GodAnon

“There are always, thank heaven, skeptics who challenge orthodox ideas. They are the great thinkers of all times.” Barbara Mertz, from an interview by Ernest Dempsey with the Copperfield Review (April 28, 2012) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“For a man to be a true believer and to be strong and independent is impossible; religion and self-sufficiency are contradictory terms.”  Dr. Albert Ellis, “Case Against Religion: A Psychotherapist’s View and the Case Against Religiosity,” 1980. Ellis writes that religion’s “absolutistic, perfectionistic thinking is the prime creator of the two most corroding of human emotions: anxiety and hostility.”  Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“The Bible illustrated by Dore occupied many of my hours--and I think probably gave me many nightmares.” Eleanor Roosevelt, This Is My Story (1937) "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief. . ." (Art. 18). The declaration was adopted by the United Nations in 1948.  Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“I started out life as a member of the One Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, and I am coming to the end of it without organized religion or mystical thinking. I am an atheist, thank God, with no fear of hell and no hope of heaven.” "Death Need Not Be Fatal" (Center Street, May 16, 2017)  Malachy Gerard McCourt He was the 2006 Green Party candidate for New York governor Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“There are a score of great religions in the world. . . and each is a mighty fortress of graft.” —Upton Sinclair's Magazine, April 1918 Over his lifetime, he wrote 90 books, many of them political novels. He won the Pulitzer in 1942 for  Dragon's Teeth,   about the rise of Nazism.   D. 1968. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was . . . nothingness.” —Frances Farmer, "God Dies," essay at 16 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

"After a lot of reading, and research, I realized, I didn't have any secret channel picking up secret messages from god or anyone else. That voice in my head was my own." Greydon Square in a 2010 interview with Martin Pribble for Martin Pribble’s blog, Attempting to Make Sense. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“Not only have the 'followers of Christ' made it their rule to hack to bits all those who do not accept their beliefs, they have also ferociously massacred each other, in the name of their common 'religion of love,' under banners proclaiming their faith in Him who had expressly commanded them to love one another.” Georges Clemenceau, In the Evening of My Thought (Au Soir de la pensee), chapter on "Gods and Laws."   Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

"Organized religions and their dogmas only serve to indoctrinate the participants into sheeplike common behaviors. This type of blind assimilation promotes the popularity of top-forty count down radio stations and movie sequels. Skepticism towards groups, holy or otherwise, is enriching and makes you a far more entertaining person."  —Feel This Book: An Essential Guide to Self-Empowerment, Spiritual Supremacy, and Sexual Satisfaction by Janeane Garofalo & Ben Stiller, 1999, p. 172-173. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“Religion is declining, with no better proof than I am here today. Two hundred years ago, I would have been burned at the stake. What was considered hearsay by our fathers is tolerated now. The hell that frightened us in childhood has vanished into space . Heaven is not in our geographies. Therefore, we see the old faiths loosing their hold on the human mind.” James Fergus, speech for the Society of Montana Pioneers, 1885 (quoted in The Lewistown News-Argus, 1994). Fergus is quoted as saying in 1883: “The Christian religion brought about a long period of ignorance still known to us as the dark ages, during which thought was curbed, common education banished, and conscience given over to a rude, vulgar and ignorant priesthood. And whatever good Christianity may have done since, much of the degeneracy of mankind during this period must be laid at its door.” (All quotations cited from the December 1994 issue of The Lewistown News-Argus, on the Fergus County, Mont. History and Genealo

“It took me years, but letting go of religion has been the most profound wake up of my life. I feel I now look at the world not as a child, but as an adult. I see what's bad and it's really bad. But I also see what is beautiful, what is wonderful. And I feel so deeply appreciative that I am alive. How dare the religious use the term 'born again.' That truly describes freethinkers who've thrown off the shackles of religion so much better!” Quote submitted by Julia Sweeney.  Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

Nansen was considered an outspoken agnostic.  “. . . the religion of one age is, as a rule, the literary entertainment of the next. . .” Fridtjof Nansen, "Science and the Purpose of Life." Speech published by the Rationalist Press Association, 1909, cited by A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

Thelonious Monk was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. D. 1982. [“Do you believe in God?”] “I don’t know nothing. Do you?” Thelonius Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, by Robin D. G. Kelley (2009) Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“The only excuse for God is that he doesn't exist.” Letter to fellow atheist Prosper Merimee by friend M. de Stendhal. (Cited in The Encyclopedia of Unbelief, Merimee was made a senator in 1853 by Eugenie of France, the daughter of his Spanish friend, the Countess of Montigo of Spain. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

Cavendish did not attend church, and was an agnostic. “As to Cavendish's religion, he was nothing at all.” Biographer Dr. G. Wilson, Life of the Hon. H. Cavendish, 1851, (p. 180), cited by Joseph McCabe, A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists. Among his contributions: discerning the composition of water and of the atmosphere, taking the first accurate measurement of the mass of the earth, and isolating hydrogen. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“For most of my life, I've been, ‘Hey, I'm not into it, but I respect your right to believe whatever you want'. But as time goes on, weirdly, I'm growing less liberal. I'm more like, 'No, religion is ruining the world, you need to stop!’” Christ O’Dowd, interview, GQ, March 8, 2014 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“It’s irrational to fear what death will feel like if you know it won’t feel like anything, but it doesn’t follow that it is irrational to fear death. It’s not irrational to look forward to the pleasures of living, and if we know that death will take these away, the fear of losing those pleasures doesn’t seem irrational either.” —Peter Lipton, quoted in The Telegraph, Dec. 17, 2007. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering