelligent presence in the universe that micromanages human lives.
- That Christians alone have an exclusive infallible communication pipeline to this entity both to petition it, and to discover its wishes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Christian notion of heaven is not only preposterous and childish, it is monumentally tedious, with no challenges and no possibility of escape. Only a nincompoop would desire it. Death is a million times more desirable.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Christian opposition to stem cell research is based on the idea that a single cell embryo is a potential human. That makes as much sense as considering sperm sacred. They too are potential humans. Both have a slim chance to grow into a human if implanted in a uterus. Surely using excess embryos for research is better than keeping them frozen for years then discarding them — the current practice. This is not an ethical problem; it is problem of religious superstition.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Christian propaganda machine pumps out the notion that Christians are the good people and everyone else is not. Just think, are Christians truly just the same, more likely or less likely that average to make life miserable for others?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Christian tradition forbids the eating of tarantulas, much as the Islamic and Jewish ones forbids the eating of pork. Imagine if you lived in a town where nearly every restaurant had a variety of tarantula dishes on the menu. You might try to convince your non-Christian friends to avoid tarantula, at least when dining with you, completely independent of your desire to convert them to a different religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Christians presume the unknown is filled with whatever they wish it were. They then lie and pretend they have absolute proof for their wild speculation. As a result, they are far too optimistic is estimating the unknown. In contrast, the scientists tend to ignore the unknown, and don’t want to count on it containing any good news. The net result is they are too pessimistic in estimating the unknown.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Christians use a visual symbol, a man nailed to a cross of wood dying slowly. The problem is the Christians behave as if this symbol meant “let’s string the bastards up”.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Christian’s greatest joy would be to destroy every pornographic image on the planet, except his favourites. His joy comes from denying pleasure to others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The church does not want you reading the bible. Originally to discourage people, they burned alive anyone who translated it from Latin to spoken languages. They would burn you alive if they caught you making copies or reading it. Almost nobody reads it today, out of laziness, unlike the way nearly all Muslims read the Qur’an cover to cover, over and over. Today, you have the freedom the read the bible cover to cover without punishment, so long as you do not discuss your discoveries. I strongly suspect if you do it, you will not longer claim to believe every word Some of it is just too evil or too crazy.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The church has incredible cheek to demand that it has the right to decide who can partner up and who cannot, and further to demand tribute from an expensive ceremony for anyone pairing up. For centuries the church has claimed anyone who ignores their impudence is “living in sin”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The churches are criminal organisations:
- They physically abuse children in their care.
- They forcibly sexually molest children.
- They promote hate crimes against homosexuals.
- They con people out of money with false promises.
- They are medical quacks.
- They foster delusions and other forms of mental illness with hypnotic techniques.
Anyone else pulling off stunts like that would be jailed or run out of town.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The churches have no more business meddling in the sex education needed to contain the global AIDS epidemic than epidemiologists have censoring the sermons of pastors.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The churches make a bargain with the pedophiles. The church says “We will cover for you and provide you with an endless supply of obedient victims if you dedicate your life to spreading the faith professionally.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The churches welcome all manner of sinners: adulterers, child molesters, thieves, con men, drunkards, child beaters, wife beaters, drug addicts… but they utterly refuse to welcome homosexuals unless they join the clergy. It looks like this policy is intended primarily as a stick to enlist unencumbered recruits for low-paying jobs in the clergy.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The civil war ripped America apart as no other has. Even 150 years later the scars are still apparent. Imagine if God had not entered into the conflict to inflame each side with righteous indignation. An end to slavery could have been peacefully negotiated recognising the economic difficulties it brought on. The slave owners would have had not a leg to stand to defend their brutality.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The comic strips Family Circus and Dennis the Menace represent the saccharine side of Christian propaganda.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The constitutions of the United States and Canada provide freedom of religion. This protects actions motivated by superstition and irrationality, but not actions motivated by reason. For example a person may refuse military service because they assert the sky god will cause hurricanes, but they can’t refuse on the grounds the other side did nothing to justify invading them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The crazier a religious belief, and the more evidence it could not possibly be true, the more tenaciously the true believers believe.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The creator of the universe would have to know about the life cycle of the stars. The god Jehovah does not.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The difference between a Christian and an atheist is that Christians believe 9,999 religions are bogus and atheists believe 10,000 are.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Drake equation estimates there are about 10,000 intelligent civilisations just in our Milky Way galaxy alone. There are 10,000 religions on earth, so you might guess there are 100,000,000 of them in our galaxy, presuming the other civilisations are stuck in legacy superstition like us. What are the odds one of our earth religions is the true religion? When you consider the entire universe, the odds become infinitesimal. That means the odds of Judaism, Christianity or Islam being the true religion are negligible.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The early church, at the instigation of Emperor Constantine, burned all holy gospels but four. This would be like Walt Disney Inc. using their legal muscle to eliminate all variations of Sleeping Beauty but theirs, then promoting it as a literal true story.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Egyptians had it right when they worshipped crocodiles. The crocodile is one of the few large creatures with a chance of surviving man’s environmental destruction if we don’t hunt them to extinction first.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The end times people claimed with 110% certainty the world would end on 2011-05-21. It didn’t. Neither did it on 1000-01-01, 2000-01-01 or any of other hundreds of bible-certain predictions either. This is a con aimed at idiots. What is really funny is trusting churches promoting the scam, soliciting funds that in theory they will never get to spend.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The fantasy of life after death, particularly the idea of ghosts that have a second death and pass over into some bright light is pervasive, even in secular culture. At any one time there are three or four dramas playing on TV, each focusing on the notion of ghosts. It has become the replacement cliché for the western or cop show. There are even standard cinematic conventions for how these ghosts look and behave. Even the government uses the ghost theme in its public service ads asking people to check where electric lines are before they dig.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The first argument a Christian will bring up to defend his belief in god is Pascal’s Wager This is the clue that logic has nothing to with his belief. It is fear. Christians were traumatised as children, taught to be terrified of an uncaring, cruel, vindictive, god whom they must pretend to love, or face being burned eternally. They are victims of child abuse. No amount of logic will talk them out of it. They are like children terrified of monsters under the bed. A child may be 90% sure there is no monster under the bed, but just in case… Like children, Christians need reassurance they will be safe. They are victims of brainwashing at a very early age. The techniques to cure them of their delusions need to be similar to those you would use to reassure children. Traumatising children that way should be a criminal offence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The first symptom of brain damage caused by Christianity is a craving for kitsch.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The friction between Jews and Muslims goes way back. In the time of Mohammed, the Jewish citizens of Medina sided with the invading Meccans against the Muslims, violating their agreement. The Muslims then executed 900 adult male Jews and sent the women and children into slavery as punishment for treason.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The fundamental activity of all religions is extorting money with threats of after-death violence. The main difference between them and organised crime is the when the violence is promised.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The god Jehovah is as ludicrous as a religion made up by five year olds who threaten their little friends that they will chop the heads off their Barbie dolls in a sakerryfice.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The god Jehovah is in the same category as King Kong, Godzilla and the Gorgon Medusa — mythical monsters.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The god Jehovah is the grownups’ version of monsters under the bed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The god Jehovah is the projection of the Christian desire to micromanage the lives of others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The god Jehovah is the projection of the Christian desire to deny pleasure to others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The god Jehovah is the projection of the Christian desire to punish those they cannot control.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The god Jehovah of the old testament does not have the IQ or patience to have created quantum mechanics, let alone the entire universe. It is like claiming Uncle Buford, who suffers from Alzheimers, and dropped out of school in grade two, is the creator of the universe. It is just too stupid an assertion to merit debate. Psychiatrists debate whether aliens send mind control rays into their patients’ minds, not because the assertion has merit, but merely because their patients suffer from the delusion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The god Jehovah reputedly sent a killer fog that bypassed homes marked with the blood of the lamb. If this store is true, then surely there should be a repeat performance to eradicate the earth of Republicans. These people are not just stupid and misguided, they are cruel and malicious, motivated by an overweaning greed. Surely, Republican are the dirt bags that Ezekiel 16:49 refers to.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The god Jehovah reputedly torments people for eternity with no possibility of reprieve for crimes as minor as a single count of having sex outside marriage. It strikes me as absurd that this same god would forgive much more serious crimes like murder, just because the perpetrator confessed the crime and gave some money to a religious con man.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The god Jehovah was criminally insane. He advocated genocide of Amorites, Bashonites, Benajamites, Canaanites, Cushites Girgashites, Hittites, Hormahites, Jebusites, Mesbonites, Perizzites and of course homosexuals. We would lock up lunatics who mindlessly followed the commandments of Caligula, but there are too many Christians to do that.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The greatest scams include:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Giving money to a professional Christian will miraculously improve your lot now or after you are dead.
- Homeopathy will cure you of disease. The cures are so dilute they amount to pure water with not even one molecule of the active ingredient.
- You can lose weight without eating less and exercising.
- It is necessary to attack folks on the other side of the world to prevent them from attacking you.
The height of hypocrisy is, on Easter, NPR celebrating US soldiers returning from Afghanistan. These soldiers killed an average of one civilian each. They were not defending the USA, but stealing Afghanistan’s natural resources. The makes them each war criminals guilty of a capital offense, the same as Nazis hanged at Nuremberg, not heroes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The highest divorce rate is in the states with most conservative religious views. This suggests these views are unrealistic and toxic to relationships.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The highest STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) rates are in the states with most conservative religious views. This suggests abstinence-only is unrealistic and counter-productive.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The History Channel, the National Geographic Channel and the Discovery Channel all air religious propaganda disguised as if it were hard science. If they must do this, how about some propaganda from a religion other than Christianity? We need a fresh misconception of the universe from time to time.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The human frailty that con men find easiest to exploit is wishful thinking that there exists some relatively effortless metaphysical process that wards off unpleasant events and attracts pleasant ones.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The idea of Christian or Muslim piloting the plane I am in is disconcerting. When the going gets rough these loons freeze and start praying instead of doing something useful.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The instant someone mistakes a pleasant bodily feeling as the holy spirit giving specific instruction, they are well on their way to madness.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The irony is Hitler’s whacky notion of the master race is just a variant of the Jewish notion of God’s chosen people. Both those beliefs are toxic. They make those who believe them behave in an insanely entitled and insufferable way.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Jews and the Mormons used the same con, promising the faithful other people’s land, i.e. Palestine and Independence Missouri.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Jews don’t try to force their quirky Kosher food rules on others. Ditto the Muslims with Halal. They realise that religious rules apply only to members of the faith, but the Catholics think they speak for everyone when they force their religious superstitions about gays and the equivalence of a single cell with an adult human on others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The last thing I want to see on a pilot is a religious symbol such as a cross or crescent. It means that when the going get tough, this twit will start praying and thinking about his imaginary afterlife rather than focusing on his job.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The laziness of Christians appalls me. Assuming they truly wanted to please a presumed creator of the universe, you’d think they would make an exhaustive enquiry to discover just what this creator expects of them. Instead, they take the word of the first snake oil salesman who comes along, and refuse to revisit the matter ever after.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The little Christian decided to prove scientifically that the god Jehovah exists. He took 5 pennies and started tossing them into the air about every 10 seconds. After 7 minutes he noticed that had all come up heads. He announced “God has just graced me with a miracle since coming up 5 heads is very improbable, only 1 in 32.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The main advantage to a believer is it gives him an excuse to torment and kill infidels without conscience.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The main atheist strategy for converting Christians is to wait for one to attack and attempt to sell them on Jesus. They then try an irritable counter attack. Instead of going after the hardest nuts first, it might be more productive to go after the low-hanging bananas.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The main difference between Satanists and Christians is Satanists don’t claim to be morally superior to everyone else. The second difference is Christians imagine they have a right to meddle in the private lives of others, based on their misappropriated moral authority.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The main lesson that has come out of the Catholic church scandal, is that it would have been much safer for parishioners to entrust their children to random strangers than to priests.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The main purpose of a religion is to con the believers out of their money.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The main reason someone would feel bad about dying is that they have not got much accomplished in their life. Christians waste their lives on pointless activities. No wonder they are so afraid of dying and cling to false promises of extensions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The main thing wrong with Christianity is that they sell it as if it were true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The man most convinced that a god will shower him with boons after his body rots is the man whom fortune treats most shabbily now, like a compulsive gambler utterly convinced a slot machine, with absolute certainty, will soon pay out simply because it hasn’t ever done so before.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The media create dramas where the bogus claims of psychics and priests are true. They do this fully knowing it is BS. Montel Williams says he considers Sylvia Browne a phony, but has her on once a week anyway. Wish fulfillment sells soap.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The more often someone accused of a crime invokes god, the higher the odds they will eventually be found guilty. God is the primary tool of the con man just as a lock pick is the primary tool of a burglar.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The most convincing argument that Muslims have offered that their religion is valid is that most Arabic speakers consider Mohammed to be a poet in the Arabic language head and shoulders above all others. Therefore, he must have been taking divine dictation. They even claim that better poetry, if it ever written, will trump the Qur’an. I can’t verify this since I don’t speak Arabic and I am not familiar with Arabic poetry. I have heard recitations from the Qur’an, and they are unusually sonorous and haunting, so the claim is plausible. I accept the claim, even though I suspect Muslims can’t help but be biased evaluating the poetic skills of the founder. On the other hand, Milton composed his verse as if taking dictation, just the way Mohammed did. Poems such as Paradise Lost could also conceivably have been interpreted as divine dictation. Shakespear is considered by most English speakers as head and shoulders above all other playwrights. However, that does not make him infallible. Islam makes extraordinary claims. It needs extraordinary evidence to back them, if they want to persuade me.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The most dangerous Christian ideas:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Gay people should be killed or at least persecuted.
- The world is going to end soon, so there is no need to take care of it.
- Priests should be exempt from the laws against pedophilic rape.
- The bible is an infallible source of scientific and moral knowledge.
- Fulfilling biblical prophesies to bring on global nuclear war is a Good Thing™ since it means lunch with Jesus.
- Be fruitful and multiply even when the earth cannot support the offspring.
- All other species are here purely to serve man.
The most disgusting thing about Christians is they preach hate toward gay people who did nothing to them. They encourage violence even toward children who have been accused of being gay. The bastards are so smug they pretend this vile behaviour is the highest virtue.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The most peculiar thing about Americans is that they show far more respect and concern for corpses than living people.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The movies let you pretend for a couple of hours to be Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen, buddies with Superman, who can be counted on to bail you out of any conceivable trouble. Christians are so enamoured of the fantasy that they frantically lie to each other, and persecute non-believers, to help convince themselves a similar Superman story it is really true, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Muslims make quite a point that they believe in only one god. To me it seems, by protesting so much, they are saying, ‘Yes there are plenty of deities, but only Allah counts’.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Neanderthals covered the dead and red ocher and buried them. The Cro-Magnons included goods in the grave. I speculate the original purpose of the grave goods may have been just a way to show respect, similar to retiring the number of a hockey great. Later it would have evolved into the myth the goods could be used after death.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The notion of an infinitely merciful creator god is a croc. It is extremely rare for any creature to act with any concern at all for the suffering of other creatures unless they are offspring.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The notion of separation of church and state long predates the founding fathers of the USA. Matthew 22:21 Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The odds of a god existing are extremely remote. The odds of a god existing that cares if you follow the silly rules in some holy book such as the Qur’an or the bible are even more remote. Be good because being good makes everyone’s lives work better, not because you fear some invisible bogeyman.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The one question Christians refuse to tackle is “Why are you so sure all the other religions are wrong? What is so different about yours? You admit you know utterly nothing about them. How can you possibly know yours is the best?”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The only difference between a Christian and a delusional psychotic who thinks an invisible being is out to get him, is Christians have published a book about their delusions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The only reason I can come up with that Jews and Christians do not have overwhelming sense of shame for worshiping the god Jehovah, is that they have not yet read the Bible which describes his atrocities. If they had read the bible, the only possible reason to worship the god Jehovah is fear and overwhelming cowardice, similar to way a sheepish Nazi would have kowtowed to Hitler out of fear.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The only way a Christian can claim to believe every word of the bible is by either lying or by avoiding reading it. How else does a Christian reconcile the bible’s claim the earth is flat with satellites and photos of earth from space?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The original idea of subsidising churches by excusing them from taxes was that this was justified because they did good works the government would otherwise have to do such as:
- community center to be used for many purposes such as lectures, weddings, club meetings…
- recreational activities.
- caring for the poor and sick here and abroad.
- providing life counseling.
- arranging community events such as picnics and celebrations.
- encouraging people to behave better, e.g. be more generous to the less fortunate, drink less alcohol, avoid recreational drugs, avoid adultery, financially support families and relatives, be more considerate of others…
The catch is modern televangelists collect millions of dollars, but do not provide any services back to the community. They masquerade as churches and thus avoid taxes. They are con men and leeches.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The other reason I hate Christians with a burning passion is their religion makes them into environmental vandals. Their monumental conceit is obscene. They imagine the entire universe was created for no other purpose than their personal pleasure. They believe, no other creatures but fellow Christians have any inherent right to life. They believe their god Jesus will soon destroy earth, so there is no need to take care of it. They are the ultimate environmental barbarians. If they find destruction of the earth so seductive, I wish they would commit collective suicide now and let the rest of us get on with repairing the damage they have done to the earth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The people of Haiti need prayers and crucifixes as much as they need dried lizards. Instead, they need people eager to get on with the hard work of caring for the injured and homeless. Christians who waste time with liturgical magic are con men and/or lazy buggers looking for any excuse to avoid real work.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The people who insist that a god must exist to explain the mysteries of science typically know less about science than the average second grader.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The people who naïvely refer to the bible as “ the good book” have never read it cover to cover. It depicts, condones and advocates nearly every crime and cruelty known to man.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The poor Jews must imagine that י ה ו ה (Jehovah) turned his back on them. He allowed Germany to go rogue and start killing people of all ages just because they were Jewish, Gypsy or gay.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The poor Muslims must imagine that Allah has turned his back on them. He let Jews evict the Palestinians and effectively enslave those left behind. He allowed the Serbs to massacre them. He let Americans barge in and steal their oil, seed genomes and anything else of value, shredding people of all ages and genders with high explosives, burning them with napalm and white phosphorus — not to mention routine torture.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Pope updated exorcism rituals in 1999. Half of Americans tell pollsters they believe in a literal devil. 10% claim to have communicated with him. What a bunch of dingbats!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The practical reasons for a military trying to indoctrinate its troops with a religion are:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Soldiers are less frightened of dying, and hence more willing to take risk to kill opponents.
- Soldiers a less guilty about killing others. They are just prematurely dispatching them to the afterlife.
- It excuses what is normally considered extremely evil behaviour. If you are doing something for god, the normal rules of right and wrong do not apply.
- The military can promise extravagant rewards for martyrdom without actually having to deliver anything.
The preposterousness of the Hindu religion is blatantly obvious to Christians, and the preposterousness of the Christian religion is blatantly obvious to Hindus. Yet each is blind to the absurdity of their own religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The primary enemy of Islam and Christianity is education. If children learn how the world really works, they learn how to analyse the bogus claims of the holy books for themselves. In the USA, people are proud of their scientific ignorance, and work hard to destroy the education of children by firing teachers, putting nonsense in their text books and throttling funding. The more ignorant children are, the easier marks they are for religious dogma. For similar reasons, Muslims block girls from attending school at all.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The primary goal of religious tolerance should be to stop large religions from lying about the smaller ones and using the power of the state to suppress the smaller ones.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The primary technique of manipulation is telling lies. The manipulator promises that doing as he asks will lead to satisfying some strong basic drive or avoiding something feared. The satirical movie Idiotocracy lays the mechanism bare in its crudest form. The art reaches its peak in religious evangelism.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The pro life and pro choice forces will forever be at loggerheads. The pro-choice people see a fetus as the tadpole it appears to be. The pro life forces see it as the adult it may one day become. The pro-lifers not only want to stop abortions, they want the mothers to bear the fetus to term, even at severe risk to their health, and to raise the child to adulthood. They would make a more convincing case of their sincerity if they were willing to raise the fetuses through surrogate motherhood, and to raise the children. They seem to loose all interest the welfare of the child the instant it is born. They seem far more interested in punishing the mother for an unwanted pregnancy than they do in protecting the fetus.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The pro-Christianity Vision channel aired a documentary about how Christianity made a small town come together for a noble cause. A child, Theresa Johnson, had disappeared, presumed sexually assaulted. The town’s people gathered in the church to pray, sitting on their butts, smugly congratulating themselves for their caring, instead of getting out to search for her.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The pro-life position on abortion is based on Catholic theology that posits souls enter the cell at conception. Blood cells do not have souls. However, as the blastula divides, the soul expands to live in all the cells of the growing fetus. This supposition, to the Catholic mind, implies a fertilised egg is logically equivalent to a full grown human. This is all blithering nonsense, pure supposition without a shred of scientific evidence to support it. However, the doctrine is used to justify killing doctors, mothers and fetuses who refuse to accept Catholic dogma. It should be possible to get restraining orders against Catholics who try to impose their religious dogma on others. Freedom of religion implies freedom from other peoples’ religions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The progress of civilisation is mainly about dropping rigid rules and misconceptions of ancient religions. We have seen slavery, prejudice against blacks, suppression of women and persecution of gays dropping away.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The racist Conservative Party have enacted a regulation that Muslim women must disrobe for citizenship ceremonies. (They must remove the veil they consider necessary for public decency.) I suggest a modest proposal. If Muslims must disrobe, so should everyone else, including the judge. After all, Christians can hide firearms, bottles of acid and bombs under all that unnecessary clothing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The reason a TV evangelist sells Christianity is the same reason Billy Mays pitches OxiClean. It is an easy way to make a lot of money. Most evangelists don’t even have to ship any product.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The reason Christians worship alcohol as the blood of Christ and condemn marijuana as the devil’s weed, is that drinking alcohol gives them a hangover.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The reason euthanasia is illegal under all circumstances is that Christians believe that suicide is a sin because humans are the god Jehovah’s property. In their view, suicide under any circumstances is a form of vandalism or robbery. They believe they have a holy right to impose this odd religious belief on others. Because Christians are in the majority and so damn arrogant, they steamroller the constitutional freedom of others to avoid having Christianity imposed on them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The religious fanatic can’t see any difference between these two questions:
Religion is a type of brain impairment, like a stroke, that selectively destroys specific types of logical thinking.
- Is there any sort of intelligent being or process that designed and created the universe?
- Is the holy scripture of their cult inerrant?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The scientific assumption is that whatever we observe on earth is indicative of the way the universe behaves everywhere else. The religious assumption is that earth is the centre of the cosmos and that man is the acme of life in the universe. This incredible vanity has even infected many scientists.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The second most irritating thing Christians do is presume their tastes represent some universal standard. They further believe they are entitled to impose this atrocious taste on everyone else because they believe they are God’s chosen arbiters of what is acceptable. The taste ranges from prudish movies, to sexless live entertainment, to lame pornography, to Christmas kitsch to syrupy or baleful religious art to black velvet Elvis paintings to terminally corny music.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The secret of humanity’s success is that parents teach their children not only what they have learned but what the society as a whole knows. Christianity and other dogmatic religions interfere with the process. Parents teach children extremely obsolete and inaccurate knowledge, tolerated because it is assigned religious significance.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The secular analog to god’s plan is doing the optimal thing at each moment. You don’t necessarily know what it is, but you have a good idea from past experience and exhortations from others what it is not. It works like a GPS. Even if you pay no attention to doing the best thing, when you start paying attention again, the system resyncs itself to your current situation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The soldiers in the Congo routinely rape women and then use guns and sticks to destroy the walls between their uteruses, rectums and vaginas leaving them in pain and incontinent for life. They justify this behaviour because the bible says man must command woman.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The stock in trade of screenwriters is the improbable and the fantastic co-incidence. Screenwriters have inadvertently convinced the public that whatever scientists say is inevitable, e.g. global warming they are convinced can never happen. Conversely, whatever the scientists say is highly unlikely, e.g. a god meddling in human affairs, they are absolutely certain happens every day with complete reliability.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The theoretical intent of the hijab is modesty, to avoid attracting male attention, yet if a women wears one, and walks through an airport, every eye will be upon her. It has also become a respectable way for a Muslim teen to rebel against her parents.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The thing I miss being an atheist is the ability to bless things. It would be nice, by just a positive thought, to help some plant, animal or person thrive. But then again, Christians can’t bless either; they just pretend to.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The three religions of the book, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all trace their lineage to Abraham, a man who was a dangerous psychotic. No wonder no much insanity and violence has come from these three religions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The touching Japanese movie Departures shows how ceremony can help people get through the death of loved one. On the other hand, I see people with very little money coerced into believing they must blow it on expensive funeral services, durable coffins, chemical treatments and burial plots. I can’t help but feel they have been bamboozled.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The trouble with corporations providing information is that they are provide whatever sells, not whatever is true. Thus they perpetuate myths.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The truth is tough. The more it is challenged, tested and debated, the more it shines as obviously indeed the truth. It requires no lies or dishonest debating tactics to defend it. Christianity is quite different. It is fragile. It hides from honest debate. Christians resort to lies and debating trickery to defend it. They know it is untrue, but for some strange reason imagine it would be a good thing if others trusted it as true. Christian parents isolate their children to protect this delicate tissue of lies because they know it is fragile and will shatter like a dandelion as soon as it is tested.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The ultimate hypocrite is a military chaplain who helps soldiers overcome their guilt at raping, maiming and killing children.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The universe is only 14 billion years old, yet can we see objects that are now 47 billion light years away. Isn’t that mind boggling enough for you? Why must you Christians sully your conception of the cosmos with imaginary kitschy angels with trumpets?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The unscrupulous bastards who stoop to the widest range of cheating tactics usually prevail. Karl Rove would be a classic example. Religion lets you pretend a god will give them their just deserts even if you can’t.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Vatican wants to make Pope Jean Paul II the patron saint of pedophiles because he performed one miracle — one of the tens of millions of people he blessed got well. Any doctor with that bad a track record would lose his licence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The veil was a Greek invention that Mohammed brought back from a trip to Syria. Its purpose was not modesty, but keeping the dust out of a woman’s throat. The Qur’an has nothing to day about female dress other than that it should be modest. The hijab was originally a Hindu garment. Ironically, in Egypt the veil has become a symbol of female liberation. They have become extremely expensive, high-fashion garments.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64) I learned these things on 2012-02-12 in a lecture by Dr. Roger Allen, Professor Emeritus from the University of Pennsylvania.
The very thought of Christianity makes me nauseous. It is so sickly sweet, dripping with insincerity and kitsch. It is the spiritual analogy of cheap sugar donuts.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The very word theocracy is deceptive. God has nothing to do with it. In a theocracy a small group of ordinary humans pretend to speak for a deity as an excuse to tell everyone else what to do.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The way I read it, the first amendment requires the government to be blind to a person’s religion. They may not discriminate for or against any particular faith, including atheism. That means the government should not be able to treat a group of secular humanists who meet every Sunday any differently from a group of Southern Baptists. In other words, churches avoiding property taxes and churchgoers getting a tax deduction for contributions should be declared unconstitutional unless the secular humanists were to get those perks too. Put more bluntly, it is wrong and should be illegal for Christians to freeload off everyone else with special privilege based no nothing more than their religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The word Christian is a misnomer. It suggests Christianity is an essential part of a person, something impossible to change. It really means “ someone who has been infected by the Christian meme”. We should find a term that expresses some optimism that it can be cured.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The word purpose is a slippery word. It has many meanings. For example:
- It can mean, does X have any benefit to some being? “The purpose, to earthworms, of humans is to grow trees that drop leaves to eat.”
- It can mean, is X earmarked for some project? “Does that pile of rocks over there have a purpose or is it just discards.”
- It can mean, was X constructed to achieve some end and what was that end? “Does this pointed flint have purpose?”
- It can mean, presumably a god created this. why? “What is the purpose of the universe.”
The concept of purpose presumes some being enjoying X as a means to an end. To be clear, you need to be explicit who that being is, because the answer differs for different beings. People often pretend to be looking for a universal purpose, when they actually mean a purpose for an imaginary god. When they say “The universe must have a purpose, therefore god exists.” they are playing word games. The notion of universal purpose presumes a god. So they are basically presuming the existence of god to prove the existence of god or sneakily trick people into accepting the notion of god, a rather dishonest bit of circular logic.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The world is seriously overpopulated. It used to be a virtue to “ be fruitful and multiply”, but today it is downright irresponsible. Having more than two children is the most serious assault an ordinary individual can mount on the planet. Straight people should get off their moral high horses and acknowledge that gays on average are behaving in a much more morally responsible way than they are.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The world seems more amazing that it actually is because we love to endlessly retell stories of how the factors lined up to allow one person to rescue another from a dangerous situation. We never talk about the failures, when there was nobody around to help, nobody around who knew what to do, nobody who could stay calm enough to act rationally or when all the best efforts simply failed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There are 10,000 people who identify as vampires in the USA. Some of them are so deluded that they imagine they actually are vampires, and will live forever if they keep on drinking blood. I don’t find this surprising. Their beliefs are no more fantastical, silly or unsubstantiated than those espoused by the conventional religions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There are hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos, each too small to see with the naked eye, a side effect of fertility treatments. They obviously will never be implanted. They will be eventually discarded. Christians object to them being used for stem cell research on the grounds they potentially could be implanted to grow to form a human. That is also true of a sperm cell. When then not hold that every sperm is sacred as well? Christians think it somehow more dignified to discard the cells. I for one, if I were a fetus, would far sooner my tiny body gave life to another than to be tossed away as useless garbage.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There are over 10,000 Gods. Most people dismiss all, or all but one of earth’s religions without so much as a cursory glance, the same way scientists dismiss yet another perpetual motion machine. Even fundamentalists are not in the least surprised that people tend to adhere to the local most popular religion. Everyone would be dumbfounded if it turned out that intelligent beings in other parts of the universe subscribed to one of the earth religions. This means that people, in their hearts, know their own religion is merely a local folkway, not a universal truth.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There are two kinds of religions: bullies that kill people and use various types of force or threat to gain new members or torment non-members and the small ones that don’t. I can put up with some nutty sect that leaves out dishes of honey at the foot of the garden for the fairies, but the first type, they really have to go. This planet cannot survive them and their crazy notions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There are two main kinds of people who say things that are not true:
Christians come in both flavours.
- Con men who knowingly lie to pull one over on others for personal gain.
- Cretins who don’t know they are telling untruths. They mindlessly parrot what they have been told.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There are two racist themes running through the bible. One is that black people are cursed, and hence deserve foul treatment and slavery. These miserable verses greatly delayed the abolition of slavery and equal civil rights in the USA. The other is that Jews are the master race (aka God’s chosen people). As such, they have the right to confiscate other people’s land and commit genocide one whomever they please. These obscene verses are the root of the conflict between Jews and Palestinians in Israel.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There are two types of religious freedom:
- Freedom to do irrational, eccentric things that non-believers do not appreciate.
- Freedom from others insisting you modify your behaviour to honour their religious superstitions.
