Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Some new quotes for thought

Religion is the opiate of the people.
~ Karl Marx


If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be - a Christian.
- Mark Twain

A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy,
education, and social ties and needs; 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

"Where knowledge ends, religion begins."
-- Benjamin Disraeli

"The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by Homo Sapiens is that the Lord God of
Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his
creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does
not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of
evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least
productive industries in history."
-- Robert Heinlein

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

"Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image,
I reply that he must have been very ugly."
-- Victor Hugo

"Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible,
the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a
vacuum remains."
-- Robert G. Ingersoll

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

"Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense."
-- Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

Good people can do good and bad people can do evil. But for good people to do evil -- that takes religion.
-- Steven Weinberg

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
-- Blaise Pascal