Shaggy, keep fighting the good fight. You are right on and are saving me a lot of typing.
I always role my eyes when I hear how the US is a Christian nation etc. Some quotes from our founding fathers and other great Americans makes me think that wasn't the case.
Don't argue with me, argue with these guys....
(from atheistempire.com)
Ben Franklin-
“Lighthouses are more helpful than churches”
Thomas Jefferson-(1743-1826) 3rd American president, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat. Deist, avid separationist-
"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies."
"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites."
James Madison, (1751-1836) American president and political theorist. Popularly known as the "Father of the Constitution." More than any other framer he is responsible for the content and form of the First Amendment.
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has 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."
"In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." [April 1, 1774]
John Adams 1735-1826, 2d President of the United States
"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." [ in a letter to Thomas Jefferson] "The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
"Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it."
"But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed."
"Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1500 years."
"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles."
Ernest Hemingway, American author (1899-1961)
"All thinking men are atheists." [A Farewell to Arms]
Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American author (1920-1992).
"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time."
"Creationists make it sound like a 'theory' is something you dream't up after being drunk all night."
Gene Roddenberry, Creator of Star Trek (1921-1991).
"I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will--and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain."
"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."
Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author (1934-1997).
In a March 1996 profile by Jim Dawson in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Sagan talked about his then-new book The Demon Haunted World and was asked about his personal spiritual views:
"My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it," he said. "An agnostic is somebody who doesn't believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I'm agnostic."
When asked how he would explain a "genuine mystical experience," Sagan responded: "Your question presupposes the existence of a genuine mystical experience and I'm not sure what that is. People have vivid hallucinations. How do you distinguish between altered states of consciousness?"
"It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but rather that the Gods are the dreams of men."
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist (1835-1910).
"Faith is believing something you know ain't true."
"'In God We Trust.' I don't believe it would sound any better if it were 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."
"Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of."
"There is no other life; life itself is only a vision and a dream for nothing exists but space and you. If there was an all-powerful God, he would have made all good, and no bad." [Mark Twain in Eruption]
I always role my eyes when I hear how the US is a Christian nation etc. Some quotes from our founding fathers and other great Americans makes me think that wasn't the case.
Don't argue with me, argue with these guys....
(from atheistempire.com)
Ben Franklin-
“Lighthouses are more helpful than churches”
Thomas Jefferson-(1743-1826) 3rd American president, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat. Deist, avid separationist-
"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies."
"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites."
James Madison, (1751-1836) American president and political theorist. Popularly known as the "Father of the Constitution." More than any other framer he is responsible for the content and form of the First Amendment.
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has 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."
"In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." [April 1, 1774]
John Adams 1735-1826, 2d President of the United States
"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." [ in a letter to Thomas Jefferson] "The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
"Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it."
"But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed."
"Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1500 years."
"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles."
Ernest Hemingway, American author (1899-1961)
"All thinking men are atheists." [A Farewell to Arms]
Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American author (1920-1992).
"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time."
"Creationists make it sound like a 'theory' is something you dream't up after being drunk all night."
Gene Roddenberry, Creator of Star Trek (1921-1991).
"I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will--and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain."
"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."
Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author (1934-1997).
In a March 1996 profile by Jim Dawson in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Sagan talked about his then-new book The Demon Haunted World and was asked about his personal spiritual views:
"My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it," he said. "An agnostic is somebody who doesn't believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I'm agnostic."
When asked how he would explain a "genuine mystical experience," Sagan responded: "Your question presupposes the existence of a genuine mystical experience and I'm not sure what that is. People have vivid hallucinations. How do you distinguish between altered states of consciousness?"
"It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but rather that the Gods are the dreams of men."
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist (1835-1910).
"Faith is believing something you know ain't true."
"'In God We Trust.' I don't believe it would sound any better if it were 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."
"Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of."
"There is no other life; life itself is only a vision and a dream for nothing exists but space and you. If there was an all-powerful God, he would have made all good, and no bad." [Mark Twain in Eruption]
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