Americans honour the first and ignore the second.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There is an apocryphal Christian sect called the Bunyanites. Their keystone belief is that horse riding is wicked. They base this belief on a story about St. Paul of Bunyan who once rode upon an ox, the holy Babe, blue both in colour and disposition. This story appears in one of their anonymously written bible. They explain “ It is written that anyone consorting with horses must be whipped and stung with pismires.” They show up at every horse show, riding school, western movie, and rodeo to protest. They never present any evidence that horse riding is cruel, unhealthful, extravagant or energy inefficient. They just talk gleefully about the pismires. Where they exist in sufficient numbers, Bunyanites have managed to “ protect the children” by banning all books from school libraries that either discuss or depict horses, ridden or potentially ridden. They sometimes burn alive people who ride horses. They lobby tirelessly to make horse riding or horse keeping a serious federal crime. Some adherents even picket the funerals of equestrians. What I find odd, is the way the media tolerate them, inviting them to every TV show remotely concerned with horses, just they way other Christian sects invariably get invited to shows on homosexuality, euthanasia and abortion where they similarly refuse to present any evidence for their views.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There is far more evidence that alien greys will save man from himself than Jesus will return and make it all better.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There is little difference between a Christian and a mentally ill person suffering from delusions. A Christian suffers less stigma because there are so many sharing the affliction. Christians are far more dangerous because they act in concert cross-stimulating a common delusion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There is no archeological evidence for the existence of Moses, David or Jesus, yet there is for key figures of other religions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There is nothing noble about pretending someone’s religious twaddle is equally valid as reality-based truth. It is just cowardice. Stop lying. You can still be polite.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There is one thing we know for certain about the person who will start WWIII (World War III) . They will believe a disembodied voice in his ear commanding him to was the voice of this favourite imaginary deity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There is something deeply unfair and absurd about a society that insists that every discussion about civil rights, (e.g. euthanasia, gay marriage … ) has to have religious fundamentalist bigot on the panel for “ balance”, even when that bigot cannot muster even a single fact to support his view. Yet evangelists may make the most hateful, absurd, fallacious and fraudulent claims from the pulpit without anyone invited or permitted to dispute them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There is something off about Christians preaching anti-abortion and the sanctity of life when they kill people by cheerleading war, interfering with sex education, and leaving the homeless to fend for themselves, opposing school lunches and blocking universal medical care for children. They refuse even to promote responsible contraception, which would make abortion unnecessary. They just want yet another excuse to punish. This time the scapegoats are women who get pregnant without meaning to.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There two kinds of error:
Magicians, con men and the clergy specialise in tricking us into the first error where politicians and military men specialise in tricking us into the second.
- Believing things that are not true.
- Refusing to believe things that are true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There was an episode of the Twilight Zone called Four O’clock. A demented man, played by Theodore Bikel tries to convince an agent from the FBI that at 4 o’clock, all the evil people in the world will shrink to 2 feet tall. He offers no explanation as to how this might happen. This reminds me of Christians and their goofy end-of-the-world prophesies. Even though these prophesies are undated, Christians convince themselves that with absolute certainty they will manifest real soon now.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
There’s a very slim chance that leprechauns exist too, but you don’t see fundamentalists running around claiming with absolute certainty they exist or tormenting gay people to keep the leprechauns happy.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Think how many crank food fads there are. I remember one, Adele Davis, who believed you should your cook meat overnight at barely warm temperatures. One of these obsessive cranks got to the Jews a long time ago to create the silly Kosher rules for them. Everyone should be free to eat crank diets, but not to impose them on others, or inconvenience others for them. They are just traditions. They don’t deserve to be taken nearly so seriously.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Think how many millions of times have Christians prayed to their god to save them. Can you think of even once when he did? Think of all the people burned alive, consumed by disease, raped and murdered. If this god exists, he has a heart of stone.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Think of the monsters of history — Caligula, Nero, Vlad the Impaler, King Henry VIII, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush… Not once did anybody’s deity intervene to stop them. That means either all the world’s deities do not exist or those that do are hard-hearted bastards who are both useless and unworthy of worship.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
This business of forcing women to bear the children of rapists sounds like something Hitler would have dreamt up to humiliate Jewish women. It makes absolutely no sense. Tea Party candidates insist that women bear the children of rape. What you are balancing is the life of a single cell against the life of an actual child who will be hated by its biological mother and ashamed of its biological father, and itself for its entire life. It seems to me the life of a real child is far more important than the life of a potential one. Even sperms and eggs are potential children, in exactly the same sense that zygotes are. It is insane to torment real children to honour an abstract religious principle that has no basis in reality. Claiming that every zygote is sacred is just as silly as claiming every sperm is sacred, every egg is sacred, every lymphocyte is sacred, every neuron is sacred… Blithering nonsense! Cells die by the billions every day. The only people who weep over this mass slaughter, or butcher women who have abortions are nutty Christians who don’t understand the cellular reality.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
This chart graphs religiosity vs wealth. Basically it shows that the more religious you are, the poorer you are likely to be, with one exception, the USA. It shows how religion preys on the wishful thinking of the poor.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
This myth of life after death is kept alive by movies, stories and TV. It is just collective wishful thinking, people who wasted their lives and long for a second chance.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Those advocating the most violent means to disabuse others of their delusions are usually entangled in some rigid, delusional belief structure themselves.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)Consider Mao Tse Tung and his efforts to wipe out Tibetan Buddhism, or the American attempts to wipe out Islam in Iraq and Afghanistan or the Catholic church’s persecution of the Albigensian heresy.
Those Christians who preach that their god is responsible for earthquakes, should not only pay reparations to the Sumatrans, New Zealanders and Japanese for their god’s misbehaviour, they should get down on their bellies and grovel out an apology for their lies about the gross immorality of the earthquake victims, including the children.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Those that use Leviticus to justify killing gays have never read Leviticus. If they did, they would know it requires you to murder just about everybody including those wicked folks who eat shrimps, crabs, clams or oysters.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Those who praise the Haitians for their faith in God are cruel and stupid. Any supposed God thoroughly abandoned the Haitians. It would be foolhardy for Haitians to put any more trust in him. Further faith in God is what caused the troubles in the first place. The Haitians trusted a totally indifferent God rather than sound engineering to protect them from earthquakes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Those who succumb to creationism tend to have a below average IQ. They are optimistic and gullible. They fall for all manner of scams, conspiracy theories and whacky ideas not just creationism. Wishful thinking guides what they believe. They believe in eternal life just because someone has promised it to them, not because they have reasoned out that it is likely. They want it badly. That overrides any skepticism about the salesman’s ability or intent to deliver. Creationism is just a specific type of weak sales resistance. Science has little appeal to the creationist because it makes no grandiose promised benefits in return for belief. Creationists are like a teenage girl in love with a guy who has divorced four times previously. Wishful thinking overrides everything else. Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party candidate for senate in Delaware in 2010 is a classic example of such a flake.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Though Darwin had formulated his theory of evolution by natural selection by 1837, because of his fear of Christians, he procrastinated publishing it until 22 years later in 1859 in The Origin of Species. Even as it was, they mercilessly personally attacked him.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Through a slight of hand, using the fact that so many people have swallowed the religious superstition of souls, the Catholic church has managed to frame the abortion debate as though it were about the murder of adult humans. What they mean is dislodging imaginary souls. From a scientific perspective, at that early stage, a human is no more grandiose than a blood cell, and its life does not “begin” in any sense of non-living ingredients coming together to form something alive. All that happens is pre-existing cells divide and recombine and die. Catholics are so vain. They claim that the entire universe was created just for their pleasure. No wonder they imagine human cellular reproduction deserves to be accompanied by the sound of trumpets, and can only occur via inscrutable holy magic. This debate is really about Catholics getting their evidence-free soul theory enforced in law. It is really about demanding maximum fecundity to swell the coffers of the church. How do you know? The church applauds killing embryos as a side effect of in-vitro fertilisation. It is hard to have an honest debate when the church refuses to admit why it actually opposes abortion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Tithes are a protection racket that work similarly to a Mafia protection racket. In both, the victim hands over a percentage of his profits in return for assurance he will not be tortured. The main difference is intimidation to encourage tithes is legal. Christians have no trouble seeing the parallel when a witch doctor shakes down the flock, but develop psychological blindness when a priest does the same thing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
To a Christian, it matters not a whit if what he believes in untrue, irrational, preposterous, contradictory or impossible. All that matters is it makes him feel comforted when he thinks it. It is reminiscent of the addict’s attitude toward heroin.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
To design a modern building or bridge, you need to know trigonometry and calculus. Where do these creationists get off claiming that, without even knowledge of basic algebra, they know more about how the universe is constructed.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
To lock in lifelong control, priests systematically abuse children to undermine their ability to think for themselves.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
To lock in lifelong control, priests systematically abuse children with threats of after-death torture to undermine their ability to think for themselves.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
To me, the god Jehovah is even more preposterous a god than Clarus the dogcow. That is because I have read the bible cover to cover, but have not yet read the holy books of Clarus.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
To tame religion, it would suffice to get each man to give up the notion his religion is 100% true and all the others 100% wrong. When a Christian defends the notion of god, he does not mean the existence of a deity or creator, but of the story of the god Jehovah precisely as described in his holy books. Like you, he is already convinced all the other notions of god are false, but rejects the notion that his religion is no different from any other, even though it has no unique properties.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
To this day, Christians cling to a cruel medieval custom. If the parents of a child fail to perform the Christian rite of marriage, the church labels the child a bastard and punishes it, for its entire life, through no fault of its own.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
To those who claim sexual orientation is a choice, tell me about the day you decided to get turned on more by girls than by boys. Be honest!. It just happened. A tsunami of sexual desire swept you away.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Traditionally, people have had the right to have as many children as they wanted. However, humans are now overflowing the planet. Overpopulation is causing environmental collapse, famine, mass pollution, global warming… Technology now allows 60 year old spinsters to push out babies 8 at a pop, then dying and leaving them for others to raise. Religions still command their adherents to breed to the max. We simply can’t continue as we did.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Trusting God is like refusing to vote then complaining when your candidate loses.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Try this experiment. Write down a list of whom you consider the ten greatest minds of all time. Then research them to find out their attitudes about religion. I think you will discover that most were atheist or were as critical of the religious practices of the day as they could get way with. This holds even if you include Jesus.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Trying to explain to a Christian why his beliefs could not possibly be true is like talking to a lizard. He can hear you but does not comprehend a word.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Under the guise of offering unbiased information to young pregnant women on the pro and cons of their various options, Christian organisations bully those coming to them for advice into complying with the group’s religious doctrines. These groups are immune from prosecution for fraud.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Using logic to help Christians discard their religious delusions is a bit like trying to talk down somebody who overdosed on LSD using only mathematics.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Watching the USA go down the creationist path in education is similar to watching a friend gradually ensnared by drugs, becoming more incoherent and impervious to my attempts to talk them out of it. In the modern world, countries who use 6000 year old science just can’t compete. The USA is hobbling itself with creationist science 5700 years behind even Yemen’s. It is a slow deliberate economic suicide.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Water deserves to be a religious symbol, not just because it supports life but because it is a symbol of reconciliation because it is composed in precisely equal portions of hydrogen ions H⁺ (the strongest possible acid) and hydroxyl ions OH⁻ (the strongest possible caustic) forming a perfectly mild combination. In a similar way, table salt NaCl is formed of sodium, a metal so reactive it often spontaneously catches fire on exposure to air or water, and chlorine, a poisonous gas used in warfare.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
We consider it poor form to discriminate against someone based on his religion, yet we consider it common sense to discriminate against someone who is delusional. Surely it is unwise to trust someone whose religion asserts the end times are near and that the end of the world is a Good Thing™ to captain a nuclear submarine.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
We don’t allow a Jewish waiter to dictate which foods are suitable for those he serves. Why then should an insurance agent be allowed to interfere with a woman’s reproductive choices based on his religious quirks?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
We don’t give the KKK (Klu Klux Klan) special tax breaks, so why do we give them to the Catholic church, an institution that has dedicated itself over the centuries to two great evils, persecuting gays and molesting/raping children?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
We don’t invite the Mafia to participate in every public discussion of issues like homosexuality, euthanasia, abortion, population control, evolution etc. So why do we invite another criminal organisation, the Catholic church, convicted again and again of abusing, molesting and raping children and conspiring to cover it up? They also spew hate for homosexuals which has lead to a spate of beatings and suicides. They are hardly experts on morality. This is like consulting the KKK for what constitutes ethical behaviour.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
We gays are making some slow progress with the Christians.
- At first they burned burn us alive in public ceremonies.
- Then they put us in jail.
- Then they dragged us behind cars.
- Then they fired us from our jobs.
- Then they evicted us from out apartments.
- Then they took our kids away.
- Then the crashed our funerals.
- Then they crashed our weddings.
- Then they made laws legally nullifying our relationships.
- If this softening keeps up, perhaps they will eventually feel satisfied just to spit on us.
I can’t imagine any other group that would not retaliate with violence. Gays are a thousand times more literal followers of Jesus than Christians are.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
We have reigned in some of the less powerful religions, like the Aztecs with their child sacrifice, but we still have not yet tamed the Christians and Muslims with their persecution of gays and abuse of children.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
We know what happens when you let Christians impose their religion on everyone. We call that time when science was suppressed, gays were burned alive, abortion and contraception were illegal, and heresy was a capital offence, the dark ages. Americans appear to be withdrawing from the world to retreat into a neo dark age cocoon of self-imposed ignorance and squalor.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
We know what to expect if the religious right comes to power in the USA. We have hundreds of years of European experience with the dark ages.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
We would not let a secular organisation continue to operate drug dealing, prostitution or terrorism rings so why do we let the church off the hook for systematic sexual and physical child abuse rings? Why have not these criminal institutions been shut down? It is simply custom. We have come to tolerate any amount of corruption from the churches out of a childish fear of their magic religious power to punish us in the afterlife.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What are soldiers doing when they shoot off guns at religious ceremonies? Are they reliving the joy of killing? Are they reliving the deaths of the fallen? The equivalent for civilians would be to stage a recreation of the failed attempt to restart the deceased’s heart with electric paddles.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What are the three most important threats to the survival of our planet? Overpopulation, thermonuclear war and global warming.
- Christians actively promote overpopulation and interfere with all forms of population control.
- Christian fundamentalists egg on conflict in the middle east because they believe thermonuclear war will mean lunch with Jesus. They promote the nuclear arms race.
- Christians oppose dealing with global warming on the grounds God would not permit such a catastrophe, (though oddly the bubonic plague was acceptable, Darfur is ok and thermonuclear war would be fine.).
Tolerating Christianity is suicidal. Christians are too delusional to be entrusted with deciding the planet’s future. I am not suggesting persecuting Christians, but rather talking them down from their drug-like delusions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What Christians need is not logical argument that Christian dogma is nonsense, but reassurance that the god Jehovah the bogeyman won’t torture them for eternity if they decide that a deity had no part in creating Christian dogma.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What divides humanity? Lies and untruths. What is the biggest source of lies and untruth? Religion. If the world is ever going to work together, it will require dismantling the worst lies and untruths of each religion especially those use to justify stealing resources from or killing people of a different religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What divides humanity? Lies and untruths. You don’t find people divided over a common absolute truth like 2 + 2 = 4. What is the biggest source of lies and untruth? Religion (with politics a close second). If the world is ever going to work together, it will require dismantling the worst lies and untruths of each religion especially those used to justify stealing resources from or killing people of a different religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What do you do if Christians traumatised you as a toddler, terrifying you with a vengeful, exacting, cruel, all-seeing god and eternal suffering in hellfire for even minor transgressions? Likely you are very afraid of dying. Contemplating the end of your life fills you with dread, rather than the relief one might feel at the end of a roller coaster ride. People who were fortunate enough to have avoided such abuse have no fear of hell. Hell is not objective reality, but a deliberately-created phobia. People (most likely your parents) induced the phobia in you control your behaviour. You were unfairly ambushed before you were old enough to psychologically defend yourself. You are a victim, but not a helpless victim.
If you fret “but what if hell exists?” remind yourself there is exactly the same amount of evidence for hell existing as there is that you are in danger of being kidnapped by fairies. Yes, I suppose they are both remotely possible, but not enough to warrant any practical consideration. Notice how this fear has been like pall spoiling almost every otherwise joyous moment of your life. Because of your conditioning, it might feel as if there is plenty of evidence, but it all comes down to, “a book said so” In almost every case, where we can double check, we discover this book is in error. It is the very opposite of infallible.
If you fret “but if I don’t believe in hell, I will rape and pillage”, don’t be silly, because people who don’t believe in hell usually behave considerably more ethically than Christians. That’s an argument for lying to yourself. It has no relevance in determining if hell actually exists. Christians are the ones gung ho on the military and killing Muslims and bombing civilians for the fun of it. The US military is a quasi-Christian organisation. The reason you don’t pitchfork babies is fear of punishment?? Seriously? You are kind to babies because you love babies. You would never dream of treating them that way. Trust yourself. Your very worry you might run amok indicates you are strongly inhibited, completely independently whether hell exists.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What god would design a world where baby sea turtles, as soon as they are hatched must run a gauntlet of shrieking gulls and amassed ghost crabs where most are torn to pieces? If there were such a god, it would deserve contempt and pity, not worship.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What good are churches?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- They provide a place for incompetent singers to sing without embarrassment.
- They teach people to sing.
- They provide a community gathering each week to share information over coffee and cookies.
- They sometimes raise money for charity.
- They host weddings and funerals.
What if I told you my neighbour hears voices who command him to do odd things, and he obeys? What if I told you my neighbour talks to dead people and claims they do his bidding? What if I told you my neighbour practices symbolic ritual cannibalism? What if I told you that my neighbour trusts in magic rituals to protect him from accidents and to find parking spaces? What if I told you my neighbour leaves notes under the door inviting me to join him in his rituals? Would you consider him as a baby sitter? What if I told you he did all these things because he was a Christian?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What if secular con men used scams as elaborate as those of the Christian church? Imagine:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- The victim does not realise he is being had, ever.
- The victim get suckered in again an again every week of his life.
- Secular con men, too, would build schools. Part of the curriculum would be inculcating beliefs that made people easy to con. Any nonsense will do. You jam people’s ability to reason by convincing them something riddled with inconsistencies is perfect truth.
- Victims would be tricked into introducing the con to their children and softening them up for it.
- Con men would give themselves grand-sounding academic titles like Dr. of Divinity.
What is death? No more experience, worry or fear. No more ability to influence the universe and no more responsibility to do so. It seems to me about as scary as the end of a roller coaster ride or going under anaesthesia.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What is most disgusting about Christian music is not the kitschy sentimentality, but the overwrought emotion used to sell a lie.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What is the most egregious thing the Catholic church does?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Encouraging superstition, such as demonic possession and the literal truth of the bible? No, it is much worse than that.
- Encouraging the suppression of civil rights, persecution and murder of gay people? No, it is worse than that.
- Running the world’s largest pedophile ring? Terrifying children into sex acts with threats of divine retribution. No, it is even worse than that.
- They not only interfere with birth control of their members, they interfere in everyone else’s family planning as well. They have succeeded in exploding the earth’s population many times higher than is sustainable. That population explosion has triggered the biggest mass extinction event in the last 65 million years. They committed this uber-crime for the most crass of motives, to acquire more members and hence more money.
What is the true message of Christmas? the message pounded into our heads tens of thousands of times every holiday season: “ You can be happy only if you give and receive extravagant, non-essential gifts, even to near strangers.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What kind of morality can you expect from a Catholic who believes that by confessing to any conceivable crime, dropping an offering in the box, and saying a few boring prayers as penance, it effectively erases the crime and all its negative consequences, and grants him cosmic forgiveness to boot?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)This is effectively the scuzzi argument the devil makes in the original movie version of Bedazzled.
What kind of person is willing to swear a vow of celibacy? Someone who has no interest in sex with other adults, someone willing to keep his sex life completely hidden. No wonder the priesthood attracts so many pedophiles.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What motivates Christians to spend millions of dollars to deny gay people equality? Whether gays may marry or not affects them not in the least. It is not as though they are trying to discourage promiscuity. They are trying to encourage it! It is spite, pure meanness. It is the same vile sentiment that motivated them half a century ago to deny black people equal civil rights. They are stupid people, and this is about he only away they have of feeling superior to others. They are envious that gays enjoy their lives so much more than they do, but that is their own choice to wear hair shirts. Their misery has nothing to do with gay people. It is caused by their choice of an inferior life philosophy.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What percentage of nominal Christians are Christian because:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- They believe it to be true.
- They like Christianity because it gives them an excuse to behave badly, bully, cheat, lie etc. and be forgiven just by confessing.
- They like the sandwiches and coffee after church. Without that, they would have no social life.
- The don’t believe a word of the BS, but they fear social ostracism if they did not pretend to believe.
- It’s a profitable business, fleecing the gullible.
- If you are particularly attractive or socially skilled, church is a good place to meet people to date.
- They are afraid Jehovah the bogey man just might seek horrible revenge for abandoning the faith on the off chance he exists.
What profit is there in retaining the insane verses of the Old Testament, particularly Leviticus? They only lead the feeble minded to commit murder.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What sort of compassionate intelligent designer of the universe would have set hordes of mosquitos to torment the caribou, blood sucking leaches to invade the rectums of hippopotamuses, spiders to paralyse and slowly dine on their living victims, or pancreatic cancer to torture old ladies?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What was religion like 20,000 years ago? I suspect the hunger people feel today for religions may actually be a longing for the ancient proto-religion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What would be the point of a church inviting a man to deliver a lecture in Hindi, when no one in the congregation understood a word of Hindi? It would be even more pointless if the lecturer himself did not speak Hindi, just could read aloud a phonetic transcript, so he could not explain the meaning of the lecture or answer questions. It would be even more pointless if the language were not a language at all, just meaningless random sounds. Yet oddly many churches consider this speaking in tongues to be immensely valuable.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What would Jesus say about the cornerstone of his church degenerating to become the persecution of homosexuals? “ He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
~John 8:7
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What would you call an institution that told lies to frighten or trick people into giving it massive sums of money providing nothing of value in return? What would you call an institution that pretended to offer care for children, but actually physically abused, terrified, molested and raped them? I’d call it criminal. You’d call it the holy church.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What would you think if the leader of the biggest pedophile and child rape ring on the planet went on TV and said, “ I ordered all my underlings to clam up and refuse to talk to the police. I have no intention of handing over my files on who molested whom to the police. I have no intention of paying extortion to the families of any of the children we molested. I have no intention of doing anything to stop my underlings from molesting all the kids they please. I have no intention of disbanding my institution. We are still soliciting “ contributions” from the public. However, I, deeply and with a humble heart, apologise for all the children we molested and raped, but not for those we merely terrorised.”
What would you think if this leader were wearing an embroidered gold costume and were named Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What would you think of a bystander who stood by doing absolutely nothing while a pervert raped and murdered a child? He did not interfere. He did not call out. He did not call 9/11. He not come forward as a witness in court. He excused himself saying he did not want to interfere with the rapist’s existential freedom. I personally would consider him a psychopath, a cruel pervert. But when that bystander is the alleged deity Jehovah, Christians claim this behaviour is the acme of perfection. Bullshit! Absolute Bullshit!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What would you think of a corporation that:
- persuaded its customers to invest 10% of their income, but never gave them anything in return.
- traumatised children, abusing them physically, sexually and mentally.
- encouraged lynchings, beatings, murders and burning alive of those who refused to act as agents for the corporation.
If you would not approve of such a corporation, why would you excuse the same behaviours in the world’s churches?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What would you think of a group of Fundamentalism Muslims who managed to get control of the town council, and passed the following ordinances designed to encourage the spread of Islam.
- City purse to provide money for loudspeakers for the five times a day call to prayer.
- Public stoning of anyone who eats pork.
- Required to spit at least once a month on the town’s gay couple.
Christians are similar imposing their religious beliefs on others:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Avalanche of non-stop kitschy Christmas music for four weeks each year imposed on non-Christians.
- Tattle-tangling anyone involved in procreation without marriage, even the baby.
- Required to spit at least once a month on the local gay couple. This is the most important teaching of the church. Gays are the holy scapegoats. Without someone to spit on, how could we Christians have any self esteem?
What would you think of someone went to a psychiatrist and announced that they had joined a cult that followed the religious beliefs of an obscure primitive bronze age desert tribe. The God of the tribe was into public farting. He insisted his followers eat feces and rape and kill non-cult members. How might you treat him? If that cult were the Christians, he would be sent out into the world as a perfectly sane man.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What would you think of someone who recited nonsense rhymes when invited to speak at some solemn public occasion, such as a valedictory address, the inauguration of a president or the funeral of a notable person? That is how Christians sound to me when they shamelessly prattle on about their utterly irrelevant, invisible, undetectable man in the sky. I can’t believe the chutzpah of exploiting such captive audience situations to deliver infomercials for Christianity. They wouldn’t dare try to pitch OxiClean, life insurance or Amway franchises.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
What’s the difference between an evangelist and a drug pusher? A drug pusher delivers on his promises.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a beauty queen thanks Jesus for winning a contest, or an athlete gives credit to God for winning a game, they don’t seem to realize they are insulting the Almighty, accusing Him of rigging the contest and of playing petty favourites. They also don’t acknowledge they are bragging that they enjoy God’s special favour because of their superior virtue.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a Buddhist talks to me about Buddhism, I get the impression he is trying to explain something. When a Christian talks to me about Christianity, I get the impression he is trying to sell me something.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a Christian says “ I have faith that God will attend to global warming” what does he mean? He means “ I am such a lazy, selfish twit that I refuse to even attend to my own survival or the survival of my children. I prefer to indulge in completely unrealistic, wishful fantasies instead. It is the same self-indulgent, self-destructive attitude that you find in drug-takers.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a Christian says “ I pray that X happens.” he is asking his god to deal with it. He is washing his hands of doing anything useful to make it happen. He is not requesting that anyone help. When an atheist says “ I hope that X happens.” he is simply announcing his preference to one and all how he wants things to turn out. He is asking anyone in earshot to do what they can to help. He will himself do what he can to help. He has absolutely no belief that the desired thing will happen via supernatural intervention.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a Christian says “ Jesus watches over me every second of the day and protects me from all harm.” he does not mean this as literally true. He is well aware that just as much misfortune befalls him as befalls his atheist neighbour. What he means is thinking this thought creates intense warm gooey emotions. The intensity of the emotion is what makes something true in the Christian sense. Atheists find this baffling. They are unwilling to suspend disbelief. To understand what the Christians are up to, atheists must try to imagine how they would feel if the statement were indeed literally true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a Christian sets out on a dangerous undertaking with absolute trust God will protect him, he is mad. He knows full well God does not routinely protect people from harm and Christians experience just as much mishap as anyone else.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a Christian talks about Truth, he does not mean truth in the ordinary sense of “ that which is actually so”. The Christian warns you with a capital T that he means instead something that he reveres, possibly non-existent.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a church conspires to deny freedom of religion to others, and it is a primarily a front for criminal activity, it becomes reasonable to debate whether such a church should lose the special privileges churches enjoy such as freedom from taxes, i.e. free fire, police, roads, water, sewer…
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a gambler who gets himself into financial trouble imagines that more gambling will get him out of it, he is suffering from a dangerous delusion. The same sort of wishful thinking that infects Christians is at the root of his problem.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a group claims they have a religious reason for being treated specially, what they mean is they don’t have a reason. They just have always done it that way and want to continue. For example, we indulge those who don’t want to wear protective headgear when riding a motorcycle, pharmacists to refuse customers who do not share their religious views or who refuse military service for religious reasons. Yet we do not indulge those who want the same exemptions for actual reasons, such a protective headgear makes them claustrophobic, they believe such some medicines to be harmful or who oppose killing people on the grounds it just leads to more killing. We exalt the irrational over the rational.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a person asks if you believe in god, he means do you believe that his holy book is infallible.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a Philippine Catholic priest persuades his flock to undergo voluntary crucifixion, it is not quite as evil as act as forcing people to undergo crucifixion, but it creates almost as much pointless suffering.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a preacher says “Give me some money for god” you know that is a lie. There is no way for him to deposit the money in god’s bank account. God, as creator of the universe, has no need of money. The preacher is collecting money for himself and his own projects. When someone lies to me right of the bat like that, I have had it with them. I refuse to have anything further to do with them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a priest hears the confessions of hundreds of people, he becomes the best informed man in the vicinity. He also has the power of implied blackmail and the power to use and strategically leak what he has learned.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a scientist and a Christian talk about truth, they are referring to something completely different. The scientist refers to valid assumptions that help predict how the world will behave. The truth may be elating or depressing or flat neutral. The key is that it be accurate. The Christians means words he finds thrilling or comforting. It measures intensity of emotion. True words can be brazenly false in the scientific sense.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a scientist decides if something is true he takes his time.
- He examines the evidence for it being true.
- He examines the evidence for it being false.
- He checks with how well this assertion jibes with things he already knows to be true or false.
- He asks other people why they believe this to be true or false.
- He considers the reliability of the people presenting evidence pro and con.
- Then he decides on the probability that the statement is true. He may well decide he has no idea without further evidence.
On the other hand, the Christian decides by a much simpler process. He consults his gut.
- If it feels warm and fuzzy he decides with absolute certainty the assertion must be true.
- If it feels uncomfortable, he decided with absolute certainty it must be false.
This leads American Christians to some strange conclusions: that America did not invade Afghanistan or Iraq unprovoked, that American soldiers never killed any children, except a few in accidents, that American soldiers cannot commit war crimes since by definition anything America does is good, that the USA has the most solid economy in the world, that the US military is only used to defend freedom. Whether something is true has absolutely nothing to do with whether you wish it were true. Christians deny this basic reality.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a scientist talks to me about his work, I get the impression he is trying to explain something. When a Christian talks to me about Christianity, I get the impression he is trying to sell me something he does not even believe himself.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When a televangelist tells you that if you send him $100 or more he will send you a free gift of a bar of olive oil soap made by a genuine Palestinian in the Holy Land, what is really happening is the is trying co con you into buying a bar of soap for the outrageous price of $100. By definition, if you have to pay for something, it is not a gift. If you bite, you have been had. He will not wire the money to god as vaguely promised. He will spend it on himself and his ego. If you want to do what is sometimes called “god’s work”, give it to a group with a proven track record of spending money efficiently to help the poor or preserve the earth. Televangelists are parasites who con the well-intentioned, indirectly stealing from the poor.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When America was founded, the notion of freedom of religion was created to reduce violence between religions. Everyone was supposed to respect the right of others to their religious beliefs and practices. Unfortunately, for example, Catholics believe this gives them the right to torment homosexuals. Freedom of religion was an interim solution. We must give up superstition and pontificating without evidence. Without reliance on evidence, there is no hope of agreement. Without reliance on evidence, all is arbitrary madness. We must move on to freedom from religion. In other words, we must stop imposing nutty ideas on others for which there is no evidence. Must stop thinking of this insane activity, commonly known as religion, as a virtue.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When an adult is killed by a car, Christians mark the spot with plush toys and balloons. These are left out in the rain to become mouldy as if to symbolically recapitulate the rotting of the corpse. Would it not make more sense to give the toys to needy children in honour of the deceased?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When an aficionado of religion looks down his nose at me as his moral inferior, is he just putting me on, or is this just part of the con?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When Christians can’t think of anything practical to do, or don’t want to help, they pray, then pretend to themselves they have fulfilled their moral obligations.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When Christians explain why they believe God exists, what they really do is give arguments for pretending that a god exists by repetitively attesting that they could not bear life without an imaginary friend.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When Christians say “God exists”, they are not interested in whether there is literally some old man on a cloud counting dead sparrows and making the atoms whirl. They mean “My church’s teachings are the right teachings. The songs in my church are the correct songs. It is virtuous to torment homosexuals even children we suspect may grow up to become homosexuals. It is good to teach children that evolution is wrong despite the apparent evidence. It is right to force our religion on others using public funds. Black people truly are inferior. There function is to serve decent white folks. Muslims, Jews and Atheists are not really people. God despises them for their rebellion. What happens to them does not matter. It is right that people in foreign lands should toil for pittance to grow our vegetables and manufacture our clothes and furniture because we are God’s chosen people. They should be grateful for the privilege of serving their betters whom God himself has anointed.” If it turned out that the god Jehovah was a fiction, but their was a god, who called himself Krishna, they would be just as devastated as if they had discovered there was no god at all.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When Christians talk about freedom of religion, they mean the right to burn Qur’an s, block the construction of mosques, insert Christian dogma into the school curricula, tax freedom for Christian churches, the right to molest children without legal interference, the right to persecute gays, the right to tell gays they must pretend to be straight, the right to force non-Christians to observe Christian prayer, the right to insert Christian language into civil law…
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When Christians talk about morality they are thinking of quite different criteria from me. They mean:
- arranging not to be born homosexual by some unspecified means and remembering to persecute homosexuals.
- not committing adultery.
- not having sex before marriage.
- oppressing non-Christians.
- teaching fundamentalist “science”.
- punishing “criminals“ including driving while black, working while immigrant, smoking marijuana…
- Doing favours for soldiers. Encourage them to feel proud of killing.
When I talk about morality I mean:
- not hurting other people.
- not interfering with other people when their actions do not victimise others.
- making sure everyone gets basic food, shelter, water, medical care.
- leaving planet earth in decent shape for coming generations.
- Adultery is a matter of a broken promise between two parties, not a public matter. If people want to they should be able to negotiate open relationships or anything else they please. It is none of my business.
- Try to convince criminals and soldiers not to kill or harm people, especially children.
The Christians are right, that without a bogeyman god Jehovah, there is no reason for bullying people to behave according the Christian morality rules. The Christians are tacitly agreeing their concept of morality is irrational.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When Christians talk of living truth they mean it wriggles when you try to pin it down.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When Christians talk of living truth, I think of those creatures that scurry away from the light when you overturn a rock.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When debates about end-of-life decisions come up, Christians are at their worst.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- They believe their religion gives them the right to interfere in the end-of-life decisions of people they do not even know.
- Their arguments are never about the patient, but always about themselves and crazy speculation about highly improbable things that might happen to them, and their religious superstitions. They believe their paranoid imaginings should trump science and experience. They believe others should conform to their nutty religious superstitions. Because they are Christian, they believe they know better than anyone else even when they know nothing of the circumstances.
- As young and healthy horses, they imagine themselves far more qualified than the elderly to make decisions and rules about end-of-life options.
When drug-addicted or alcoholic parents physically or sexually abuse their children, society protects the children by eventually taking them away, yet it permits those same parents to conceive and abuse as many more new children as they please because Christians believe the parents’ right to reproduce is unconditional and overrides the right of the child to be free from abuse.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When evangelists claim themselves to be Doctors of Theology, just what did knowledge they study? What they spout is all made up. That is like being a doctor of Harry Potter.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When hard times hit the ancient Mayans, you can’t fault them for lack of energy. They sacrificed children by the cartload. Their religion failed them. It could not provide sound guidance under unprecedented circumstances. Similarly Christianity is failing modern Christians. They toss a few more homosexuals on the metaphorical bonfire hoping to appease the vengeful sky god, without doing anything to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I attack the bible, I am not attacking the creator of the universe, I am attacking dishonest men who are trying to pass off an inferior counterfeit document, the bible, as his work. If forgers tried to pass off the work of William McGonagall as a new Shakespear play, and I called them rude names, I am not insulting Shakespear. They are insulting Shakespear by claiming his work is the same low quality as McGonagall’s. I am surprised that people who claim to believe in a god would dare insult their god this way asserting some crap they wrote was his.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I challenge a Christian’s bizarre assertions, he almost never offers evidence or an argument to support them. Instead he argues that it is a good thing that people believe this assertion or that terrible things would happen if they did not. How do I explain what is going on?
- The Christian is tacitly agreeing his assertions are false, but he wants me to go along with them because of his alleged social benefits of none-to-bright folk believing them.
- His definition of true is quite different from mine. By true he means useful. Sometimes engineers talk about electricity as if it were a liquid, even though they know it is just a metaphor.
The way then to free the Christian of his delusions is to demonstrate to him that his lies are neither useful nor moral, that they have the exact opposite effects that he imagines. Whether they are literally true is of only secondary importance. He has morals similar to a used car salesman. He says which will get the effect he wants. Whether is it true is more or less immaterial.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I say “God does not exist”, I mean “Your cock and bull story about god is a crock. Either you or someone else just made this up. You have no magic sources of information I do not. I am calling you out, not god. This is has nothing to do with god, but your credibility. My beef is not with god, but with your lies. Your story is fiction, just like all the other stories about god. There is nothing esoteric, mysterious or unfathomable about garden-variety lies.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I was a child, if someone said the word Christian, you would think of a kindly old lady who knitted socks for Russian orphans. Today, instead, quite different images come to mind.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- A psychotic killer who has assigned himself the job as Leviticus’s avenging angel.
- A televangelist/faith healer conning the masses in his sequined white jumpsuit and exaggerated southern accent.
- A gang of bigots bashing a homosexual to death with two by fours.
- A mass of priests gang raping a child.
- A person who bombs abortion clinics, thus killing both mother and fetuses.
- A military man who forces Christianity on his troops to help them murder Muslims without guilt.
When I was a little boy, I would cry for days when a pet died. I dug up my sister’s turtle every day for weeks to see it if was still dead. I imagined my own turtle had run away and was living happily in a stream. Christians are like me as a child. They can’t stand it when people die, so they hang onto childish wishful thinking.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I was a little boy, my grandmother made me a red cape so I could run about her farm pretending to superman. What I was doing is not that different from what adult Christians do, fantasising they will live forever in health and beauty. Christian have their superhero too, a guy who can raise the dead, walk on water, control the weather and take torture without batting an eye. These mythical heroes grow out of our desire for special powers like super strength and the ability to fly.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I was a teen, my mom warned me to stay away from Christians, whom she considered dangerous and insane. Of course, I rebelled by sneaking off to go to various churches to interview the people there to find out why they went to church, why they believed in a god, and what they thought this god was like. I discovered that people could not answer my questions. They had only the vaguest notions about their religion. Essentially, they went to church because their parents had started taking them there as very young children, and they got into the habit.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I was about nine, I waited at the Ambleside swimming pool in West Vancouver for my Mom to come pick me up. An elderly Jehovah’s witness man pressed me with stories of god and hellfire. I could not leave the rendezvous spot, so I felt trapped. He pressed tracts on me. When my mother arrived, she was furious. I figured she was mad because he might have been planning to abuse me sexually, but she was concerned about an even more damaging form of abuse, attempting to permanently traumatise and brainwash her child with fear.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I was eight, I went to Camp Howdy, a Y.M.C.A. summer camp, where an older boy earnestly assured me that raccoons liked to join you in your sleeping bag. If you moved at all, they would tear you apart. I took precautions into adulthood before I realised I had been had. Such boys who like to frighten younger children grow up to become Christians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I was in grade 7, we learned that Akhenaten made a major leap in the development of religions by inventing monotheism. I was unimpressed. I could see nothing more advanced about monotheism over polytheism. They were equally screws loose, though polytheism was more entertaining. What the teacher meant is Akhenaten brought religion closer to Christianity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I was in public elementary school, I wrote an essay about some British boarding school boys sneaking out and drinking some wine. One my characters, whom I named Travers, said “That’s ruddy good wine” I was chastised, not for the theme, but for using the “obscenity” ruddy. You have to look back a few decades to see progress prying loose the Christian stranglehold on our schools.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I was little I read a book that assured me electricity was invisible. Nonsense I thought, “I have seen it with my own eyes. It is blue. It makes a crackling or buzzing noise and it has a distinctive smell.” The author was trying to teach me science, the way he would religion, but demanding I submit to authority, and deny my own sensory experience. Only much later did I learn that electricity is indeed invisible. I was just experiencing its effects on air.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I was young and handsome, I once attended a group of plump middle aged women who claimed they could communicate with the dead. They competed for my attention by pretending ghosts were pinching them. Christians do the same thing to impress each other by pretending God gave them private messages, when all that really happened is they heard a commanding voice inside their head, much like the nagging internal voice of a parent.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, Christians beat their breasts begging their god to explain why he did this. The rest of us pondered the much more practical question — what motivated the human assassins?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When Kristians want to build a church, they consult engineers and scientists to make sure it will not fall down. They would never dream of trusting the engineering ruses in their bible, e.g. that π is 3. Yet when it comes to telling others how to run their lives, and what should be taught to children, they ignore the engineers and scientists and demand others follow the goofy advice in their ancient texts.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When massive tornados repeatedly rip through the bible belt, you’s think at least a few of them would wonder if it was because their god did not like them persecuting gays.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When my mother was a young fashion model, she sent away $10 (a fortune at the time), for a device designed to make her breasts grow even larger. A package arrived in the mail containing a cardboard hand on which were printed the words “ massage will do the trick”. Christians pull similar cons, promising far more than ample breasts, charging far more than $10 and not even delivering a cardboard hand.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When people do silly things or assert things that are obviously not true, they should expect ridicule, regardless of whether they were motivated by religion to makes asses of themselves.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When people feel secure, they are less likely to believe in a god. Religion is a sort of teddy bear for the fearful.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64) source
When people insist on closing a mystery by saying “ god did it” what they are actually doing is giving up in frustration from trying to find an explanation, and trying to discourage future researchers from looking for one.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When people lie to manipulate others, it bothers me deeply. That is why I loathe religions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When people talk about faith in god, they really mean faith in what some con man told them about god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When Republicans pray for death or accident to befall their political opponents, just whom are they praying to?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When schizophrenics interpret voices in their head telling them to decapitate people as the voice of the god Jehovah, that is, according to our Christian culture, the most plausible interpretation. The bible is full of stories of the god Jehovah demanding people commit murder or genocide. Christians hold up as heroes the people who murder based on such instruction. The fundamental myth common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam is Abraham stopped at the last second from slitting his son Isaac’s throat. If Abraham pulled that stunt today, the medical establishment would insist he be permanently incarcerated in an institution for the criminally insane.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When skinheads desecrate Jewish graves, beat up Jews or make up lies about Jews, the skinheads are aware they are evil, and relish in it. When Christians do dissimilar things to gays, the Christians smugly imagine they are doing the work of the angels. They refuse to see themselves as mean-spirited criminal bigots.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone believes in god, he is saying “ This world is shit. This can’t be the real thing.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone claims he has made a bargain with God, consider that he made up all the conditions and penalties, that he has no evidence that his god accepted the bargain, or that his god even exists. His belief that he was able to coerce the creator of the universe into taking time out of his busy schedule to make a private deal with him shows delusions of grandeur. Its even nuttier than claiming to have made such deals with Bill Gates.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone claims the creator of the universe took time out to speak to him alone and give him some asinine advice, I am baffled that anyone considers him sane.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone claims they are speaking “God’s truth” I recall that nearly everything in the bible is untrue, and everything claimed to be god’s word is a fiction. Those words are thus a confession of perjury, not what the speaker intended.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone finds Jesus is prison, they are discarding one false set of beliefs and taking on another. They are not that much better off.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone is about to commit an evil deed, especially murder, what they most need is for someone to convince them with absolute certainty that it is OK. That’s what religion provides. Think about it. Bishops have blessed every war in history. Bishops blessed the torture and murder of “ witches”. The church encouraged slavery then lynch mobs and to this day gay bashing and Muslim bashing. Some churches encourage murder of anyone involved in terminating pregnancies. The Catholic church enables and encourages pedophilic rapes, helping priests to avoid prosecution and find new victims.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone says they believe something for religious reasons, you can more accurately translate that as “It is not literally true, but I, and a number of others, think it would be wonderful if it were true, discounting any non-obvious negative consequences.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone says “ God called me to do such and such” what does that mean? It means, “ I may look like a schlep, and what I am doing may look utterly unimportant, but I am so special that the creator of the universe, manifested as a voice in my head, charged me above everyone else with this sacred and vitally important task.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone says “It’s in God’s hands” what they mean is “I am unwilling to offer any help”, or “I am incapable of rendering useful aid”. It is a euphemism.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone survives an accident by fluke, Christians ascribe it to divine intervention. Yet if it truly were God, it should not happen only as a fluke. God is supposed to be 100% reliable.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone with a snake phobia assures you that garter snakes are dangerous, they are wrong, but not lying. When a Christian tells you the Noah’s ark story in the bible is literally true to the last detail, without any possible doubt, he is not only wrong, he is lying.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When the ancient Mayans were faced with a century-long drought, they had only one way to deal with it — human sacrifice. Of course sacrifices had no effect, but that did not deter them from escalating the intensity of the sacrifices. They refused to look for alternative solutions. The is one more example of how religion makes people terminally stupid.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When the magician James Randi exposed faith healer Peter Popoff as a dangerous and utter fraud by showing how he used a radio to fake his messages from god on the Johnny Carson show, nearly all the viewer mail to the show wanted to know how to contact Peter Popoff so he could heal them. An eager, incredibly stupid sucker is born every minute.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When the milk went sour, my distant ancestors in Scotland had no idea that bacteria caused it, so with complete conviction, they blamed fairies and witchcraft. That is no more ignorant than the way today’s Christians insist on using the god Jehovah as a sort of cosmic caulk to fill in any gap in our current knowledge.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When the Mormons started out, there would have been consensus that they were either charlatans or delusional. Few people would dismiss them as mentally ill today, even though their beliefs have not changed, only their numbers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When the religious right use the term morality, they mean condemning people for their private sexual practices. When atheists use the term, they mean not harming others, consideration for others, treating even your enemies fairly and leaving the world in good shape for future generations.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When you are trying to free a rusty pipe, sometimes it helps to both tighten and loosen it — anything to get some movement. Perhaps the same strategy would apply to freeing Christians from their crusty beliefs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When you confront a religious believer with errors and inconsistencies in their beliefs, how do they typically react? Irritation and anger. They don’t want to hear what you have to say. It is not like a belief in which grocery store has the cheapest cheese, or why Cro Magnons displaced Neanderthals in Europe where people are happy to learn corrected information. People strongly want to hold onto religious beliefs whether they are true or not.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When you debate a con man, never forget the con man has no interest in discovering the truth. His job is to conceal it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When you debate creationists, from all the dishonest tactics they use, you come to the conclusion that they don’t seriously believe the BS they are they are trying to fob off on others. Why do they do this? They do believe sincerely in the moral parts of the bible, e.g. Leviticus and his injunctions to torment and kill homosexuals. They desperately want everyone to accept these notions. They are a bit embarrassed at having to pretend to believe the earth is flat. There is no logic to support any of this nonsense. Selling their moral code depends on persuading people that a vindictive deity made up the rules. When any of the alleged deity’s pronouncements on science are shown to be false, this undermines the moral authority of the creationists. So they fight it tooth and nail, ruthlessly and dishonestly. They want the power to dictate other’s behaviour. It is not really an attachment to prehistoric science. Not that long ago, much of the tenacity was an attachment to the biblical justification for the persecution of black people.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When you reach a certain age, you are faced with grim facts: you will probably experience more and more pain, you will have less and less energy and you are never again going to have sex with people who look like porn stars. No wonder people succumb to empty promises of afterlife bliss from the Christians and Muslims even if they may think there is only a one in a trillion chance they are true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When you say I avoid eating fish on Friday for religious reasons, it means you don’t have a reason. Oddly not having a reason is considered a stronger claim to get what you want that if you had an actual reason.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When you see a scene in an old black and white movie where the tribespeople bow to the ground before a stone idol, how does it strike you? Silly, primitive, gullible, mindless? Do you feel contempt? When I see Christians lowering their eyes in fear and reverence of an invisible sky God hoping he can be cajoled, like a cosmic Santa Claus, to bestow benefits, I feel the same way. When a president does it, it is dismaying.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When you wake from a dream, the memory of it is often chaotic and absurd. Is there an analogous process to wake from ordinary reality? Some claim there is, but I have not yet decided if they are correct, deluded or pulling a con.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Where did these grandiose notions about gods come from, e.g. omnipotence, omniscience, perfect love, perfect virtue etc.? I think they came from ancient versions of the equivalent to little boys bragging about their fathers, My god can beat up your god., So what? My god can see a billion cubits., Well my god can see a gazillion cubits., Well my god can see forever, so there!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Whether a politician outright lies or merely dissembles, the intent is the same — to deceive the public. The result is the same — the public is deceived. We should condemn both lying and dissembling.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Whether the universe is either finite or infinite has nothing whatsoever to do with how I wish it would be.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Who knew more about the universe, the authors of the bible or Carl Sagan? The authors of the bible knew of the existence of stars and planets, but not the spherical earth, how eclipses work, galaxies, filaments, black holes, dark matter, gravity, quasars, super novae… Surely the creator of the universe knows exactly what is in it, far more than either the authors of the bible or Carl Sagan. In other words God had nothing whatsoever to do with writing the bible. It is a forgery.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Whose acts of charity do you most admire?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- The man who is motivated by applause from his fellow men.
- The man who is motivated by promise of reward from the sky god after he dies.
- The man who does the job because the job needs doing.
Why are the elderly so vulnerable to threats of hellfire?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- By then, they have heard a lifetime of repeated threats.
- The hormones that fought the anti-joy, anti-sex doctrine of the church have waned.
- Death looms soon. The threatened punishment seems imminent.
Why do the clergy, especially the Catholic clergy, wear such peculiar clothes? Like other stage magicians, they want a costume that suggests they have some magic special power.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Why do you think preachers talk in that hypnotic word salad? They are hypnotising you into giving them money and expecting nothing in return.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Why does Christianity make people behave worse than they would otherwise?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- It makes them arrogant. They believe they have an exclusive corner on truth, when in actuality all they have is myths.
- It encourages them to persecute blacks, gays, Jews and Christians of other sects.
- It teaches them bogus science which makes them to stupid things like ignore global warming.
- It makes them refuse to take responsibility for things like preserving forests and clean air. They imagine god will look after it.
- It makes them ignore serious dangers like nuclear war because they image god will take care of it.
- They imagine wrong doing does not matter since they believe they can neutralise it just by confession.
- They let priests molest children imagining priests have some magical power to punish them.
- They let things slide, since they imagine all will be just jake after they die, so this actual life does not matter.
- It makes them snobs by cheating them are better than other people.
- There learn a picky set of rules, that don’t really matter they can use to put down others and thus ignore their own failings.
- Their unsubstantiated notions about souls make them sure they have the right to impose their irrational beliefs about contraception, abortion and stem cells on other people.
Why does God smite almost all gospel singers with gross obesity? You’d think people who performed such athletic music would be unusually trim.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Why does medicine use such complicated long words when there exist short, accurate ones in English? I suspect it may be to help distance themselves from Christian superstitions about dead bodies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Why does someone desperately try to sell you his religion? Because if he can sell it to you, it gives him faith in his own sales pitch.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Why does the pope endorse only birth control methods that don’t work? The only way to make new Catholics is to indoctrinate babies.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Why does this nutty belief in some wish-granting Cosmic Santa Claus (god, Jesus, saints, spirits, dead people…) that you can petition telepathically (prayer) have its hooks in so deeply.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Why has the middle east spawned the world’s two most obnoxious religions? By obnoxious I mean religions whose adherents will pester, threaten torture or kill to get others to pretend to accept their twaddle. Perhaps it is because life in the middle east is so harsh that masses of people consoled themselves with the notion that death would be a step up. They could not tolerate anyone pooh-poohing their fantasy, their only hope.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Why is it that people find it so easy to laugh at the ancient Egyptians and their elaborate fantasies of what happens after death, but fail to see that Christianity is no different.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Why is it that when people hear a voice in their head the first thing that comes to mind it, “It is god, the creator of the entire universe come to personally visit me, the most important being there ever was.” I am surprised people are so overtly grandiose. It is bit like imagining it must be Queen Elizabeth or President Obama when they hear a knock on the door. I would think they might presume something more modest such as a ghost, a shaman, a demon, a guru, a neighbour, the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) , an angel or their own subconscious. Imagining you are on par with Moses is self-flattery gone mad.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Why would god tell some people that monogamy is absolutely mandatory and tell others that polygamy is absolutely mandatory? The simplest explanation is that two groups of people made up what God supposedly said. In other words, they lied in an attempt to frighten others into behaving as they wanted them to.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Why would someone desperately cling to such obvious nonsense as Christianity? It would have to be someone so terrified of non-existence that they would rather experience hell, or someone who could not let go of the fantasy of being reunited with someone who had died.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
William P. Young wrote an extended parable called The Shack in which the Christian god is portrayed as a non-judgmental African woman. He explained in an interview on The Hour that he did not like the usual judgmental god depicted in the orthodox religions. What he fails to acknowledge is that all of both his and the orthodox depiction is just wish-fulfilling fantasy. None of it has any basis in observation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
With official sanction, US soldiers hand out Christian medallions at checkpoints in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban use this as proof that the US intends to interfere with their religion. Imagine the effect if occupying Muslim soldiers handed out Islamic medallions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
With Republicans what counts is what you say, not what you do. You can smoke pot, have sex in airport restrooms, cheat on your wife, molest your children, have an abortion, hire illegal immigrant servants, take bribes, worship Satan… so long as you publicly soundly decry these activities.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
With the discovery of oil came the creation of tractors, fertilisers and a water pumps that allowed sufficient food for all. The Pope and other religious leaders acted with extreme selfishness, and urged their followers to breed uncontrollably so that their church could overwhelm the others. Now here were are with 9 times as many people as the earth can support without oil, and the oil supplies are beginning to dwindle. What those religious leaders did will result in such massive suffering such that no imaginable punishment is sufficient.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
With your donations to fund research, someday Christians may think again.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Without peer pressure, children would fail to outgrow a belief in Santa Claus. Because of peer pressure, Christians cling to their belief in the white-bearded sky god.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Worrying about what some invisible foul-tempered old man in the sky thinks of your actions makes even less sense than fretting over what Martians think of them.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Would you respect a religion that told its followers they had the holy right to evict non-believers from the homes and expropriate them for their own use?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)Zionism is such a religion.
Would you yank a part out of your car just because you did not understand its function? That is what Christians want society to do — purge it of all its homosexuals.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Yes, we can find a cure for Christianity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You can buy chemically-treated green bags to prevent ethylene gas from turning vegetables to a fetid mush. What is the equivalent to protect the human brain from the Christian god virus?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You can classify religions:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- speculative. For example, Buddhists speculate reincarnation. They admit the evidence is weak, and do not insist their adherents believe it.
- counter-rational. For example creationists who blindly refuse to even read the scientific evidence against their beliefs about the age of the earth or evolution.
- bat-shit crazy. People who handle poisonous snakes, live with rats, flagellate themselves, poke holes in their bodies, refuse medical treatment.
- criminal. Fundamentalists who encourage the flock to persecute, beat up and kill homosexuals. Female circumcision cults that attack and circumcise young women.
You can err by believing something untrue, or by refusing to believe something that is true. Oddly gullibility can increase both types of error. Consider how gullibility causes a little old lady to believe a TV evangelist that sending him all her savings would be a wise investment. Consider how gullibility causes a Republican to trust a climate change denier without first checking his financial ulterior motives.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You can err by believing something untrue, or by refusing to believe something that is true. Wishful thinking will do you in every time. Fundamentalists believe that God will come and clean up the ecological mess they have made of earth. Africans believe all manner of irrelevant spells will protect from AIDS . Germans in WW II refused to believe the holocaust going under their noses. Americans refused to believe the war crimes of their soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You can see how the Christian con works most clearly in the way the Republicans played it during the 2009 health care debate. Loudly, dripping with theatrical emotion, they beseeched God to intervene to deny the poor health care. The idea was to sell the notion that health care for the poor was evil, even though Jesus himself reputedly spent most of his time healing the poor. Since God never speaks, the unscrupulous can always safely speak on his behalf.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You can tell how efficiently a televangelist is fleecing the flock by which time slots he buys and how many. The big timers air during the day. The little guys at 3 AM.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You can’t very well understand early Christianity without looking outside the bible to the scrolls discarded at the Council of Nicea, other ancient scrolls, civil documents, archaeology and other religions of the time. Archaeology, for example, points out there is no sign of Moses, his trek in the desert or King David even though there an almost complete record of the Egyptian pharaohs.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You have must better chances of winning the biggest lottery in your country every year or the rest of your life than of the Christians being right about God and the afterlife (which has about the same odds as Paul Bunyan and his blue ox babe being a true story).
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You have no more right to impose a religion on your child than you do on your next door neighbour.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You have the right to do irrational or downright nutty things, even suicidal things, e.g. refuse medical treatment, in the name of religion or eccentricity, but only if you don’t harm others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64) Or as John Stuart Mill put it “ The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant” .
You have two choices, face the facts of what is most realistically likely to happen to you, or clutch onto some religious fantasy where the future is magically rosy. The catch is most religious fantasies offer you poor odds. They assert it is much more likely a truly hideous fate awaits you.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You might pry Christianity lose in stages:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- Admit that ordinary men did most of the work writing the bible.
- Admit that one of the other deities may exist as well as the god Jehovah, or that Jehovah may prefer being called Al-lah (the god). The people of biblical times certainly thought so.
- Admit that the god Jehovah might be a fictitious character.
- Admit that the god Jehovah is probably a fictitious character.
- Admit that the god Jehovah is a fictitious character. There is no need to pretend to believe in him to be safe.
You never hear of gays taking revenge on Christians by beating them up, getting them fired or refusing them housing… Since turning the other cheek is one of the core teachings of Jesus, it seems the gays take his teachings more seriously than the nominal Christians do.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You ought not to affect respect for someone’s religion any more than you should feign respect for his belief in fairies. You are just encouraging his delusion with your dishonest pretense. On the other hand, so long as his nutty beliefs do not cause him to attack you (e.g. as Christians attack gays or deny civil rights) you have no business trying to make his life miserable.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You ought to object to any religious utterance for the same reason you object to any other false claim. Religious speech should not be a protected class of humbug.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You would probably want everyone to steer well clear of a cult that practiced sexual abuse of children, ritual cannibalism, and whose main rite consisted of consisted of contemplating torture. Yet you accept it as perfectly natural when it comes wrapped as a respected religion — the Catholic Church.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You would think a doctor of divinity would be a historian who specialised in the study of the religious beliefs of various peoples, but it is actually a degree in bullshitology. It is a game where people compose a collective work of fiction.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You’d think freedom of religion would prevent a church, whose doctrines I find odious, from extorting money from me, yet it can do it in several ways:
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- By avoiding taxes, meaning that I have to subsidise the services it consumes with my increased taxes.
- By making religious channels on TV part of the basic package. I must support those hucksters or go without TV.
- By government-sponsored faith-based initiatives. Churches get money from the government tax revenues supposedly to help the disadvantaged. They exploit that opportunity to sell their cults to those with weak sales resistance.
You’d think the ten commandments and the teachings of Jesus would get top priority in the Christian mind. Yet Christians ignore most of that material (e.g. no graven images, helping the poor), and focus instead of a few lines in Leviticus, that call for the persecution of gay people. Recall that Leviticus is the guy who thinks you should be put to death for eating a shrimp or wearing socks made of cotton and Lycra.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You’d think the ultimate obscenity would offering a blessing to soldiers about to slaughter children, but it is common and no Christian ever complains.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
“ If you don’t believe (my version of) the truth, you are going to hell!” : Prime selling tool for Christians.
“ If you don’t believe (my version of) the truth, we are going to make your life a living hell!“ : Backup selling tool for Christians.
“ If you don’t believe (my version of) the truth, we are going to kill you!“ : selling tool for “ pro life” Christians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
“ I’ll pray for you” is the polite way of saying “I’m not prepared to do anything practical to help you, but I wish you well.”
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
“ Trust God” is the Christian excuse for doing nothing.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
“Is there a god?” does not deserve to be considered one of the big questions. It is on par with “Are there leprechauns and talking snakes?”. “There is a God and he thinks my people are superior to all others” is the biggest, most destructive of all the delusions.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
“I’m praying for you” means I’m not willing to spend even an erg of energy doing anything practical on your behalf. It’s really a polite “fuck you”.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
“You have saved us by the shedding of your eternal blood” is an inscription on the wall of a temple dedicated to the worship of Mithras. This notion of blood and killing and sacrifice is part of the psychotic stew that makes up nearly all religious belief.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is an interesting and demonstrable fact that all children are atheists and were not religion inculcated in their minds, they would remain so.
~ Ernestine Louise Rose (born: 1810-01-12 died: 1892-08-04 at age: 82)
Life is like stepping into a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.
~ Suzuki Roshi (born: 1904-05-18 died: 1971-12-04 at age: 67)
When the whole world doesn’t believe in God, it’ll be a great place.
~ Philip Roth (born: 1933-03-19 age: 79)
Christ preaches only servitude and dependence… True Christians are made to be slaves.
~ Jean Jacques Rousseau (born: 1712 died: 1778-07-02 at age: 66)
An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism. His attitude may be that which a careful philosopher would have towards the gods of ancient Greece. If I were asked to prove that Zeus and Poseidon and Hera and the rest of the Olympians do not exist, I should be at a loss to find conclusive arguments. An Agnostic may think the Christian God as improbable as the Olympians; in that case, he is, for practical purposes, at one with the atheists.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) What is an Agnostic? 1953 Bertrand Russell Bundle: The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell
And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
Are you never afraid of God’s judgment in denying him? Most certainly not. I also deny Zeus and Jupiter and Odin and Brahma, but this causes me no qualms. I observe that a very large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) What Is an Agnostic? Bertrand Russell Bundle: The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish Unpopular Essays
I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) 1927 Why I am Not A Christian
I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair. In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Education and the Social Order
I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Can Religion Cure Our Troubles? Why I am Not A Christian
I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’ t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)For example those whose primary goal in life is to make homosexuals miserable and kept in their place.
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish Unpopular Essays
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Is there a God?
Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind Unpopular Essays
Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilisation. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? Bertrand Russell Bundle: The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell
My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of Homer really exist… I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic? Bertrand Russell Bundle: The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Why I am Not A Christian
Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes… A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) 1927 Why I am Not A Christian
Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
Science can teach us and, I think, our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below, to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that churches in all these centuries have made it.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Why I am Not A Christian
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not entirely absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Christian Ethics 1950 Marriage and Morals
The immense majority of intellectually eminent men disbelieve in the Christian religion, but they conceal the fact in public, because they are afraid of losing their incomes.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
The misfortunes of human beings may be divided into two classes: First, those inflicted by the non-human environment and, second, those inflicted by other people. As mankind have progressed in knowledge and technique, the second class has become a continually increasing percentage of the total. In old times, famine, for example, was due to natural causes, and although people did their best to combat it, large numbers of them died of starvation. At the present moment large parts of the world are faced with the threat of famine, but although natural causes have contributed to the situation, the principal causes are human. For six years the civilized nations of the world devoted all their best energies to killing each other, and they find it difficult suddenly to switch over to keeping each other alive. Having destroyed harvests, dismantled agricultural machinery, and disorganized shipping, they find it no easy matter to relieve the shortage of crops in one place by means of a superabundance in another, as would easily be done if the economic system were in normal working order. As this illustration shows, it is now man that is man’s worst enemy. Nature, it is true, still sees to it that we are mortal, but with the progress in medicine it will become more and more common for people to live until they have had their fill of life. We are supposed to wish to live for ever and to look forward to the unending joys of heaven, of which, by miracle, the monotony will never grow stale. But in fact, if you question any candid person who is no longer young, he is very likely to tell you that, having tasted life in this world, he has no wish to begin again as a “ new boy” in another. For the future, therefore, it may be taken that much the most important evils that mankind have to consider are those which they inflict upon each other through stupidity or malevolence or both.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind, from Unpopular Essays
The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind Unpopular Essays
The objections to religion are of two sorts — intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
The wise man is as happy as circumstances permit and if he finds the contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
There are two ways of avoiding fear: one is by persuading ourselves that we are immune from disaster, and the other is by the practice of sheer courage. The latter is difficult, and to everybody becomes impossible at a certain point. The former has therefore always been more popular. Primitive magic has the purpose of securing safety, either by injuring enemies, or by protecting oneself by talismans, spells, or incantations.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)Belief in a heavenly afterlife sometimes helps people cope with frightening events, but the belief in hell is much stronger than the belief in heaven so this dodge usually backfires.
There is exactly the same degree of possibility and likelihood of the existence of the Christian God as there is of the existence of the Homeric god. I cannot prove that either the Christian god or the Homeric gods do not exist, but I do not think that their existence is an alternative that is sufficiently probable to be worth serious consideration.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? Bertrand Russell Bundle: The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell
There is no excuse for deceiving children. And when, as must happen in conventional families, they find that their parents have lied, they lose confidence in them and feel justified in lying to them.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Our Sexual Ethics 1936 Bertrand Russell Bundle: The Basic Writings of Bertrand RussellLying to children is a particularly filthy thing to do when parents inculcate religious myths as truth into children when they are not old enough to have developed intellectual defences. I consider it a form of child abuse.
