SOME ENLIGHTENING QUOTES

(Especially enlightening are those of America's founding fathers; this should put to rest any idea that they intended to found a "Christian" nation). Many of these quotes come from: “Atheist Empire” http://atheistempire.com/greatminds/greatest.php

THOMAS JEFFERSON:
"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies.” “Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.” "So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk."

THOMAS PAINE:
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. 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.”

GEORGE WASHINGTON
“Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. I had hoped that liberal and enlightened thought would have reconciled the Christians so that their religious fights would not endanger the peace of Society.” There is nothing to show that he was ever a member of the church; "I have never been a communicant.”

BEN FRANKLIN
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." "Lighthouses are more helpful than churches." "I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absented myself from Christian assemblies."

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."

CARL SAGAN
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

BLAISE PASCAL
"Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions."

EPICURUS
"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?"

MARK TWAIN
"Faith is believing something you know ain't true." "It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."

FERDINAND MAGELLAN
"The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church."

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."

BERTRAND RUSSELL
"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."

VOLTAIRE
"Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men."

DENIS DIDEROT
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

ABU ALA AL-MA’ARRI
"The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence."

FRANK ZAPPA
God knows what he's doin' He wrote this book here And the book says: 'He made us all to be just like Him', So... If we're dumb... Then God is dumb... (And maybe even a little ugly on the side)."

And just a few final quotes:

SADDAM HUSSEIN
"God is on our side, and Satan is on the side of the United States.[September 11 was] God's punishment."

ADOLF HITLER
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord. I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. Who says I am not under the special protection of God?”

Spooky...