GodAnon

“I’m an atheist. I don’t see any moral superstructure to the universe at all. I consider my work optimistic in that the people, during the period I’m writing about them, are experiencing intense emotion. It is my belief that this is all there is to it. There is nothing beyond this.” Don Carpenter, The Rumpus, Nov. 2, 2009 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. . . .   Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion.” James Madison, "Memorial and Remonstrance," 1785 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible does not alarm the true investigator, who takes truth for authority not authority for truth. The thinker who is really free, is independent; he is under no dread; he yields to no menace; he is not dismayed by law, nor custom, nor pulpits, nor society-whose opinion appals so many. He who has the manly passion of free thought, has no fear of anything, save the fear of error. George Holyoake Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“This 'search for God' business must be forbidden for a time--it is a perfectly useless occupation.” Maxim Gorky, quoted in Who's Who in Hell, edited by Warren Allen Smith. Also cited by by David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace in The People's Almanac. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

Miss Graves [a teacher], though a devout Christian, was liberal. She explained, for example, that one might interpret the miracles in the Bible as figures of speech. ... Within a year I had gone to Miss Graves to tell her that I no longer believed in God. 'I know,' she said, 'I have been through that myself.' But her strategy misfired: I never went through it.    —B.F. Skinner. Brief autobiography written for E.G. Boring and G. Lindzey's "A History of Psychology in Autobiography, Vol. 5" (New York: Appleton Century-Crofts, 1967, pp. 387-413). Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

"I am an atheist. I have a very different take on who God is. Man invented God because he needed him. God is us." Carl Reiner in “Carl Reiner’s big break,” by Susan King in The Los Angeles Times, Oct. 21, 2009 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

Three hundred and fifty years after his death, the Catholic Church "forgave" Galileo. “I have been ... suspected of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the universe and immovable, and that the earth is not the center of the same, and that it does move. ... I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church.” Galileo Galilei's "Recantation," June 22, 1633 Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

“No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion." Jeremy Bentham, "Constitutional Code" Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

The gospel of Mark (written c.70 CE) contained no post-Resurrection appearances in its original version, which ended at Mark 16:8. Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering