The argument “Jesus must have existed because so many things were written about him” makes me want to go to New York to meet Spiderman.
The enemy of humanism is not faith. The enemy of humanism is hate, is fear, is ignorance, is the darker part of man—that is in every humanist, every person in the world. That is the thing we have to fight. Faith, is something we have to embrace. Faith in god means believing, absolutely, in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing, absolutely, in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers.
If you’re doing business with a religious sonnofabitch get it in writing. His word ain’t worth shit not with the good Lord tellin him how to fuck you on the deal.
— William S. Burroughs
Think of all the good things human beings will not do in this world tomorrow because they believe that their most pressing task is to build another church or mosque, or to enforce some ancient dietary practice, or to print volumes upon volumes of exegesis on the disordered thinking of ignorant men. How many hours of human labor will be devoured today, by an imaginary God?
— Sam Harris, The End of Faith, (W.W. Norton & Company, 2004), 149.
I have a polite and a not-so-polite answer, and the polite answer is a huge part of what I feel. And that answer is: that is their experience of the world, it is different than mine. And then there is another part of me that is not so charitable which feels that what they are saying is nonsense. There is no big daddy in the sky but they need to tell themselves this story for whatever reason, and I am glad that is not me.
If you really believe that death leads to eternal bliss, then why are you wearing a seatbelt?
— Doug Stanhope
Religion by its very nature doesn’t tend concern itself with truth. There simply isn’t time for truth. By the time all the singing and candle lighting and toadying and condemning and hiding from science is done, Truth’s given up and gone to the pub for a pint.
