To label people as death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real world politics is bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a delusional world inhabited by archangels, demons and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic. - Richard Dawkins, scientist When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. - Abraham Lincoln

As for the meaning of life, I do not believe that it has any. I do not at all ask what it is, but I suspect that it has none and this is a source of great comfort to me. We make of it what we can and that is all there is about it. Those who seek for some cosmic all-embracing libretto or God are, believe me, pathetically mistaken. - Isaiah Berlin

You make it sound easy You say just hold your hand out don't you You just hold your hand out don't you That hope never leaves you 'Cos a light shines on that helps you to steer Makes everything clear (Well it might) Well it might in your world (but it doesn't) But it doesn't in mine (I've been stumbling) I've been stumbling in the dark for years And the light just made me blind You say it lights every pathway Shows me how to live life For the rest of my days For the rest of my days (But I can't) But I can't put my faith in (Your words) Your words and demands (I believe) I believe in God alright It's folk like you I just can't stand You don't have to try and scare me To reinforce my faith sir 'Cos I know ...

How useless is painting, which attracts admiration by the resemblence of things, the originals of which we do not admire! - Blaise Pascal

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise. - James Madison

There is no rational ground of any sort or kind in keeping a child ignorant of anything that he may wish to know, whether on sex or on any other matter. And we shall never get a sane population until this fact is recognized in early education, which is impossible so long as the churches are able to control educational politics. - Bertrand Russell "Why I Am Not a Christian, and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects", 1957 (p. 29)

A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree of certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which the world is suffering. - Bertrand Russell Book: "Why I Am Not a Christian, and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects", 1957 (p. vi) (for the genesis of the Sunday Sermonette meme, see Majikthise and James Wolcott)