LONGECITY

Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians.

How many things served us but yesterday as articles of faith, which today we deem but
fables?

Men of generous culture or of great learning, and women of eminent piety and virtue, from the
humble cottage to the throne, have been led out for matters of conscience and butchered
before a mad rabble lusting after God. The limbs of men and women have been torn from
their bodies, their eyes gouged out, their flesh mangled and slowly roasted, their children
barbarously tortured before their eyes, because of religious opinion.

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.

As a person who could just as easily wipe his ass with the pages of the Bible as read them, attempting to argue against cloning because it's somehow against God's will doesn't hold much sway. I'm sure the same argument was being made when indoor plumbing was introduced to the world or when the electric can opener was invented -- or the can, for that matter. Can't you just hear somebody saying, "If God had wanted food to be in cans, he would have put it there himself." Personally, I think
Bible-thumpers should have to crap in buckets and wipe their asses with tree branches if they want to protest cloning.

To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no
other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power
and profit.
-- Thomas Paine, (1737-1809), The Age of Reason, pt. 1, "The Author's Profession of Faith" (1794),

Of all the tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst. Every other species of
tyranny is limited to the world we live in, but this attempts a stride beyond the grave and
seeks to pursue us into eternity.

The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense.

The story of the redemption will not stand examination. That man should redeem himself from
the sin of eating an apple by committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the strangest system of
religion ever set up.

Finding no rational basis for accepting or rejecting belief in a God, Pascal claimed that
belief was the best bet. Choosing not to believe had minimal benefits and the possibility of an infinitely high cost (eternal damnation). Choosing to believe carried small costs and offered potentially infinite rewards (eternity in Heaven). Now, the extinction of the human race is not as bad as eternity in Hell, but most of us would agree that it’s a utterly rotten result.

Anyone who says God is on their side is dangerous as hell.
(lapel button)

Doing my part to piss off the religious right.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever would believe
in him would believe probably anything.

The Bible was written by the same people who said the Earth was flat.
(bumper sticker)

When an agnostic dies, does he go to the "great perhaps"?

Why do closed minds usually have open mouths?

God is not dead but alive and well and working on a much less ambitious project.

I think I'll believe in Gosh instead of God. If you don't believe in Gosh too, you'll be darned to
heck.

Evolutionists have proof without conviction. Creationists have conviction without proof.

He is YOUR God. They are YOUR Rules. YOU burn in Hell!
(Bumper Sticker)

You hold up your religion for the people who are unfit for a true. So you say. But presently there will arise a race of preachers who will take such hold of the omnipotence of truth that they will blow the old falsehoods to shreds with the breaths of their mouths.

Probably in all history there is no instance of a society in which ecclesiastical power was dominant which was not at once stagnant, corrupt and brutal.

That the writers of the Bible recognized a plurality of gods -- were polytheists -- is proved by the following "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us" (Gen. iii, 22).
"Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?" (Ex. xv, 11.) "Among the gods, there is
none like unto thee, O Lord" (Ps. Ixxxvi, 8). "The Lord is a great God, and a great king above
all gods" (Ps. xcv, 3). "Thou shalt not revile the gods" (Ex. xxii, 28).

I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't.

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.

That's all a religion is-some principles you believe in. Man has accomplished far more miracles than the God he invented. What a tragedy it is to invent a God and then suffer to keep him King.

I asked God if it was a sin and He didn't say anything.

And when your minister asks you for money for missionary purposes, tell him there are higher,
and holier, and nobler missions to be performed at home.

For my part, I see no need to appeal to any written authority, particularly when it is so obscure and indefinite as to admit different interpretations. When the inhabitants of Boston converted their harbor into a teapot rather than submit to unjust taxes, they did not go to the Bible for their authority; for if they had, they would have been told from the same authority to "give unto Caesar what belonged to Caesar." Had the people, when they rose in the might of their right to throw off the British yoke, appealed to the Bible for authority, it would have answered them, "Submit to the powers that be, for they are from God," No! on Human Rights and Freedom, on a subject that is as self-evident as that two and two make four, there is no need of any written
authority.