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To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. --Cardinal Bellarmine 1615, during the trial of Galileo
I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it. --A. Einstein
The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action. --A. Einstein
The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief. --Sigmund Freud
No deity will save us, we must save ourselves. Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful. --Humanist Manifesto II, Prometheus Books, 1973
Reason should be destroyed in all Christians. --Martin Luther
And that inverted bowl we call the sky, Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die, lift not thy hands to It for help - for It Rolls impotently on as Thou or I. --Rubàiyàt
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. --Blaise Pascal
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
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. --Thomas Paine
The first step towards philosophy is incredulity. --Denis Diderot
To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world, is just as base as to use force. --Hypatia (c. 370-415 CE)
I do not find in our particular superstitions of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded on fables and mythology. --Thomas Jefferson
The only terror in death is the apprehension of what lies beyond it, and that emotion is impossible to a sincere disbeliever. --C.W. Foote
The time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all to make their dissent from religion known. --John Stuart Mill
The whole tone of Church teaching in regard to women is, to the last degree, contemptuous and degrading. --Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Commonly, those who have professed the strongest motives of love of a God have demonstrated the deepest hatred toward human joy and liberty. --E. Haldeman-Julius
After all, the principle objection which a thinking man has to religion is that religion is not true --and is not even sane. --E. Haldeman-Julius
They were allowed to stay there on one condition, and that is that they didn't eat of the tree of knowledge. That has been the condition of the Christian church from then until now. They haven't eaten as yet, as a rule they do not. --Clarence Darrow
Everywhere in the world there are ignorance and prejudice, but the greatest complex of these, with the most extensive prestige and the most intimate entanglement with traditional institutions, is the Roman Catholic Church. --H.G. Wells
Those who believe in hell can never know truth, for they are blinded by fear. --Emmet F. Fields
No wild beasts are as hostile to men as Christian sects in general are to one another. --Emperor Julian
The undoubted sign of a society well under control or in decline is that language has ceased to be a means of communication and has become instead a shield for those who master it. --John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards
There is no need to search for global solutions, apart from an absolute necessity to destroy the idea that such things exist. -- John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards
To err is a sign of intelligence. ... A society that punishes error--as Western civilization increasingly does--discourages individual responsibility. --John Ralston Saul, The Doubter's Companion
The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas --uncertainty, progress, change --into crimes. --Salman Rushdie
The Santa myth is one of the most effective means ever devised for intimidating children, eroding their self-esteem, twisting their behavior, warping their values, and slowing their development of critical thinking skills. --Tom Flynn
Pour juger de l'utilité sociale d'une religion, il faut examiner d'abord si elle donne de bonnes qualités à la divinité et établit la justice distributive des peines et des récompenses; à qui les peines et récompenses sont destineés; si elle est desservie par des hommes d'élite ou, au contraire, si elle est sujette au schisme, ou si elle enseigne que tous les particuliers doivent toujours se conforme au culte public.
In order to assess a religion's merits for society, one needs to examine first of all
- whether it attributes to its divinity good qualities and establishes a regime of punishment and reward,
- who the recipients of punishments and rewards are,
- whether it serves an elite or is the product of a schism, or whether it teaches that all individuals submit to the official cult without exception.
Pierre Bayle "Réponse aux questions d'un provincial"
Die Religion fordert das Aufheben des Willens, das weltliche Prinzip legt ihn dagegen zu Grunde; wenn jene religiösen Prinzipien sich geltend machen, so kann es nicht anders geschehen, als daß die Regierung mit Gewalt verfahren und die entgegenstehenden Religionen verdrängen oder die, welche derselben angehören, als Parthei behandeln.
Religion demands the negation of will which is fundamental to the secular principle; if those religious principles assert themselves, then it must happen that governments act with force to remove the opposing religions, or that they treat members of the same religion as political party.
G.W.F. Hegel "Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion"
Ewig steht der bloßen Gewißheit Wahrheit gegenüber und über die Wahrheit entscheidet die Gewißheit, unmittelbares Wissen, Glaube nicht.
Truth and mere certainty are eternal opposites, and truth is not decided by certainty, intuitive knowledge, or faith.
