GodAnon

"Objectivity is not my department. Balance is down the hall. Impartiality is another word for no reason to draw a cartoon."  "Do you have any weapons, flammable materials or hazardous religious beliefs?" Addis cartoon showing an American Indian checking a Mayflower pilgrim's    suitcase.  Donald Gordon Addis Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

"The freethinker has the same right to discredit the beliefs of Christians that the Orthodox Christians enjoy in destroying reverence, respect, and confidence in Mohammedanism, Mormonism, Christian Science, or Atheism." Theodore Schroeder, Constitutional Free Speech Defined and Defended in an Unfinished Argument in a Case of Blasphemy (1919). Main source: The Encyclopedia of Unbelief Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“The Methodist Discipline provides for 'separate Colored Conferences.' The Episcopal church shuts out some of its own most worthy ministers from clerical recognition, on account of their color. Nearly all denominations of religionists have either a written or unwritten law to the same effect. In Boston, even, there are Evangelical churches whose pews are positively forbidden by corporate mandate from being sold to any but 'respectable white persons.' Our incorporated cemeteries are often, if not always, deeded in the same manner. Even our humblest village graveyards generally have either a 'negro corner,' or refuse colored corpses altogether; and did our power extend to heaven or hell, we should have complexional salvation and colored damnation, . . .” —Parker Pillsbury, letter, The North Star, Dec. 5, 1850 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“We would be 1,500 years ahead if it hadn't been for the church dragging science back by its coattails and burning our best minds at the stake.” - Catherine Fahringer, Interview, San Antonio Express News, Portrait of an Atheist by Craig Phelon, March 24, 1991) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

Engel vs Vitale was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and encourage its recitation in public schools. Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

"Mr. Buffett's parents were observant Presbyterians and he, too, sang in the choir. Early on, though, he became an agnostic. He avoids houses of worship. His concerns are entirely secular. 'The nice thing about an agnostic is you don't think anybody is wrong,' Mr. Buffett said." —New York Times, May 9, 1997 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“The Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black, the Thracians that theirs have light blue eyes and red hair.” —Xenophanes (5-6th century BCE), Greek philosopher who lived to 105, Fragment 15, 5th century BC, from James E. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

"If I was promised that we could sit with Marx in some great Deli Haus in the hereafter, I might believe in it! Sure, I find inspiration in Jewish stories of hope, also in the Christian pacifism of the Berrigans, also in Taoism and Buddhism. I identify as a Jew, but not on religious grounds. Yes, I believe, as Pascal said, 'The heart has its reasons which reason cannot know.' There are limits to reason. There is mystery, there is passion, there is something spiritual in the arts—but it is not connected to Judaism or any other religion." Howard Zinn in a Tikkun Magazine interview with Shelly R. Fredman, "Howard Zinn on Fixing What's Wrong," May 17, 2006 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

Playboy: Do you believe in an afterlife? Redford: I'm not sure I do. I've explored every religion, some very deeply, enough to know there's not one philosophy that can satisfy me. Problems can't be solved with one way of thinking. If anything is my guide, nature is. That's where my spirituality is. I don't believe in organized religion, because I don't believe people should be organized in how they think, in what they believe. That has never been driven home as hard as with the [Bush] administration. When somebody thinks God speaks to him, you've got trouble. If God is speaking to the president, he's speaking with a forked tongue, because the behavior of this administration doesn't seem very godlike or spiritual.. . . Is there an afterlife? As far as I know, this is it. It's all we’ve got. You take your opportunities and you go for it. —Robert Redford, Playboy Magazine, November 2007 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

"I've sworn off agnosticism, which I now call cowardly atheism. I've come to the position that in the complete absence of any supporting data whatsoever for the persistence of the individual in some spiritual form, it is necessary to operate under the provisional conclusion that there is no afterlife and then be ready to amend that if I find out otherwise." James Cameron in a March 23, 2010 interview with the Hollywood Reporter Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

In 2011, when asked how her personal faith takes a role in her music, Carlton replied, “I’m an atheist.” “I’m an atheist.” Vanessa Carlton, Live Stream June 7, 2011 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

"I had some pretty dark and desperate moments all those years ago . . . . I didn't ever smash up a hotel room or throw a TV out a window. That was Led Zeppelin. Thank god. If there was a god, you know, which there isn't." —Roger Waters interview from "The Wall Tour," on AOL Web site, by Live Nation Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“Public prayer is not intended to promote religious values, but to enhance the authority of some churches and some political views over others. Similarly with the posting of the Ten Commandments. It is about power, not about religion. Government by Christian or Islamic or any other faith has rarely been progressive.  And the Constitution clearly intends that there should be freedom from religion.” Ellery Schempp, "A Champion of the First Amendment," in an acceptance speech to FFRF, Oct. 13, 2007 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“[Tom Brazaitis] was a fallen-away Catholic who in the last years of his life proudly embraced atheism. And he did not flinch those last few months [of his life].”  —Eleanor Clift, speech at the 31st annual FFRF convention, 2008 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“A religion, even if it calls itself the religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong to it.” -Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, 1921 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“I just felt that an intelligent person like myself could figure out good behaviors without going to a church and having to follow the thinking of a large group, all who follow it largely because they all do.” —Steve Wozniak, www.woz.org, 2000 Wozniak was awarded the 2011 Isaac Asimov Science Award from the American Humanist Association. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering