From time to time I’ve pondered on the Pages the mechanisms of faith & the opportunities of doubt. Here I go again…
Some things have to be believed to be seen. Ralph Hodgson (The Skylark and Other Poems)
It is easier to believe than to doubt. E.D. Martin (The Meaning of a Liberal Education)
We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Poet at the Breakfast Table)
Faith, indeed, has up to the present not been able to move real mountains.... But it can put mountains where there are none. Friedrich Nietzche (Human, All Too Human)
No man treats a motor car as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin, he does not say, "You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go." He attempts to find out what is wrong and set it right. Bertrand Russell (Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?)
I considered atheism, but there weren't enough holidays. (Graffito)
My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God. Albert Einstein
I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings. Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels. Pearl S. Buck
The act of bellringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people. Ezra Pound
If God has created us in His image, we have more than returned the compliment. Voltaire
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. Voltaire
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. George Bernard Shaw
An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. John Buchan
For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. Charles Bukowski
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. Bertrand Russell
You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough. Aldous Huxley
Strange...a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied seventy times seven and invented Hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him! Mark Twain (The Mysterious Stranger)
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