Anyone who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
—Voltaire, 1765
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you would have good people
doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things,
that takes religion.
—Steven Weinberg, 1999
***
Science, by its definition, must exclude the idea of a personal and active providence.
—Henry Adams, 1919
There can be no truce between science and religion.
—J. B. S. Haldane, 1923
If we are honest - and scientists have to be - we much admit that religion is a jumble of false
assertions, with no basis in reality.
—Paul Dirac, 1927
The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made not by theologians, but
by scientists unable to shake off altogether the piety absorbed with their mother’s milk.
—H. L. Mencken, 1956
***
Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and
profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1911
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us
just go one god further.
—Richard Dawkins, 2002
Thanks to God, I’m still an atheist.
—Luis Buñuel, 1959
She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1964
I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - this is all that agnosticism
means.
—Clarence Darrow, 1925
***
With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
7
7
From his Notebook L (1793–1796).
76
On Faith and Religion
—Voltaire, 1765
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you would have good people
doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things,
that takes religion.
—Steven Weinberg, 1999
***
Science, by its definition, must exclude the idea of a personal and active providence.
—Henry Adams, 1919
There can be no truce between science and religion.
—J. B. S. Haldane, 1923
If we are honest - and scientists have to be - we much admit that religion is a jumble of false
assertions, with no basis in reality.
—Paul Dirac, 1927
The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made not by theologians, but
by scientists unable to shake off altogether the piety absorbed with their mother’s milk.
—H. L. Mencken, 1956
***
Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and
profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1911
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us
just go one god further.
—Richard Dawkins, 2002
Thanks to God, I’m still an atheist.
—Luis Buñuel, 1959
She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1964
I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - this is all that agnosticism
means.
—Clarence Darrow, 1925
***
With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
7
7
From his Notebook L (1793–1796).
76
On Faith and Religion