There is something feeble and a little contemptible 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 dares not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Human Society in Ethics and Politics
This, however, is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
War does not determine who is right — only who is left.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
What men want is not knowledge, but certainty.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97)
When two men of science disagree, they do not invoke the secular arm; they wait for further evidence to decide the issue, because, as men of science, they know that neither is infallible. But when two theologians differ, since there is no criteria to which either can appeal, there is nothing for it but mutual hatred and an open or covert appeal to force.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Can Religion Cure our Troubles 1954
You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Why I am Not A Christian
You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so called age of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burnt as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
~ Bertrand Russell (born: 1872-05-18 died: 1970-02-02 at age: 97) Why I am Not A Christian
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.
~ Carl Sagan (born: 1934-11-09 died: 1996-12-20 at age: 62)
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan (born: 1934-11-09 died: 1996-12-20 at age: 62)
How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “ This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant” ? Instead they say “ No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way”, A religion, old or new that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
~ Carl Sagan (born: 1934-11-09 died: 1996-12-20 at age: 62) The Pale Blue Dot
In Italy, the Inquisition was condemning people to death until the end of the eighteenth century, and inquisitional torture was not abolished in the Catholic Church until 1816. The last bastion of support for the reality of witchcraft and the necessity of punishment has been the Christian churches.
~ Carl Sagan (born: 1934-11-09 died: 1996-12-20 at age: 62) The Demon-Haunted World
In science it often happens that scientists say, “ You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
~ Carl Sagan (born: 1934-11-09 died: 1996-12-20 at age: 62)
Some are willing to forgive the church for burning witches on the grounds they did not know any better. They did it in good faith. It turns out that is not so.
What the Malleus Malefecarum [the most popular manual on witchcraft] comes down to, pretty much, is that if your’e accused of witchcraft, you’re a witch. Torture is an unfailing means to demonstrate the validity of an accusation. There are no rights of the defendant. There is no opportunity to confront the accusers. Little attention is given to the possibility that the accusations might be made for impious purposes — jealousy, say, or revenge, or the greed of the inquisitors who routinely confiscated for their own private benefit the property of the accused. This technical manual for torturers also includes methods of punishment tailored to release demons from the victim’s body before the process kills her. The Malleus in hand, the Pope’s encouragement guaranteed, inquisitors began springing up all over Europe.
It quickly became an expense account scam. All costs of investigations, trial and execution were borne by the accused or her relatives — down to per diems for the private detectives hired to spy on her, wine for her guards, banquets for her judges, the travel expenses of a messenger sent to fetch a more experienced torturer from a another city, and the faggots, tar and hangman’s rope. Then there was a bonus to the members of the tribunal for each witch burned. The convicted witch’s remaining property, if any, was divided between Church and State. As this legally and morally sanctioned mass murder and theft became institutionalised, as a vast bureaucracy rose to serve it, attention was turned from poor hags and crones to the middle class and well-to-do of both sexes.
~ Carl Sagan (born: 1934-11-09 died: 1996-12-20 at age: 62)
You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep seated need to believe.
~ Carl Sagan (born: 1934-11-09 died: 1996-12-20 at age: 62)
Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.
~ J. D. Salinger (born: 1919-01-01 died: 2010-01-27 at age: 91) The Catcher In The Rye
Faith in the supernatural is a desperate wager made by man at the lowest ebb of his fortunes.
~ George Santayana (born: 1863-12-16 died: 1952-09-26 at age: 88) Supernaturalism
Religion is the natural reaction of the imagination when confronted by the difficulties in a truculent world.
~ George Santayana (born: 1863-12-16 died: 1952-09-26 at age: 88) Atlantic Monthly
Evangelical Christians are not sincere. It is all about making money.
~ Frank Schaeffer (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64) author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It BackI think what he meant is there are two kinds of evangelical Christians: the con artists who run the show, and the gullible, naïve flock who seriously believe the nonsense they are told. The people selling creationism don’t believe it themselves. You can tell by all the outrageously dishonest ploys they use.
A good supply of resignation is of the first importance in providing for the journey of life.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer (born: 1788-02-22 died: 1860-09-21 at age: 72)
Indeed, intolerance is essential only to monotheism; an only God is by nature a jealous God who will not allow another to live. On the other hand, polytheistic gods are naturally tolerant, they live and let live.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer (born: 1788-02-22 died: 1860-09-21 at age: 72)
Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, “ Thou shalt make no graven image.”
~ Arthur Schopenhauer (born: 1788-02-22 died: 1860-09-21 at age: 72) Religion: a Dialogue
Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer (born: 1788-02-22 died: 1860-09-21 at age: 72)
The term that best describes me now is “ secular humanist”. I despise those shallow religious comics. Dennis the Menace, for instance, is the most shallow. When they show him praying — I just can’t stand that sort of thing, talking to God about some cutesy thing that he’d done during the day. I don’t think Hank Ketcham [Dennis’ creator] has any deep knowledge of things like that. I cringe at the mention of Family Circus, the strip by Bill Keane that is strewn with cutesy references to Jesus who wants to protect children on school buses, but can’t because of laws about separation of church and state, and those sickly-sweet images of invisible deceased grandparents looming protectively over the kids. Oh, I can’t stand that. You could get diabetes reading them, couldn’t you?
~ Charles Schulz (born: 1922-11-26 died: 2000-02-12 at age: 77) Religion: a Dialogue cartoonist, creator of Peanuts.
By the way, why are we wearing bras on our heads.
~ Wyatt
It’s ceremonial.
~ Gary
~ Weird Science (born: 1985 age: 26) with Anthony Michael Hall as Gary Wallace and Ilan Mitchell-Smith as Wyatt Donnelly
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
~ Haile Selassie (born: 1892-07-23 died: 1975-08-27 at age: 83)
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca (born: 4 BC died: 65 AD at age: 68)
A plague o’ both your houses!
~ William Shakespear (born: 1564-04-23 died: 1616-04-23 at age: 52) Mercutio Romeo and Juliet Act III Scene iRev. Terry Jones tried to trick Christians and Muslims into killing each other over a purely symbolic act that harmed no one, by threatening to burn some copies of the Qur’an . Why would he do such a stupid thing?
- Jones is brain damaged, and did not understand the consequences of his actions.
- Jones is an attention-seeking psychopath.
- Right now the Christians have most of the nukes. If the fight got big enough, the Muslims could be vapourised and the Christians would win the age old conflict.
If you read the bible cover to cover, you will discover it is absurd, erroneous and self-contradictory. Trying to claim it is the literal word of god is like trying to pass off a poem by William McGonagall as the work of William Shakespear. If you doubt this, use my guide to the bible that points out some of the more absurd passages. There is no evidence at all the bible is the literal word of god (e.g. some titanium plates). Its authors are largely anonymous.
The only evidence the Qur’an is the literal word of god is that the poetry is alleged to be better than any other in Arabic. It seems to me a simpler explanation is that Mohammed was like Milton, and exquisite poetry just flowed out of him without conscious effort.
Both sides are utterly convinced, without evidence, they are speaking for God. They both know in their hearts they have no evidence for their extravagant claims. All they have is endless repeated assertion and threats to those who point out the lack of evidence. They both know they are lying about their certainty. But that does not stop them killing each other.
Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian.
~ William Shakespear (born: 1564-04-23 died: 1616-04-23 at age: 52) Twelfth Night act I, scene iii
There cannot possibly be a god in heaven watching all of this calmly.
~ Revi Shankar
I’m not going to have a tombstone. I’m going to be tossed in the air. Ashes, tossed like a salad.
~ William Shatner (born: 1931-03-22 age: 81)
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)
Most people do not pray; they only beg.
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)
No public man in these islands ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means.
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
~ George Bernard Shaw (born: 1856-07-26 died: 1950-11-02 at age: 94)
A God made by man undoubtedly has need of man to make himself known to man.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (born: 1792-08-04 died: 1822-07-08 at age: 29)
And priests dare babble of a God of peace,
Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood,
Murdering the while, uprooting every germ
Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all,
Making the earth a slaughter-house!
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (born: 1792-08-04 died: 1822-07-08 at age: 29) Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem 1813
Design must be proved before a designer can be inferred.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (born: 1792-08-04 died: 1822-07-08 at age: 29)
I was an infant when my mother went
To see an atheist burned. She took me there.
The dark-robed priests were met around the pile;
The multitude was gazing silently;
And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien,
Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye,
Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth;
The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs;
His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon;
His death-pang rent my heart! the insensate mob
Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept.
“ Weep not, child!” cried my mother, “ for that man”
Has said, “ There is no God.”
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (born: 1792-08-04 died: 1822-07-08 at age: 29) Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem 1813
If ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, knowledge of nature is made for their destruction.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (born: 1792-08-04 died: 1822-07-08 at age: 29)
Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they have arrived at for non-smart reasons.
~ Michael Shermer (born: 1954-09-08 age: 57) Why People Believe Weird Things page 283
In many parts of the Bible Belt, the divorce rate was discovered to be roughly 50 percent above the national average.
~ Ronald J. Sider (born: 1939-09-17 age: 72) Christianity Today source
I read in the Gospels that Jesus forgave the men who nailed him to the cross. He even promised “this day you shall be with me in paradise” to a thief crucified next to him — a thief who addressed Jesus simply as a ”man” rather than as “the son of God”. Yet, today, this same Jesus cannot forgive my kindly old aunt and allow her to dwell in paradise, simply because her beliefs do not match Reverend So-and-So’s?
~ Andrew Silver
There are a score of great religions in the world, each with scores or hundreds of sects, each with its priestly orders, its complicated creed and ritual, its heavens and hells. Each has its thousands or millions or hundreds of millions of “ true believers” each damns all the others with more or less heartiness — and each is a mighty fortress of graft.
~ Upton Sinclair (born: 1878-09-20 died: 1968-11-25 at age: 90)
For most cosmologists, a supernatural God is an unnecessary hypothesis. For most Americans, He is an unassailable fact. The American belief machine apparently has a fail-safe component. Nothing shuts it down.
~ Gary Sloan The Bible-Belting of America
I’ll long remember the crestfallen look of a pious student when I told him the faculty of a divinity school he planned to attend included a large number of avowed atheists.
~ Gary Sloan Did Jesus Exist and Does it Matter?
One can’t logically argue that because something highly improbable happens, some occult force had to make it happen that way.
~ Gary Sloan The ABCs of Nontheistic Evolution
Science not only hasn’t found God, it isn’t even looking for him.
~ Gary Sloan The Bible-Belting of America
Their belief in Jesus gives them an indefatigably sympathetic confidant, assuages their fear of death and bereavement, wards off existential angst, assures cosmic purpose, and aligns them with the good guys. So handsome are the psychological pay-offs of belief that many, perhaps most, devout orthodox Christians are impervious to all countervailing logic and evidence. Their will to believe vanquishes every disquieting fact, every contrary line of reasoning, no matter how compelling to an impartial eye. Psychologists have a frightening arsenal of terms for the mental habits designed to preserve cherished beliefs: dissociation, absolutist thinking, dichotomisation, object permanence, nominal realism, phenomenalistic causality and worse.
~ Gary Sloan Did Jesus Exist and Does it Matter?
True believers aren’t about to be seduced by the facts.
~ Gary Sloan Did Jesus Exist and Does it Matter?
Modernity sees humanity as having ascended from what is inferior to it — life begins in slime and ends in intelligence — whereas traditional cultures see it as descended from its superiors. As the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins put the matter: “ We are the only people who assume that we have ascended from apes. Everybody else take it for granted that they are descended from gods.”
~ Huston Smith (born: 1919-05-31 age: 92)
Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.
~ Sydney Smith (born: 1771-06-03 died: 1845-02-22 at age: 73)
The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honour you can bestow on him. It means that you recognise his superiority to yourself.
~ Joseph Sobran (born: 1946-02-23 age: 66)
Never let a man imagine that he can pursue a good end by evil means, without sinning against his own soul. The evil effect on himself is certain.
~ Robert Southey (born: 1774-08-12 died: 1843-03-21 at age: 68)
…secular journalists… tend to accept uncritically the oft-repeated Evangelical Protestant and Conservative Roman Catholic definitions that the Bible is anti-gay. If these people were honest, they would have to admit that the Bible is also pro-slavery and anti-women.
~ John Shelby Spong (born: 1931-06-13 age: 80)
The poets were not alone in sanctioning myths, for long before the poets the states and the lawmakers had sanctioned them as a useful expedient… They needed to control the people by superstitious fears, and these cannot be aroused without myths and marvels.
~ Stabo (born: 58 BC died: 24 AD at age: 81) Greek geographer
I’m going to go all about in a Ford van. Like the apostles of old, I’ll go about the land.
~ Amos Starkadder played by Ian McKellen (born: 1939-05-25 age: 73) in Cold Comfort Farm
Alternative explanations are always welcome in science, if they are better and explain more. Alternative explanations that explain nothing are not welcome… Note how science changed those beliefs when new data became available. Religions stick to the same ancient beliefs regardless of the data.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
Any attempt at understanding humanity must include an explanation of the hold that supernatural belief continues to have on most of the human race.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
Any strategy that attempts to reinforce faith by undermining science is also doomed to failure. Showing that some scientific theory is wrong will not prove that the religious alternative is correct by default. When the sun was shown not to be the center of the universe, as Copernicus had proposed, the Earth was not moved back to that singular position in the cosmos. If Darwinian evolution is proved wrong, biologists will not develop a new theory based on the hypothesis that each species was created separately by God 6,000 years ago.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
But, as we have seen, movement does not require a mover, and modern quantum mechanics has shown that not all effects require a cause. And even if they did, why would the Prime Mover need to be a supernatural anthropomorphic deity such as the Judeo-Christian God? Why could it not just as well be the material universe itself?
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
In short, evolution is as close to being a scientific fact as is possible for any theory, given that science is open-ended and no one can predict with certainty what may change in the future. The prospect that evolution by natural selection, at least as a broad mechanism, will be overthrown in the future is about as likely as the prospect of finding out some day that the Earth is really flat. Unfortunately, those who regard these scientific facts as a threat to faith have chosen to distort and misrepresent them to the public.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
In the United States, the new creationist movement has convinced many people and their political servants that scientists are being unfair in not supporting the teaching of alternatives to evolution in science classes. They say it is censorship to exclude intelligent design from those classes. The usual argument raised against teaching intelligent design is that it unconstitutionally promotes religion. Design promoters, however, insist that they have no particular designer in mind. No one believes them, but skilled lawyers arguing for the cause of impartiality on their behalf could probably prevail in court. In any case, a better argument exists: Intelligent design theory, as currently formulated by its leading proponents, should not be taught in science classes because it is provably wrong.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
Is there a place in a church where you leave your brains when you enter?
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
Just because quantum mechanics is weird does not mean that everything that is weird is quantum mechanics.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)This is pot shot at phonies like Deepak Chopra who try to dress up their mumbo-jumbo with a bit of quantum mechanical vocabulary or argue from stretched quantum mechanical analogies to shore up their pop psychology.
Proof is not required to believe [in a god]. But some sign, some evidence is needed. None exists…. Find some inkling of evidence. There is none.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
Scientific evidence for God’s existence is being claimed today by theists, many of whom carry respectable scientific or philosophical credentials. “ He” who is neither a “ she” nor an “ it” supposedly answers prayers and otherwise dramatically affects the outcome of events. If these consequences are as significant as believers say, then the effects should be detectable in properly controlled experiments.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
Scientists have practical reasons for wishing that religion and science be kept separate. They can see nothing but trouble … if they venture into the deeply divisive issue of religion — especially when their results tend to support a highly unpopular, atheistic conclusion.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
The argument from design rests on the notion that everything, but God, must come from something. However, once you agree that it is logically possible for an entity to exist that was not itself created, namely God, then that entity can just as well be the universe itself. Indeed, this is a more economical possibility, not requiring the additional hypothesis of a supernatural power outside the universe… To [creationists], it is not a matter of logic anyway, but common sense. They see no way that the universe could have just happened, without intent. “ How can something come from nothing?” they continue to ask, never wondering how God came from nothing.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
The battle over the validity of evolution has been publicly posed as a scientific one. However, you will find little sign of it in scientific journals, where such quarrels as exist are over details, not the basic concept… Evolution has proved so useful as a paradigm for the origin and structure of life that it constitutes the foundation of the sciences of biology and medicine.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
To most theistic believers, human life can have no meaning in a universe without God. Quite sincerely, and with understandable yearning for a meaning to their existence, they reject the possibility of no God. In their minds, only a purposeful universe based on God is possible and science can do nothing else but support this “ truth.”
