| FREETHOUGHT |
| Faith; noun. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." "Pray; verb. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy." Mythology: The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later. Scriptures; noun. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based. -Ambrose Bierce "The Devil's Dictionary" |
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| The trouble with communism is the communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is Christians. "Not by accident, you may be sure, do the Christian Scriptures make the father of knowledge a serpent--slimy, sneaking and abominable." "Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass; he is actually ill." God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters. H. L. Mencken |
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| No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means." "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. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality." -George Bernard Shaw |
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| If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth. The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology. Acceptance of the supernatural conveyed a great advantage throughout prehistory, when the brain was evolving. Thus it is in sharp contrast to biology, which was developed as a product of the modern age and is not underwritten by genetic algorithms. The uncomfortable truth is that the two beliefs are not factually compatible. As a result those who hunger for both intellectual and religious truth will never acquire both in full measure. No statistical proofs exist that prayer reduces illness and mortality, except perhaps through a psychogenic enhancement of the immune system; if it were otherwise the whole world would pray continuously. -Edward O. Wilson |
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