I studied every page of this book, and I didn't find enough love to fill a salt shaker. God is not love in the Bible; God is vengeance, from Alpha to Omega.
There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages.
Let us use our energy and our initiative to solve our problems without relying on prayers and wishful thinking. When we have faith in ourselves, we will find we do not have to have faith in gods.
I am now convinced that children should not be subjected to the frightfulness of the Christian religion [...]. If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son put to death is presented to children as beautiful and as worthy of society's admiration, what types of human behavior can be presented to them as reprehensible?
I feel that we should stop wasting our time trying to please the supernatural and concentrate on improving the welfare of human beings. I think that, uh, we should use our energy and our initiative to solve our problems, and stop relying on prayer and wishful thinking. If we have faith in ourselves, we won't have to have faith in gods.
Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up the old ones.
I had always been told the bible was a book about love, but I couldn't find enough love in it to fill a salt shaker. God is not love in the bible; God is vengeance. There is no other book between whose covers life is so cheap.
Personally, I think the 'Christian family' should be called a Christian fantasy.
I am pleased as punch no longer to believe in a god who declares reason a sin, who will not choose many noble and great and wise things but has chosen the base things of the world, the foolish things, the weak things and the things which are not. A god who can choose his companions in eternity and prefers Jerry Falwell and Tammy Bakker over Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. I am no longer a fool for Christ's sake. And I have no more desire to be a sheep than to be a fool. It is possible to pull out justification for imposing your will on others, simply by calling your will God's will.
I am fond of saying that reading the Bible turned me into an atheist.
It is possible to pull out justification for imposing your will on others, simply by calling your will God's will.
The Doxology ... that testimonial to the Platonic Trinity, which divided the Roman Empire into at least eighteen quarreling sects, none of whom knew what they were fighting about, and which schisms contributed to the decline and fall of this greatest of states. Rome had thrived for one thousand years with pagan gods at the helm and expired after only one hundred and fifty years under the Christian banner.
Christians tell me that they have a higher destiny than the lower animals, because Homo Sapiens can reason. But the Bible tells me that this gift of reason, which they call god-given, may be the match that lights the fires of hell for all who dare to use it, since whatever is not of faith is sin.
The natural is so awesome that we need not go beyond it.
The plan was for Jesus to come to Earth two thousand years ago with a pocketful of miracles and souls for the people who were then alive. After his return to heaven from Earth he is going to build those mansions, come back before his generation dies out, finally put an end to the world which has been such a rotten disappointment, and deposit most of these souls in hell. No wonder heaven is only 12,000 furlongs wide, long, and high.
The Bible, itself the ultimate curse, is an in-depth profile of the divine spleen.
Not only is this not love; I think it is the most diabolical unfairness that was ever taught or devised.
But I still don't know what kind of monster was this god, until I saw that Jesus deliberately hid his light under a bushel. "Tell no one" was often his command.
Today when the Fundamentalists are once more insisting that the fundamentals of fundamentalism are fundamental to our being No. 1 on the Lord's totem pole, it's very brave of you to invite the "resident atheist" of mid-Missouri to share her thoughts with you.
