Cool Freethought Quotes

From an Iowa indian named "Neu-Mon-Ya", touring London in the 19th century and speaking to a roomful of preachers:

My friends, you have told us that the Son of the Great Spirit was on earth, and that he was killed by white men, and that the Great Spirit sent him here to get killed. Now we cannot understand all this. This may be necessary for white people, but the red men, we think, have not yet got to be so wicked as to require that. If it was necesary that the Son of the Great Spirit should be killed for white people, it may be necessary for them to believe all this. My friends, you speak of the good book that you have in your hand; we have many of these in our village; we are told that all your words about the Son of the Great Spirit are printed in that book, and if we learn to read it, it will make good people of us. I would now ask why it don't make good people of the pale-faces living all around us? They can all read the good book, and they can understand all that the black-coats say, and still we find they are not so honest and so good a people as ours. This we are sure of. Such is the case in the country around us, but here we have no doubt but all the white people who have so many to preach and so many books to read are all honest and good. In our country the white people have two faces, and their tongues branch in different ways. We know that this displeases the Great Spirit and we do not wish to teach it to our children.

Source is River Horse, William Least Heat-Moon, Houghton-Mifflin, New York, 1999.

-- CharlesShapiro - 26 Oct 2001


Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Fascists? - Bertrand Russell

-- ChrisMartin - 26 Nov 2001

How to play Religious Roulette:

Stand in a circle and blaspheme until someone is hit by lightning.

-- CharlesShapiro - 02 Jan 2002

THE TWELVE STEPS OF RECOVERY FROM RELIGION

1. Admitted to ourselves that there are no magical creatures in the sky, and that no matter how desperately we attempt to invoke them, no living person has ever actually seen one. Admitted to ourselves that immortality is a delusion, and we are all going to die someday, so we might as well face it gracefully and courageously.
2. Came to believe that the power of reason could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to logical thought processes.
4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of the reams and volumes of ancient religious mythology.
5. Admitted to ourselves that there is nothing original in any of this literature, and no evidence that any of it is actual historical fact.
6. Were entirely ready to have this lifelong brainwashing removed.
7. Humbly admitted that our religious beliefs were forced upon us by our parents, and were merely a matter of demographics.
8. Made a list of all gods, goddesses and saviours and denied them all.
9. Made direct amends for inflicting our groundless superstitions on our children and others.
10. Contined to take inventory of all that comes our way, and if presented with claims of the incredible and the supernatural, promptly dismissed them.
11. Earnestly questioned theories of pseudoscience and challenged claims of special powers and connections to other worlds.
12. Having had an intellectual enlightenment, resolved never again to allow others to manipulate us, with renewed confidence that we can think for ourselves.

(Attribution unknown)

-- CharlesShapiro - 10 Jan 2002

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"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen."

Madrak, in Creatures of Light and Darkness, by Roger Zelazny

-- CharlesShapiro - 05 Feb 2002

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Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

Edward Abbey