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
When people start using science to argue for their specific beliefs and delusions, to try to claim that they’ re supported by science, then scientists at least have to speak up and say, “ You” re welcome to your delusions, but don’t say that they’re supported by science.
~ Victor J. Stenger (born: 1935-01-29 age: 77)
God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.
~ Texas bumper stickerThe author of the bumper sticker does not understand the difference between the old testament saying something and a god saying it. There is no evidence that a god had anything at all to do with the composing of the bible. Even Christians admit it was composed by humans about whom we know almost nothing. Further, we have no evidence that any god exists. Claiming proof because the infallible bible asserts gods exist is circular reasoning. The bible has no authority until you can first demonstrate it was composed by a god and that it is infallible. It clearly is not. It is cram full of error and inconsistency.
And thus they come into Bethany, and a certain, woman whose brother had died, was there. And coming she prostrated herself before Jesus and sayeth unto him, “ Son of David have mercy on me”. But the disciples rebuked her.And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb.
And going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand.
But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich.
And after six days, Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over nakedness. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.
~ suppressed part of the Gospel according to Mark
The Bible says that the “the Lord thy God is a jealous God.“ But if you are omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, and the creator of all that exists, of whom could you possibly be jealous?
~ Charles Templeton (born: 1915-10-07 died: 2001-06-07 at age: 85)The answer to that question is the god Jehovah started out as a small local god. As the cult spread the Jehovaists got bolder and asserted not only was their god better than all the other gods, the others did not even exist.
The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse. I use it sometimes, but I do so sparingly. By misuse I mean that people who have never even glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction as if they knew what they were talking about. Or, they argue against it, as if they knew what it is that they are denying.
~ Eckhart Tolle (born: 1948-02-16 age: 64) The Power of Now
That’s the problem with believing in a supreme being, determining what he wants.
~ Deanna Troi (born: 1955-03-29 age: 57) Star Trek Next Generation, played by Marina Sirtis
Whatever man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this — Great God, grant that twice two be not four.
~ Ivan Turgenev (born: 1818-11-09 died: 1883-09-03 at age: 64)
In the time of Galileo it was argued that the texts, “ And the sun stood still… and hasted not to go down about a whole day”Joshua 10:13 and “ He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not move at any time” Psalms 104:5 were an adequate refutation of the Copernican theory.
~ Alan Turing (born: 1912-06-23 died: 1954-06-07 at age: 41)
[The Bible] has noble poetry in it… and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
As for the dinosaur — But Noah’s conscience was easy; it was not named in his cargo list and he and the boys were not aware that there was such a creature. He said he could not blame himself for not knowing about the dinosaur, because it was an American animal, and America had not then been discovered.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
Faith is believing what you know isn’t so.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
I am plenty safe enough in his hands; I am not in any danger from that kind of a Deity. The one that I want to keep out of the reach of, is the caricature of him which one finds in the Bible. We (that one and I) could never respect each other, never get along together. I have met his superior a hundred times — in fact I amount to that myself.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious — unless he purposely shut the eyes of his mind & keep them shut by force.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
If there is a God, he is a malign thug.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
If we could imagine such a man, that is a man who could invent the fly and send him out on his mission and furnish him with his orders: “Depart into the uttermost corners of the earth and, diligently do your appointed work. Persecute the sick child, settle upon its eyes, its face, its hands, and gnaw and pester and sting, worry and fret and madden the worn and tried mother who watches by the child, and humbly prays for mercy and relief with the pathetic faith of the deceived and the unteachable.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)We would endlessly revile a man who invented the fly, but we let God off the hook for allegedly doing the exact same thing. Why don’t people tell this bastard, God, what they really think of him? Because they are afraid of the imaginary monster they have created.
In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
It is better to read the weather forecast before we pray for rain.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
It is plain that there is one moral law for heaven and another for the earth. The pulpit assures us that wherever we see suffering and sorrow, which we can relieve, and do not, we sin, heavily. There was never yet a case of suffering or sorrow which God could not relieve. Does He sin then?
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
Man is a marvelous curiosity… he thinks he is the Creator’s pet… he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn’t it a quaint idea.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the [biblical] texts that authorised them remain.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)Oddly, the one death penalty modern day Christians cling to with vigilante violence is one cherry picked from the scores that Leviticus demanded, the one against homosexuality.
Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
No god and no religion can survive ridicule. No church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field and live.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed it. They also believed the world was flat.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
Our Bible reveals to us the character of our god with minute and remorseless exactness… It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light … by contrast.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
To trust the God of the Bible is to trust an irascible, vindictive, fierce and ever fickle and changeful master; to trust the true God is to trust a Being who has uttered no promises, but whose beneficent, exact, and changeless ordering of the machinery of His colossal universe is proof that He is at least steadfast to His purposes; whose unwritten laws, so far as the affect man, being equal and impartial, show that he is just and fair; these things, taken together, suggest that if he shall ordain us to live hereafter, he will be steadfast, just and fair toward us. We shall not need to require anything more.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
We despise all reverences and all objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our list of sacred things and yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy for us.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
“In God We Trust.” I don’t believe it would sound any better if it were true.
~ Mark Twain (born: 1835-11-30 died: 1910-04-21 at age: 74)
Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.
~ Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (born: 1958-10-05 age: 53)
The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there’s any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all.
~ Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (born: 1958-10-05 age: 53)
UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) sightings are not higher among amateur astronomers than they are in the general public. In fact, they’re lower. You say, why is that so? Well, because we know what the hell we’re looking at!
~ Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (born: 1958-10-05 age: 53)
Earth Power
We gently caress you, the Earth, our planet and our home.
Our vision has brought us closer to you, making us aware of the harm we have done to the life-network upon which we ourselves depend.
We are reminded that we have poisoned your waters, your lands, your air.
We have filled you with the bones of our dead from war and greed.
Your pain is our pain.
Touching you gently, we pray that we may become peace-bringers and life-bringers so that our home in its journey around the Sun not become a sterile and lonely place.
May this prayer and its power last forever.
~ Sensei Fredrich Ulrich (born: 1939 age: 72)
Whenever religion touches science, it gets burned. In the sixteen century astronomy, in the seventeenth microbiology, in the eighteenth geology and paleontology, in the nineteenth Darwin’s biology all grotesquely extended the world-frame and sent churchmen scurrying for cover in ever smaller, more shadowy nooks, little gloomy ambiguous caves in the psyche where even now neurology is cruelly harrying them, gouging them out from the multifolded brain like wood lice from under the woodpile. Barth had been right: totaliter aliter. Only by placing God totally on the other side of the humanly understandable can any final safety for Him be secured.
~ John Updike (born: 1932-03-18 died: 2009-01-27 at age: 76)
Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.
~ Peter Ustinov (born: 1921-04-16 died: 2004-03-28 at age: 82)
I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam — good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.
~ Gore Vidal (born: 1925-10-03 age: 86) At Home 1988
I’m a born-again atheist.
~ Gore Vidal (born: 1925-10-03 age: 86)
Religions sprang up among men to deal with the sometimes terrifying aspects of existence, to make sense out of the senseless, to explain things we find inexplicable.
~ Gore Vidal (born: 1925-10-03 age: 86)
The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric bronze-age text known as the Old Testament, three antihuman religions have evolved — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal — God is the omnipotent father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is jealous. He requires total obedience. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed. Totalitarianism is the only politics that can true serve the sky-god’s purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family.
~ Gore Vidal (born: 1925-10-03 age: 86)
The Puritans left England for America not because they couldn’t be Puritans in their mother country, but because they were not allowed to force others to become Puritans; in the New World, of course, they could and did.
~ Gore Vidal (born: 1925-10-03 age: 86)As religious myths go, polytheism has one huge advantage. As an polytheist, my default position is that your gods exist too. I don’t have to deny their existence or declare them wicked or kill you for worshiping them. It is just that I like mine better, or that mine specialise in requests from my locality or in my sort of needs.
When the white race broke out of Europe 500 years ago, it did many astounding things all over the globe. Inspired by a raging sky-god, the whites were able to pretend that their conquests were in order to bring the One God to everyone, particularly those with older and subtler religions.
~ Gore Vidal (born: 1925-10-03 age: 86)
Almost no one who has ever studied the NDE (Near Death Experience) comes away thinking that Hell is eternal.
~ Dr. Ken Vincent
Nature never breaks her own laws.
~ Leonardo da Vinci (born: 1452-04-15 died: 1519-05-02 at age: 67)
Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.
~ Voltaire (born: 1694-11-21 died: 1778-05-30 at age: 83) [François Marie d’Arouet Voltaire]
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
~ Voltaire (born: 1694-11-21 died: 1778-05-30 at age: 83) [François Marie d’Arouet Voltaire]
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “ O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it.
~ Voltaire (born: 1694-11-21 died: 1778-05-30 at age: 83) [Franç ois Marie d’Arouet Voltaire]
Nos prê tres ne sont pas qu’un vain peuple pense; Notre cré dulité fait tout leur science.
Our priests are not what a silly populace supposes; all their learning consists in our credulity.
~ Voltaire (born: 1694-11-21 died: 1778-05-30 at age: 83) [François Marie d’Arouet Voltaire]
Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
~ Voltaire (born: 1694-11-21 died: 1778-05-30 at age: 83) [François Marie d’Arouet Voltaire]
Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
~ Voltaire (born: 1694-11-21 died: 1778-05-30 at age: 83) [François Marie d’ Arouet Voltaire]
Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool.
~ Voltaire (born: 1694-11-21 died: 1778-05-30 at age: 83) [François Marie d’ Arouet Voltaire]
The deluding passions are inexhaustible.
I vow to extinguish them all.
Sentient beings are numberless.
I vow to save them all.
The truth is impossible to expound.
I vow to expound it.
The way of the Buddha is unattainable.
I vow to attain it.
~ vow of the Bodhisattvas
He [Allah] should demand praise and absolute worship from creatures He Himself has created? What can we say of the rather curious psychology of a Being who creates humans — or rather automata — some of whom are preprogrammed to grovel in the dirt five times a day in homage to Himself? This obsessive desire for praise is hardly a moral virtue and is certainly not worthy of a morally supreme Being.
~ Ibn Warraq (born: 1946 age: 65)
Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.
~ George Washington (born: 1732-02-22 died: 1799-12-14 at age: 67) , first president of the United States, letter to Edward Newenham, 1792-10-20
Did all this happen by chance or by intelligent design? [referring to a complex plant, the Dutchman’s pipe]
~ The Watchtower A Jehovah’s Witness creationist publication.Neither. It happened by natural selection which is anything but random, and does not consciously design or use a designer. You would think by now the J.W. administration would have read at least one book on what evolutionary theory claims so they could attempt to more convincingly refute it. They seem content with straw man arguments unchanged since the 1800s. What they are doing is fraud — deliberately misstating evolutionary theory.
" I have an understanding of who and what I am, which is a part of the earth. So that’s what I identify with, is the planet as a whole.We come out of the earth and go back into the earth. What gives me great joy is knowing that everything around; rivers, mountains… is a part of my body.
Almost all theological thought is anthropocentric and I just cannot buy into the anthropocentric ideology. Basically we’re a bunch of conceited apes."
~ Captain Paul Watson (born: 1950-12-02 age: 61) environmentalist
If there is a God that has special plans for humans, then He has taken very great pains to hide His concern for us. To me it would seem impolite if not impious to bother such a God with our prayers.
~ Steven Weinberg (born: 1933-05-03 age: 79) Physicist and Nobel Laureate
A priest is a man vowed, trained, and consecrated, a man belonging to a special corps, and necessarily with an intense esprit de corps. He has given up his life to his temple and his god. This is a very excellent thing for the internal vigour of his own priesthood, his own temple. He lives and dies for the honour of his particular god. But in the next town or village is another temple with another god. It is his constant preoccupation to keep his people from that god. Religious cults and priesthoods are sectarian by nature; they will convert, they will overcome, but they will never coalesce.
~ H. G. Wells (born: 1866-09-21 died: 1946-08-13 at age: 79) The Outline of History page 215
Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims.
~ H. G. Wells (born: 1866-09-21 died: 1946-08-13 at age: 79)
I do not believe I have any immortality. The greatest evil in the world today is the Christian religion
~ H. G. Wells (born: 1866-09-21 died: 1946-08-13 at age: 79)
I was indeed a prodigy of Early Impiety… There was a time when I believed in the story and the scheme of salvation, so far as I could understand it, just as there was a time when I believed there was a Devil… Suddenly the broke through to me and I knew this God was a lie… I sensed it was a silly story long before I dared to admit even to myself that it was a silly story. For indeed it is a silly story, and each generation nowadays swallows it with greater difficulty… Why do people go on pretending about this Christianity?
~ H. G. Wells (born: 1866-09-21 died: 1946-08-13 at age: 79) What Great Men Think of Religion
Indeed Christianity passes. Passes — it has gone! It has littered the beaches of life with churches, cathedrals, shrines and crucifixes, prejudices and intolerances, like the sea urchin and starfish and empty shells and lumps of stinging jelly upon the sands here after a tide. A tidal wave out of Egypt. And it has left a multitude of little wriggling theologians and confessors and apologists hopping and burrowing in the warm nutritious sand. But in the hearts of living men, what remains of it now? Doubtful scraps of Arianism. Phrases. Sentiments. Habits.
~ H. G. Wells (born: 1866-09-21 died: 1946-08-13 at age: 79) What Great Men Think of Religion
It is well known that the Athenians celebrated the allegorical giving of the flesh to eat of Ceres, the goddess of corn, and in like manner the giving his blood to drink by Bacchus, the god of wine.
~ Rev Dr. Richard B Westbrook 1890
As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.
~ Alfred North Whitehead (born: 1861-02-15 died: 1947-12-30 at age: 86)
I consider Christianity to be one of the great disasters of the human race… It would be impossible to imagine anything more un-Christianlike than theology.
~ Alfred North Whitehead (born: 1861-02-15 died: 1947-12-30 at age: 86)
Religion is the last refuge of human savagery.
~ Alfred North Whitehead (born: 1861-02-15 died: 1947-12-30 at age: 86)
Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.
~ Oscar Wilde (born: 1854-10-16 died: 1900-11-30 at age: 46)
Despite its claims otherwise, the Vatican Bank is not a branch of the State of Vatican City. (Stato della Citta del Vaticano). It exists as an entity unto itself without corporate or ecclesiastical ties to any other agency within the Holy See. It is under the direct supervision of the pope. He is the one and only stockholder. He owns it; he controls it.
~ Paul L. Williams The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia
I want everyone out there in TV land to touch the TV. Touch the back of the TV and get a shock for Jesus.
~ Robin Williams (born: 1951-07-21 age: 60)
Shove it up your ass.
~ South Carolina woman on her deathbed to Christians trying to convert her.
I read the book of Job last night, I don’t think God comes out well in it.
~ Virginia Woolf (born: 1882-01-25 died: 1941-03-28 at age: 59)
It is far more difficult to murder a phantom than a reality.
~ Virginia Woolf (born: 1882-01-25 died: 1941-03-28 at age: 59)
One of the things that most pains and torments these Japanese is that we teach them that the prison of hell is irrevocably shut. For they grieve over the fate of their departed children, of their parents and relatives; and they often show their grief by their tears. So they ask us if there is any hope… and I am obliged to answer that there is absolutely none. The grief at this affects and torments them wonderfully; they almost pine away with sorrow… I can hardly restrain my tears sometimes at seeing many so dear to my heart suffer such intense pain about a thing which is already done with and can never be undone.
~ Jesuit Saint Francis Xavier (born: 1506-04-07 died: 1552-12-03 at age: 46) a Roman Catholic missionary to Japan
If oxen and lions had hands and could paint with their hands and produce works of art, as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods likes horses and oxen like oxen. Each would represent them with bodies according to the bodies of each. So the Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians give theirs red hair and blue eyes.
~ Xenophanes of Kolophon (born: 570 BC died: 480 BC at age: 90) 530BC
Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.
~ Émile Zola (born: 1840-04-02 died: 1902-09-29 at age: 62)
A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency — issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights — the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared with those who describe themselves as very religious.
~ Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman (born: 1954-12-24 age: 57) The Washington Post
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