“The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.”
— Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), ACLU agnostic attorney
“Attractive people judge neither themselves nor others.”
— Deepok Chopra, Indian doctor and popular writer
“If you don’t believe in something or someone, it is impossible to believe in yourself. And believing in yourself is the best reason to live.”
— Bucknell (PA) University student
“If I cease to believe in existence, then I will cease to exist.”
— University of Michigan-Dearborn student
“It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God – but to create him.”
— Arthur C. Clarke (1917- ), British sci-fi writer
“To me age doesn’t not matter what so ever if it’s a heterosexual or homosexual couple. A lot of people don’t agree with it but I’m dating a 55-year-old women and I’m 18.”
— Comment from “confused1” on the pro-gay Oasis Magazine online message board
“Our way is one of radical combat against depravity, and America is the original root of depravity.”
— 1985 communiqué from Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah
“It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt… In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning of punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of God is infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal… This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor.”
— Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899), agnostic lawyer and politician
“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”
— Thomas Edison (1847-1931), American inventor
*“No man is happy without delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.”
— Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904), American lawyer and author
“People need a fairy tale… People need a story line that is fairly simple to understand.”
— Ronald McKay, neurologist
“I believe people have different ways of approaching the Word. For me, it’s metaphor, written by people a long time after Christ died and interpreted by specific groups. I read the gospels that aren’t included in the Bible. These make me feel good about calling myself a Christian.”
— Jane Fonda, American actress that “converted” to Christ in 1998
“Just simply to say that it goes against tradition and the teaching of the church and Scripture does not necessarily make it wrong.”
— Gene Robinson, first gay Episcopal bishop
“A man who is right every time is not likely to do much.”
— Dr. Francis Crick (1916-2004), British evolutionary scientist
Q: What is our purpose on Earth?
A: “I don’t know. Philosophers and scientists are investigating that. And I too as a Buddhist think on it. But in daily life, sometimes such questions are not that relevant. We are here” [implying, what are we going to do about it?]
— Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhist leader
“Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”
— Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British atheistic philosopher
“We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion… I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. I think that flying planes in a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder. If you look at it logically, it’s something that was drilled into your head when you were a small child.”
“When you look at belief in such things — as do you go to heaven, is there a devil — we have more in common with (Muslin countries) Turkey and Iran and Syria than we do with European nations and Canada and nations that, yes, I would consider more enlightened that us.”
— TV personality Bill Maher
The atheist worldview of life is “a materialistic culture that frees humanity from superstition.”
— Howard Thompson, President, American Atheists
“We absolutely reject absolute truth.”
— Ford Vox, founder of Universism (2004)
“No one person can own the copyright to what God means.”
— Marilyn Manson, rock icon, Seventeen magazine, April, 2005, p. 108
“Love is purely a creation of the human imagination…the most important example of how the imagination continually outruns the creature it inhabits.”
— Katherine Anne Porter (1894-1980), American journalist and writer
*“I’m not no college material. I’m never gonna get no C+ grades! I’m white trash! I’m just no good, low down, never-gonna-go-to-no-college white trash!!”
— “Louie Lastick” in Remember the Titans
“…I really want to believe. I find the goodies offered by Christianity extremely attractive. But I am damned (again!) if I am going to sell my evolutionary birthright for a mess of religious pottage.”
— Michael Ruse, FSU evolutionary professor, in “A Few Last Words — Until Next Time”, Zygon (vol. 29, March, 1994, p. 79)
“Human destiny is an episode between two oblivions.”
— Ernest Nagel (1901-1985), Czech philosopher
“My children are the most precious thing in my life. That is why I sacrificed them for a greater cause — for Allah, who is more precious than them. My son is not more precious than his God, he is not more precious than the places holy to Islam, and he is not more precious than his homeland or his Islam.”
— Umm Nidal, mother of suicide terrorist Muhammad Farhat and Palestinian Legislative Council member (HUMAN EVENTS, 2/13/06, Robert Spencer “Hamas’ Mother of Killers,” p. 18.
“The center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth.”
— Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Roman Catholic priest, in “Conjectures Of An Innocent Bystander”, p. 158
“We’ve got God by the throat, and I’m not going to stop until one of us is dead.”
— Dr. Jesse Bering, University of Arkansas professor
“We [Muslims] have to be above you. You [Americans] have to be subdued. No regrets. No remorse.”
— Zacarias Moussaoui, al-Qaeda terrorist at his trial (2006)
“My idea of heaven is a great big baked potato and someone to share it with.”
— Oprah Winfrey, talk show host in “The Fourth 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said”, ed. Robert Byrne, 1990.
“The first step in faith is to stop thinking about God at the time of prayer.”
— Brennan Manning, Catholic Franciscan and mystic author
Statements from Saudi Islamic education books after the intolerant sections were removed:
1st Grade: “Every religion other than Islam is false.”
5th Grade: “A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy in religion.”
8th Grade: “As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus.”
10th Grade: “Muslims will triumph because they are right. He who is right is always victorious, even if most people are against him.”
— By Nina Shea, Sunday, May 21, 2006; Page B01, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769.html
“Mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation — and you and I are his children. If we’re going to keep on growing into Christ-images for the world around us, we’re going to have to give up fear.”
— The Right Reverend Dr. Katharine Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, “Church relents to head off gay split,” Ruth Gledhill and James Bone, June 23, 2006 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19560331-2703,00.html
“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
— June 15th entry in “The Diary of Anne Frank” (1929-1945), a German-born Jew who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp
“We are all snobs of the Infinite, parvenus of the Eternal.”
— James Gibbons Huneker (1860-1921), American music author-critic
“(God is speaking) I do not communicate by words alone. In fact, rarely do I do so. My most common form of communication is through feeling. Feeling is the language of the soul. If you want to know what’s true for you about something, look to how you’re feeling about it? Hidden in your deepest feelings is your highest truth.”
— Neale Donald Walsch, New Age promoter, in “Conversations with God”
“If a thing is absolutely true, how can it not also be a lie? An absolute must contain its opposite.”
— Charlotte Painter, American writer/educator
“It’s very hard to keep your spirits up. You’ve got to keep selling yourself a bill of goods, and some people are better at lying to themselves than others. If you face reality too much, it kills you.”
— Woody Allen in a 2006 Washington Post interview with David Segal
“He who knows tells not; he who tells knows not.”
— Lao Tzu, (6th Century BC), Father of Taoism
“Work sucks…school sucks…what else can I say? … Life is a video game you’ve got to die sometime.”
— Kimveer Gill (1981-2006), Dawson College student murderer on his profile on www.vampirefreaks.com
“Christianity…does not differ from Islam. Both religions call for forgiveness, love and brotherhood.”
— Sheik Abdul-Kareem al-Ghazi, Iraqi cleric (Sun-Sentinel, 9/16/06, 26A)
“Yes I am [a Hindu]. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.”
— Mohatmas Gandhi (1869-1948), Indian spiritual and national leader
“One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker.”
— Voltaire (1694-1778), French atheistic philosopher
“College is a time for excess, for experimentation. It is four fleeting years of free-spirited indulgence . . . Don’t waste it. Use that finite period to live on your won terms, let go.”
— New York Times editorial, October 6, 2006, A27
“I don’t care enough to care about why I don’t care.”
— Albert, New York University student
“I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying ‘this is fiction.’”
— Sir Ian McKellen, gay British actor
“The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights. The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.”
— Professor John Guillebaud, co-chair of the Optimum Population Trust (HUMAN EVENTS, 5/17/07, p. 18)
“…[C]urrent lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class — involving high meat intake use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable. A shift is necessary. which will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations…”
— Maurice Strong , opening speech at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development
“I’d sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk.”
— Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962), American poet in “Hurt Hawks”
“The biggest enemy we face is anthropocentrism. This is that common attitude that everything on this Earth was put here for [human] use.”
— Eric Pianka (b. 1939), University of Texas-Austin biology professor
“I am both Muslim and Christian, just like I’m both an American of African descent and a woman. I’m 100 percent both. At the most basic level, I understand the two religions to be compatible. That’s all I need. It wasn’t about intellect. All I know is the calling of my heart to Islam was very much something about my identity and who I am supposed to be… I could not not be a Muslim.”
–The Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, an Episcopal priest in good standing (http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgibin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=redding17m&date=20070617&query=Redding)
“Domestic abuse is fundamentally an abuse of power, and many conceptions of God derived from the Bible and the Christian tradition have portrayed divine power in unhealthy and potentially oppressive ways … There are particular problems in the attribution of violent actions and attitudes to God, chiefly but not solely in the Old Testament, which require careful interpretation” … Biblical violence “in combination with uncritical use of masculine imagery, can validate overbearing and ultimately violent patterns of behaviour”.
— Guidelines of the Church of England Archbishops’ Council on domestic abuse (The Daily Mail, British newspaper, www.dailymail.co.uk/ pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id= 408190&in_page_id=1770 )
“These harmful beliefs include a conception of God derived from the Bible and the Christian tradition portraying divine power in ‘unhealthy and oppressive’ ways, the report said. There are particular problems in the attribution of violent actions and attitudes to God, chiefly but not solely in the Old Testament, which require “careful” interpretation, it said. “A view of our relationship with God in terms of domination and submission, along with uncritical use of masculine imagery to characterise God, can validate ‘overbearing and ultimately violent patterns of behaviour’ in intimate relationships.”
— Church of England report, “Responding to Domestic Abuse, Guidelines for Pastoral Responsibility”, www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23369342details/Viewing+God+as+male+’contributes+to+domestic+abuse’+says+Church/article.do
“Given the choice of apathy or someone liberating mink, burning down a research torture-laboratory, or killing a vivisectionist or other DIRECT murderer of animals, I will choose the aforesaid actions over apathy any day of the week.”
— Gary Yourofsky, Animal Liberation Front leader and activist, in “Empathy, Education and Violence: A Time for Everything” (1997, 2005)
“We are killing our host the planet Earth…. I was once severely criticized for describing human beings as being the ‘AIDS of the Earth.’ I make no apologies for that statement…. We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion.”
— Paul Watson (b. 1950), GreenPeace co-founder and founder/president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2007/20070506180903.aspx
“It was once written, ‘No man can serve two masters. He will either love the one and hate the other, or he will hate the one and love the other.’ And so the world of polarization continued a little while longer. But nowhere in that passage did it say that two masters [Darkness and Light] could not serve the one man.”
— “Channeled by Daniel Jacob” on a neo-shaman website
“[A]rguably the most unpleasant character in fiction: [God is] jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynist, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
— Richard Dawkins (b. 1941), British ethologist and evolutionary biologist of Oxford University in “The God Delusion”
“My friends, nothing in all the world is so much worth thinking of as God, Christ, the Bible, sin and salvation, the divine purposes for humankind, life everlasting. But you cannot challenge the dedicated thinking of this generation to these sublime themes upon any such terms as are laid down by an intolerant church.”
— Harry Emerson Fosdick, liberal Baptist minister in “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” Christian Work 102 (June 10, 1922): 716–722, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5070/.
“I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline, the sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.”
— Ayn Rand (1905-1982), Russian-American novelist and philosopher in “The Fountainhead”
“A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination. …”
— The University of Delaware’s Office of Residence Life Diversity Education Training document (later withdrawn), http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000005816.cfm
“A man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures — an that is the basis of all human morality.”
— President John Kennedy (1917-1963)
“Projectile vomiting is our birthright.”
— Statement on “Comment is Free” forum of Britain’s Guardian Unlimited web site about binge drinking parties in Britain during the 2 weeks leading up to Christmas (South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/25/07, 25A)
“The pope has exhorted to open wide the doors to Christ: Christ lives in Muslims too.”
— Don Aldo Danieli, parish pastor of Our Lady of Assumption of Ponzano near Venice, Italy (“A Catholic Church Turns Into A Mosque,” Fr. Chetan, Capuchin, Rome, Published 11/1107), http://mangalorean.com/browsearticles.php?arttype=Feature&articleid=1149
“I don’t profess any religion; I don’t think it’s possible that there is a God…. My books are about killing God.”
— Philip Pullman, British author of His Dark Materials trilogy, in an interview with “The Sydney Morning Herald” (2003), reprinted in The American Christian College Journal (12/07, p. 8)
“Facts and the truth really don’t have much to do with each other.”
— William Faulker (1897-1962), American novelist and poet
“Christ was the first feminist and because of that I’ve learned from his teaching to call myself a Christian feminist,” adding that her faith is “not a matter of traditions and dogmas but, rather, a spiritual experience.”
— Jane Fonda, Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2008, page W11
“When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.”
— Ingrid Newkirk (b. 6/11/49), British-born animal rights activist and founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
“I want to offer the possibility that Jesus was truly, as he proclaimed, a savior. Not the savior, not the one and only Son of God. Rather Jesus embodied the highest level of enlightenment.”
— Deepak Chopra, “The Third Jesus,” 2/21/08 www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN1918295720080221?feedType=RSS&feedName=entertainmentNews&rpc=22&sp=true
“White people are potential humans … they haven’t evolved yet.”
— Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam leader, (b. 1933), “The Philadelphia Inquirer”, March 19, 2000
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the – if he – if ‘is’ means is and never has been that is not – that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.”
— Then President Bill Clinton’s Grand Jury Testimony, August 17, 1998
“Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president … and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body.”
— The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ (Chicago), in a sermon delivered at the Howard University chapel on Jan. 15, 2006 (www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25560)
“It’s all been done before…and not just by powerful “risk-taking” alpha men…. It’s been done by many other creatures, tens of thousands of other species, by male and female representatives of every taxonomic twig on the great tree of life. Sexual promiscuity is rampant throughout nature…”
— Natalie Angier “In Most Species, Faithfulness Is a Fantasy”, The New York Times www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/science/18angi.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2
“As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics.”
— Benny Shanon, professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (copyright 2008, AFP, 3/4/08) http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080304120710.ad7gm7i6&show_article=1
“Eternal truths will be neither true nor eternal unless they have fresh meaning for every new social situation.”
— President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)
“Two thousand years ago, God started a revolt against the religion He started. So don’t ever put it past God to cause a groundswell movement against churches and Christian institutions that bear His name.”
— Erwin McManus (b. 1958), Mosaic Church pastor in “The Barbarian Way”