G.W.F. Hegel "Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion"
Gott ist die Erklärung des Unerklärlichen, die nichts erklärt, weil sie Alles ohne Unterschied erklären soll --er ist die Nacht der Theorie, die aber dadurch Alles dem Gemüthe klar macht, dass in ihr das Maass der Finsternis, das unterscheidende Verstandeslicht ausgeht --das Nichtwissen, das alle Zweifel löst, weil es alle niederschlägt, Alles weiss, weil es nichts Bestimmtes weiss, weil alle Dinge, die der Vernunft imponieren, vor der Religion verschwinden, ihre Individualität verloren, im Auge der göttlichen Macht nichts sind. Die Nacht ist die Mutter der Religion.
God is the explanation for the unexplainable which explains nothing because it explains everything without distinction --He is the night of theory, nonetheless making everything clear to the mind by removing any measure of darkness and extinguishing the light of discriminating comprehension --the not-knowing which solves all doubts by repudiating them, which knows everything because it knows nothing in particular and because all things which impress reason are nothing to religion, lose their identity, and are nil in God's eye. The night is the mother of religion.
L. Feuerbach, "Das Wesen des Christenthums"
Die Religion knüpft an ihre Lehren Fluch und Segen, Verdammung und Seligkeit. Selig ist, wer glaubt, unselig, verloren, verdammt, wer ihr nicht glaubt. Sie appellirt also nicht an die Vernunft, sondern an das Gemüth, an den Glückseligkeitstrieb, an die Affecte der Furcht und Hoffnung.
The teachings of religion are tied in with malediction and blessing, damnation and blessedness. Blessed is he who believes, not blessed, lost, condemned, he who does not believe. Thus it does not appeal to reason, but only to the mind, the drive for beatitude, to the emotions of fear and hope.
L. Feuerbach, "Das Wesen des Christenthums"
Der Glaube, beschränkt und befangen, schiebt Alles auf die Gesinnung. Der Ungläubige ist ihm aus Verstocktheit, aus Bosheit ungläubig, ein Feind Christi. Der Glaube assimilirt sich daher nur die Gläubigen, aber die Ungläubigen verstösst er. Er ist gut gegen die Gläubigen, aber böse gegen die Ungläubigen. Im Glauben liegt ein böses Prinzip.
Faith, restricted and biased, interprets everything in terms of ideology. To it, the non-believer believes not because he is obdurate and evil, an enemy of Christ. Faith accepts only the faithful, but rejects those without faith. It is good towards the faithful, but evil against those without faith. Faith is based on an evil principle.
L. Feuerbach, "Das Wesen des Christenthums"
Der Glaube kennt nur Feinde oder Freunde, keine Unparteilichkeit; er ist nur für sich eingenommen. Der Glaube ist wesentlich intolerant --wesentlich, weil mit dem Glauben immer nothwendig der Wahn verbunden ist, dass seine Sache die Sache Gottes sei, seine Ehre die Ehre Gottes.
Faith knows only friends or foes, but no neutrality; it is biassed towards itself. Faith is essentially intolerant --essentially, because faith leads necessarily to the delusion that its cause is God's cause, and that its honour is God's honour.
L. Feuerbach, "Das Wesen des Christenthums"
Die Liebe, die durch den Glauben gebunden, ist eine engherzige, falsche, dem Begriff der Liebe, d.h. sich selbst widersprechende Liebe, eine scheinheilige Liebe, denn sie birgt den Hass des Glaubens in sich; sie ist nur gut, so lange der Glaube nicht verletzt wird.
Love, bound by faith, is a narrow-minded, fake, the concept of love, i.e. itself contradicting love, a sanctimonious love, because it bears the hate of faith inside itself; it is only good as long as faith is not violated.
L. Feuerbach, "Das Wesen des Christenthums"
Celui qui aimerait mieux qu'il n'y eût point de Dieu, que d'y en avoir un qui se plaise a rendre éternellement malheuxeux ceux-là mêmes qui, véritablement, aiment l'ordre et la raison, est juste; parce que ce Dieu fantastique, injuste et cruel n'est point aimable.
Those who would rather have that there be no God, instead of one who takes pleasure in condemning even those to eternal damnation who evidently love order and reason, are right; for one cannot love such a bizarre, unjust, and cruel God.
Malebranche, "Traité de morale"

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