Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination.

—Edward Abbey (1927-1989), as quoted in The Quotable Atheist, p. 3.

We may all have come into existence five minutes ago, provided with ready-made memories, with holes in our socks and hair that needed cutting.

—Bertrand Russell, as quoted in Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show On Earth

Bread is made for laughter,
and wine gladdens life,
and money answers everything.

—Ecclesiastes 10:19

The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.

—Pat Robertson

When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.

—Henry Morris (founder of Institute for Creation Research)

Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.

—Ann Coulter, “Future Widows of America”

In other words, she thinks all Muslims may be terrorists, and she’s never heard of a terrorist who isn’t a Muslim. Why do people listen to this woman?

Yes, religion and politics do mix. America is a nation based on biblical principles. Christian values dominate our government. The test of those values is the Bible. Politicians who do not use the bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office.

—Beverly LaHaye (founder of Concerned Women of America)

When I became convinced that the universe is natural — that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom.

The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the world — not even infinite space.

I was free:

• Free to think, to express my thoughts
• Free to live my own ideal
• Fee to live for myself and those I loved
• Free to use all my faculties, all my senses
• Free to spread imagination’s wings
• Free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope
• Free to judge and determine for myself
• Free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past
• Free from popes and priests
• Free from all the “called” and “set apart”
• Free from sanctified mistakes and “holy” lies
• Free from the winged monsters of the night
• Free from devils, ghosts and gods

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought — no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings; no claims for my limbs; no lashes for my back; no fires for my flesh; no following another’s steps; no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love:

• To all the heroes, the thinkers, who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain
• For the freedom of labor and thought
• To those who fell on the fierce fields of war
• To those who died in dungeons bound with chains
• To those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs
• To those by fire consumed
• To all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons and daughters of men and women

And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they have held, and hold it high, that light may conquer darkness still.

What’s up with dinosaurs? It seems like their bones are in the ground to trick us out of believing in creation.

—Commenter Josh K at 22 Words, in response to what troubles him about his belief in God. [Could be a Poe — either way, it's funny.]

There is no refutation of Darwinian evolution in existence. If a refutation ever were to come about, it would come from a scientist, and not an idiot.

—Richard Dawkins, discussing Ray Comfort in an interview with CNN on November 25, 2009.

Evolution is almost universally accepted among those who understand it, almost universally rejected by those who don’t.

—Richard Dawkins, in an interview with CNN on November 24, 2009

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong for the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust.

It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins f bananas and turnips… continue the list as long as desired. That didn’t have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, obviously true, and there was a time when most people, even educated people, thought it wasn’t. It didn’t have to be true, but it is. We now this because a rising flood of evidence supports it.

Evolution is a fact, and this book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it. (p. 8-9)

I agree with Dawkins that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming for someone who looks at it with an open mind. Though I’m not sure about the “no reputable scientist disputes it” part. Perhaps that should be “no reputable biologist disputes it,” because that is their discipline — a biologist who denies evolution is like a computer scientist who denies operating systems.

I’m sure there are Christian scientists (the career, not the cult) who dispute evolution, but that doesn’t mean they are not reputable physicists or geologists. It just means they’re brainwashed into believing the Bible over reality.

Dawkins also says, “no unbiased reader will close the book doubting [evolution].” But how can a reader be unbiased? Does such a specimen even exist?

The cooing of pigeons brought memory into the procession. Dessie remembered how her father had said, sitting at the head of the table, “I told Rabbit I was going to raise some pigeons and—do you know?—he said, ‘No white pigeons.’ ‘Why not white?’ I asked him, and he said, ‘They’re the rare worst of bad luck. You take a flight of white pigeons and they’ll bring sadness and death. Get gray ones.’ ‘I like white ones.’ ‘Get gray ones,’ he told me. And as the sky covers me, I’ll get white ones.”

And [his wife] Liza said patiently, “Why do you be forever testing, Samuel? Gray ones taste just as good and they’re bigger.”

“I’ll let no flimsy fairy tale push me,” Samuel said.

And Liza said with her dreadful simplicity, “You’re already pushed by your own contentiousness. You’re a mule of contention, a very mule!”

“Someone’s got to do these things,” he said sullenly. “Else Fate would not ever get nose-thumbed and mankind would still be clinging to the top branches of a tree.”

And of course he got white pigeons and waited truculently for sadness and death until he’d proved his point.

And yet, as Dessie realizes, “Sadness and death… you just have to wait around long enough and it will come” — white pigeons or gray ones.

If a couple has been married for more than five years, any persistent disharmony in their marriage relationship is usually attributable to the husband’s lack of understanding and applying genuine love. (Gary Smalley, If He Only Knew, 73)

It seems that stems from the perspective that the husband is the “leader.” In fact, Smalley acknowledges that the husband is biblically “responsible for the disharmony in [their] home.”

Do you agree or disagree that it’s usually the husband’s fault when there’s persistent disharmony after 5 years?

Educated women have fewer children, are wealthier and are less likely to accept fundamentalist extremism. If we want a safer world, we should consider the utility of spending dollars on educating young people as an alternative to troops and weapons.

—Lawrence M. Krauss, “How Women Can Save the Planet“