GodAnon

“It is a bizarre thought that in this presidential cycle we could have had a woman in the White House, we might have a black man in the White House, but if either of them had said they were atheists neither of them would have had a hope in hell. Julian Barnes , interview with Maclean’s magazine (2008) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“Let us begin, then, at once, with that merest of words, 'Infinity.' This, like 'God,' 'spirit,' and some other expressions of which the equivalents exist in all languages, is by no means the expression of an idea — but of an effort at one. It stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception.” Edgar Allan Poe , "Eureka: A Prose Poem" (1848) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

"Daily experience shows that the ordinary morality of religious men is not, at present, in spite of our intellectual anarchy, superior to that of the average of those who have quitted the churches. The chief practical tendency of religious conviction is ... to inspire an instinctive and insurmountable hatred against all who have emancipated themselves, without any useful emulation having arisen from the conflict." "The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte" (1853) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

People frequently asked him in his later years what he would say if he discovered after death that God really existed. He answered that he would simply state, "God, you never gave me enough evidence."  “As a set of cognitive beliefs, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability.”  philosopher  Sidney Hook , The Partisan Review (March 1950) His books include  The Metaphysics of Pragmatism  (1927),  Toward the Understanding of Karl Marx  (1933),  Marx and the Marxists: The Ambiguous Legacy  (1955),  Common Sense and the Fifth   Amendment  (1957),  The Quest for Being, and Other Studies in Naturalism and Humanism  (1961),  The Place of Religion in a Free Society  (1968),  Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life  (1974),  Marxism and Beyond  (1983) and his autobiography  Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century  (1...

At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people. There are no sects in geometry. The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning. Sect and error are synonymous. Common sense is not so common.” —Voltaire, "Dictionnaire philosophique" (Philosophical Dictionary, 1764) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“[T]he religion of one age is, as a rule, the literary entertainment of the next.” Nansen speech titled "Science and the Purpose of Life," published by the Rationalist Press Association (1909) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“ ‘God's plan' is often a front for men's plans and a cover for inadequacy, ignorance, and evil.” Mary Daly, "Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation" (1973) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

Of religion he wrote in "The Critic as Artist" in 1891: "A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it." "Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived." "There is no sin except stupidity." “Science is the record of dead religions.” Oscar Wilde, "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young" (1894) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering