Literary Atheists U to Z, Quotes

Instead of being born again, why not just grow up?
— Unknown

Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he’ll starve to death while praying for a fish.
— Unknown

In general, the churches, visited by me often on weekdays… bore for me the same relation to God that billboards did to Coca-Cola; they promoted thirst without quenching it.
— John Updike

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
— Voltaire

Inspiration: a peculiar effect of divine flatulence emitted by the Holy Spirit which hisses into the ears of a few chosen of God.
— Voltaire

One thing I have no worry about is whether God exists. But it has occurred to me that God has Alzheimer’s and has forgotten we exist.
— Jane Wagner

I refuse to be labeled immoral merely because I am godless.
— Peter Walker

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
— Steven Weinberg

Did St. Francis really preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.
— Rebecca West

Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable; the principles of it are troublesome.
— Benjamin Whichcote

Religion is what an individual does with his solitariness.
— Alfred North Whitehead

Science is the record of dead religions.
— Oscar Wilde

Our gods are dead. Ancient Klingon warriors slew them a millennia ago. They were…more trouble than they were worth.
— Worf

A Christian is a man who feels
Repentance on a Sunday
For what he did on Saturday
And is going to do on Monday.
— Thomas Russell Ybarra

The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the Tree of Knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn’t asked any questions.”
— Frank Zappa

Among mammals, a virgin birth (parthenogenesis) can only produce female offspring, for chromosomal reasons. Messiahs are mammals. Therefore, Jesus was… On the other hand, among turkeys, the chromosomal situation is such that all products of virgin birth are males. So if Jesus was a male, he might also have been…
— Frank Zindler


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