GodAnon

“So Christendom’s clergy refuse to take a stand for Jehovah’s Kingdom by Jesus Christ. For failing to support it, they will be destroyed in the “great tribulation” just ahead. But unlike them, Jehovah’s Witnesses have abandoned Babylon the Great, the world empire of false religion, and are preaching the Kingdom message in 203 lands. This unparalleled work is an outstanding feature of “the sign” proving that in 1914 Jesus was installed as heavenly King, to rule amid his enemies."  The Watchtower 9/1/85 p. 25 par. 15 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

And, as I argued briefly in  Letter to a Christian Nation , I think that 'atheist' is a term that we do not need, in the same way that we don’t need a word for someone who rejects astrology. We simply do not call people 'non-astrologers.' All we need are words like 'reason' and 'evidence' and 'common sense' and 'bullshit' to put astrologers in their place, and so it could be with religion." “It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.” "Letter to a Christian Nation" (Knopf, Sept. 19, 2006) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

PBS documentary, “American Masters: Decoding Watson” (January 2019), that his views had not changed. "The biggest advantage to believing in God is you don't have to understand anything, no physics, no biology. I wanted to understand." —Dr. James Watson, (speech at Youngstown State University, quoted in The Vindicator, Dec. 2, 2003) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

1 Kings 22:20 and the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. 21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ 22 And the Lord said to him, ‘By what means?’ And the spirit said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And the Lord said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’ 23 Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you.” Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“I’m an atheist. I don’t see any moral superstructure to the universe at all. I consider my work optimistic in that the people, during the period I’m writing about them, are experiencing intense emotion. It is my belief that this is all there is to it. There is nothing beyond this.” Don Carpenter, The Rumpus, Nov. 2, 2009 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. . . .   Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion.” James Madison, "Memorial and Remonstrance," 1785 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible does not alarm the true investigator, who takes truth for authority not authority for truth. The thinker who is really free, is independent; he is under no dread; he yields to no menace; he is not dismayed by law, nor custom, nor pulpits, nor society-whose opinion appals so many. He who has the manly passion of free thought, has no fear of anything, save the fear of error. George Holyoake Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“This 'search for God' business must be forbidden for a time--it is a perfectly useless occupation.” Maxim Gorky, quoted in Who's Who in Hell, edited by Warren Allen Smith. Also cited by by David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace in The People's Almanac. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

Miss Graves [a teacher], though a devout Christian, was liberal. She explained, for example, that one might interpret the miracles in the Bible as figures of speech. ... Within a year I had gone to Miss Graves to tell her that I no longer believed in God. 'I know,' she said, 'I have been through that myself.' But her strategy misfired: I never went through it.    —B.F. Skinner. Brief autobiography written for E.G. Boring and G. Lindzey's "A History of Psychology in Autobiography, Vol. 5" (New York: Appleton Century-Crofts, 1967, pp. 387-413). Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering