| FREETHOUGHT |
| Don't appeal to mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because he's not at home and never was at home, and couldn't care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy-- live or die-- is strictly your business and the universe doesn't care. In fact you may be the universe and the only cause of all your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it. The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can prove anything from it. The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was saved, they were damned ...Our hymns were loaded with arrogance -- self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day. -Robert A. Heinlein |
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| I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. I can see no reason, but the most decietful one, for calling the religion of this land Chritianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, the grossest of all libels. I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes-- ...I hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen, all for the glory of God and the good of souls. The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the relgious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand. -Frederick Douglass |
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| The Bible has been interpreted to justify such evil practices as, for example, slavery, the slaughter of prisoners of war, the sadistic murders of women believed to be witches, capital punishment for hundreds of offenses, polygamy, and cruelty to animals. It has been used to encourage belief in the grossest superstition and to discourage the free teaching of scientific truths. We must never forget that both good and evil flow from the Bible. It is therefore not above criticism. No actual tyrant known to history has ever been guilty of one-hundredth of the crimes, massacres, and other atrocities attributed to the Deity in the Bible. It is not hardness of heart or evil passions that drive certain individuals to atheism, but rather a scrupulous intellectual honesty. To those who wish to punish others--or at least to see them punished, if the avengers are too cowardly to take matters in to their own hands-- the belief in a fiery, hideous hell appears to be a great source of comfort. - Steve Allen |
| "The very concept of sin comes from the bible. Christianity offers to solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?" "You can cite a hundred references to show that the biblical God is a bloodthirsty tyrant, but if they can dig up two or three verses that say 'God is love,' they will claim that *you* are taking things out of context!" "I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being." "Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, 'yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart thatwhat goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. Amen!' If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it." "You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?" "Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits." -Dan Barker |
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