More English Atheist's Favourite Quotes

"What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church...a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them." - Martin Luther

"Hey Butt-Head check this book out!  There's a talking snake, a naked chick, then some guy puts a leaf on his SCHLONG!!" - Beavis and Butt-Head Do America

"Whatever the natural cause, sin is the true cause of all earthquakes." - John Wesley (1703 - 1791)

"Why do people go on pretending about this Christianity?" - H.G.Wells

Voltaire wrote, in a letter to Frederick the Great: "Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world."

"I've gone into thousands of furtune teller's parlours, and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her." - A New York Detective

"All the Gospels, after having run closely together in their accounts of the trial and execution, diverge markedly when they come to the circumstance of the Resurrection. It's impossible to fit their accounts together into a single coherent scheme." - A. E. Harvey, Christian scholar.

"The simple believeth every word." - Proverbs 14:15

"I am a Christian and I enjoy attending church. I consider myself to be sensitive, caring, and kind-hearted. I´m currently serving a life sentence on the charge of murder." - Susan Smith, in an Internet personal ad, June 2003. (Smith murdered her two sons by locking them in her car and rolling it into a lake. In 1994, she tearfully pleaded for the return of her sons on American national TV -- having just murdered them.)

"The earth is flat, and anyone who disputes this claim is an atheist who deserves to be punished." [Muslim religious edict, 1993, Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz, Supreme religious authority, Saudi Arabia]

In the 1500s, Michel de Montaigne, who created the essay as a literary form, wrote comments such as: "Man is certainly stark mad: he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen."

"We only half live when we only half think." -Voltaire

" I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot... the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people." - Agnes Gonxa Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa)

"God always provides." - Agnes Gonxa Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa)

"...the worst evil and the greatest enemy of peace." - Agnes Gonxa Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa) - on abortion.

"The poor should remain poor ... Without them, we will lose our jobs." - Sister Nirmala, Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity - after the death of Mother Teresa.

"Most of the money sat in our bank accounts." - Susan Shields, ex-member of Mother Teresa's staff - on the unused tens-of-millions of dollars of charitable contributions.

"An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support." - John Buchan (1875-1940) - British author and statesman.

"I can understand how they wouldn't let in those wild jungle apes, but what about those really smart ones who live among us who roller skate and smoke cigars?" - Homer Simpson - on Heaven

It's an embarrassing thing that, in a modern culture, people still fall for lines of bull that were invented in the caves. - Teller

"There ain't no elsewhere!" - Philip Pullman - on heaven. Speaking on the BBC radio 4 programme, 'Desert Island Disks'.

"Jehovah was not a moral god. He had all the vices and he lacked all the virtues. He generally carried out all his threats, but he never faithfully kept a promise." - Robert G. Ingersoll

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." - Seneca the Younger (circa 4 B.C.E - 65 C.E)

"The Pope has declared that a wedding is for life and it must be accepted even if it doesn't work. Hey, Karol: if you don't play the game, don't make the rules!" - Daniele Luttazzi, Italian entertainer.

"There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the dark ages." - Ruth Hermence Green

"All Bibles Are Man-Made." - Thomas Edison

"The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum" - Havelock Ellis

"As to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite to ours, that is on no ground credible...that there was only one pair of original ancestors, and it is inconceivable that such distant regions should have been peopled by Adam's decendants." - St. Augustine

"All Christians are Jewish." - Larry King - from 'Jesus: A Millennial Tribute.'

"A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say at the age of eighteen." - Oscar Wilde

"When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it." - Oscar Wilde

“The Christian resolve to find the world evil and ugly, has made the world evil and ugly.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Former world snooker champion, Ronnie O’Sullivan, 28, has converted into Islam." - muslimnews.co.uk, Friday 26 September 2003

"I am not a Muslim." - Ronnie O'Sullivan - BBC sport online, Monday 6 October 2003

"The light of faith makes us see what we believe." - St. Thomas Aquinas

"In order that the happiness of the saints will be more delightful ... they are permitted perfectly to behold the sufferings of the damned. ... The saints will rejoice in the punishment of the damned ... which will fill them with joy." - St. Thomas Aquinas

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

"Ah yes, Mohammed - that's one of the most common Christian names in the world." - Kid Jensen (British TV/Radio presenter)

"Give tidings, O Mohammed, of painful doom to those who disbelieve... Slay the idolators wherever ye find them... And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah." - The Koran

"ISLAM IS PEACE" - G.W.Bush - 17th September 2001

"And whoever does not believe in Allah and His Apostle, then surely We have prepared burning fire for the unbelievers." - The Koran

"If god has spoken, why is the world not convinced?" - Shelly

"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

"What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us!" - Pope Leo X

"Nothing fails like prayer." - Dan Barker

"The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error." - Bertolt Brecht

"The minister of the Gospel is really the yardstick by which the nation measures its morals." - Jimmy Swaggart

"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

"If god wanted us to believe in him... he'd exist!" - Linda Smith, British TV and radio comedienne, and comedy writer. 21:50, 25th September 2003, Hamond's High School, Swaffam, Norfolk, England.

"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, at the trial of Galileo in 1615.

"Dear God. We paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing." - Bart Simpson - saying grace.

"As God once said, and I think rightly..." - Margaret Thatcher

"Faith is believing something you know ain't true." - Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

"Here we are in the Holy Land of Israel - a Mecca for tourists." - David Vine (British TV sports commentator)

"After my Christmas Lectures I received letters from the pious saying that they would have no objection if only I had qualified my remarks by saying: 'But I should warn you that many well-informed people think differently . . .' When did you last hear a priest-in the pulpit, on radio, on television, in infants' Sunday School-qualify his statement with 'But I should warn you that many well-informed people don't think God exists at all . . . ?' " - Richard Dawkins

"All thinking men are atheists." - Ernest Hemingway

“People do strange things when they are cornered by facts. When evidence cannot be denied, men who care nothing for the truth simply become illogical. Minds become willfully ignorant and emotions turn hostile.” - Christian apologist Richard Sisson. (From the second volume of Answering Christianity’s Most Puzzling Questions)

"The happiness of the elect will consist in part of witnessing the torments of the damned in hell, among whom may be their own children, parents, husbands, wives and friends; ... but instead of taking the part of their miserable being, they will say 'Amen!', 'Hallelujah!', 'Praise the Lord!'" - Rev. Nathaniel Emmons (1745 - 1840)

"The only true immortality lies in one's children." - Johannes Brahms, composer - 1833-1897.

"You only pass through this way once. And if you do it right, once is enough!" - Jerry Lewis, on the BBC breakfast show, 8th April, 2004.

"Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?" - Arthur C. Clarke

"The Lord above made liquor - to see if man could turn away from sin." - Alfred P Dolittle - With a little bit of luck - My fair lady

"You will be pleased to know that almost five and a half million people are watching you being so thick!" - Anne Robinson - on the BBC quiz show 'The Weakest Link' - to the last four contestants after they had scored zero (and a series low cumulative total).

"OH BUMMER!" - Stephen Hawking - British TV ad.

"I can't embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages. And that persecution still goes on today all over the world." - Amanda donohoe

"We should be open-minded, but not so open that our brains fall out." - Richard Dawkins.

"The Romans killed Jesus on the cross. His death on the cross saved us from our sins. Therefore, we should worship the Romans." - Earle Jones - in alt.atheism.satire

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners... But for that very reason, I was shown mercy so that in me... Jesus Christ might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever." - Jeffrey Dahmer, Christian cannibal serial killer.

"Prayer - the last refuge of a scoundrel."; - Lisa Simpson

(mis-quoting Samuel Johnson)

"Could a being create the fifty billion galaxies, each with two hundred billion stars, then rejoice in the smell of burning goat flesh?" - Ron Patterson

"God gave me the mission to kill. I'm in God's hands. He misled the police." - Peter Sutcliffe, (the 'Yorkshire Ripper') Christian serial prostitute murderer - during his pre-trial psychiatric interviews.

"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs." - Frederick Douglass, escaped slave

"In athletics, triple jumpers are literally human kangaroos." - David Vine, BBC sports commentator.

...and finally:

"I've never read a whole book." Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice) - on the Graham Norton show, Channel 4, 15th Feb 2002.

© Martin J Burn 2002/3