To pray is to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. Ambrose Bierce

All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few. Stendhal

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 monopolise power and profit. Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. Thomas Paine

The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum. Thomas Paine

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the bible is filled, it would seem more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind. Thomas Paine

Religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances; it is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind. Voltaire

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. H.L. Mencken

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means. George Bernard Shaw

Civilised men arrived in the Pacific, armed with alcohol, syphilis, trousers, and the Bible. Havelock Ellis

When the white man came we had the land and they had the Bibles; now they have the land and we have the Bibles. Dan George

Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a different reason: it gives them something to do. ... one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding. Richard Dawkins

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

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Blaise Pascal

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

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. Napoleon Bonaparte

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. Seneca the Younger

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. Voltaire

Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do. Bertrand Russell

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. H.L. Mencken

In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. Mark Twain

Kill them all; for God knoweth them that are His. (Tuez-les tous; Dieu reconnaitra les siens.) Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Citeaux, when asked by the Crusaders what to do with the citizens of Beziers who were a mixture of Catholics and Cathars.

The only church that illuminates is a burning church. Buenaventura Durruti

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me. Emo Philips

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

Since the Bible and the church are obviously mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going? Anon

I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. Doug McLeod

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. Susan B. Anthony

The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike. Delos B. McKown

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. Francis Bacon

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Richard Dawkins

Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence. Anon

Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. Richard Dawkins

What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. Christopher Hitchens

And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence. Bertrand Russell

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Epicurus

You do not need the Bible to justify love, but no better tool has been invented to justify hate. Richard A. Weatherwax

What’s “God”? Well, you know, when you want something really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God’s the guy that ignores you. Steve Buscemi, From the movie The Island

'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' Douglas Adams

Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people. Mary Alice McKinney

Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains. Robert G. Ingersoll

History teaches us that no other cause has brought more death than the word of god. Giulian Buzila

Atheism is a non-prophet organisation. George Carlin

Gods don't kill people. People with Gods kill people. David Viaene

I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose. Clarence Darrow

No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism. Annie Wood Besant

I wonder who got the shit job of scouring the planet for the 15000 species of butterfly or the 8800 species of ant they eventually took on board Noah’s Ark. But at least we got that magical rainbow for all their trouble. Azura Skye

Man has always required an explanation for all of those things in the world he did not understand. If an explanation was not available, he created one. Jim Crawford

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. Richard Dawkins

What has been Christianity’s fruits? Superstition, Bigotry and Persecution. James Madison

If god is the alpha and the omega. The beginning and the end, knows what has passed and what is to come, like it states in the bible, why do people pray and think it will make any difference. Mark Fairclough

I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not sceptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever. Daniel Boorstin

Fundamentalism, of any type, due to its prerequisite lack of intelligent thought, could prove to be the worst weapon of mass destruction, of all. David J. Constable

To really be free, you need to be free in the mind. Alexander Loutsis

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? Douglas Adams

If there are any marks at all of special design in creation, one of the things most evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals should pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other animals. John Stuart Mill

I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’ ‘Then why,’ asked the Eskimo earnestly, ‘did you tell me?” Annie Dillard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. Bertrand Russell

The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. George Bernard Shaw

The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it. Robert G. Ingersoll

When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. Robert Pirsig