source: George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more”, p.3238, e-artnow

topic: Atheist, If There Is A God, Religion, Gullibility, Credulity

The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Rights, Government, Law, Theocracy, State Government

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Religious, Wall, Lying, Religious Faith, State Government

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

- Richard Dawkins

source: Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Atheist, Hate, Jealous, Anti Religious, Organized Religion

The Bible of nature is the best damn Bible in the world. Its laws are perfect and grand, and all the prayers in the world can't change them. There is intelligence and law in this world, and there may be supreme intelligence and law, but so far as the religion of the day is concerned, it is all a damned fake.

- Thomas A. Edison

topic: Prayer, Law, Perfect, Theism, Daily Atheist

And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence

- Bertrand Russell

topic: Death, God, Spiritual, Uneasy, God Is There

I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.

- Daniel J. Boorstin

source: Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

topic: Ignorance, Humility, Progress, Agnosticism, Ideologues

I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how a man could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.

- Abraham Lincoln

topic: God, Atheist, Humor, God Is There, God Is Great

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.

- Benjamin Disraeli

topic: Men, Giving, Atheism, Funny Atheist, Funny Fish

I do not believe in god because I do not believe in Mother Goose.

- Clarence Darrow

source: Speech, Toronto, Canada, 1930

topic: Mother, Atheist, Believe, Morality And Religion, Mother Goose

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.

- Gene Roddenberry

source: "Can A Smart Person Believe in God?". Book by Michael Guillen, Chapter 7: "Hope Springs Eternal," p. 90, 2004.

topic: Death, Spiritual, Atheist, Anti Religious, Daily Atheist

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

topic: Atheist, Fear, Reality, Morality And Religion, Daily Atheist

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

- Douglas Adams

source: Punch 23 May 1917 "Fairies"

topic: Beauty, Beautiful, Atheist, Subtle Atheist, Daily Atheist

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

- Susan B. Anthony

topic: Inspirational, God, Death, Anti Religious, Religion And Politics

To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.

- Isaac Asimov

topic: Religious, Atheist, Ignorance, Atheistic, Premature

No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism.

- Annie Besant

source: "Why God". Book by William J. Pardue, May 10, 2012.

topic: Religious, Atheist, Philosophy, Daily Atheist, Agnosticism

In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.

- Sam Harris

source: "Letter to a Christian Nation". Book by Sam Harris, 2006.

topic: Religious, People, Alchemist, Cattle, Religious Belief

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o, and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

- Penn Jillette

source: "There Is No God". "Morning Edition" with Renee Montagne, www.npr.org. November 21, 2005.

topic: Atheist, Sex, Believe, Truth Love, Anti God

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

- Epicurus

topic: Spiritual, Religious, Atheist, Anti Religious, Theism

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

- James Madison

source: Virginia. General Assembly. House of Delegates, J. W. Randolph, James Madison (1850). “The Virginia Report of 1799-1800: Touching the Alien and Sedition Laws; Together with the Virginia Resolutions of December 21, 1798, Including the Debate and Proceedings Thereon in the House of Delegates of Virginia and Other Documents Illustrative of the Report and Resolutions”, p.136

topic: Exercise, Secular Society, Law, Redress, Founding

Question with boldness even the existence of a god.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Existence, Boldness, Evidence Of God, Theism, World Religions

Is man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders?

- Friedrich Nietzsche

topic: Funny, Death, God, Man Of God, Freethinker

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

topic: Faith, Atheist, True Friend, Religious Faith, Morality And Religion

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

- C. S. Lewis