“If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.”
-- Baron D’Holbach (Paul Henry Thiry), 18th century European philosopher
“When I look up at the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what it is that I really see there, I am constrained to say,
‘There is no God.’ It is not the works of some God that I see there. … I see no lineaments of personality, no human
traits, but an energy upon whose currents solar systems are but bubbles.”
-- John Burroughs, 19th century American naturalist
“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 Huxley, 19th century biologist
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
-- Aldous Huxley, early 20th century author and grandson of Thomas Huxley
“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, 20th century English mathematician and Nobel-prize-winner in literature
“I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies.”
-- Benjamin Franklin, American revolutionary, statesman and inventor
“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated
statements of Christian dogma.”
-- Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States
“To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like
Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against that liberty of conscience which
is one of the foundations of American life.”
-- Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth President of the United States
“I do not believe in the divinity of Christ and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I
cannot subscribe.”
-- William H. Taft, twenty-seventh President of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice (1921 to 1930)
“The lessons of religious toleration—a toleration which recognizes complete liberty of human thought, liberty of
conscience—is one which, by precept and example, must be inculcated in the hearts and minds of all Americans if the
institutions of our democracy are to be maintained and perpetuated.”
-- Franklin Roosevelt, thirty-second President of the United States
“I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit.”
-- Mark Twain, 19th century author, humorist, and satirist
“If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate.”
-- Carl Sagan
“Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly
in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of
a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.”
[Thomas Jefferson, letter to his nephew Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787.]
“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, Atheist activist
JoeUser Forums
