1037) A cult is a religion with no political power.

Tom Wolfe
In Our Time (1980) [CQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1038) A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

James Feibleman
Understanding Philosophy (1973)
quoted in The Cassell Dictionary of Cynical Quotations
Jonathon Green, ed. [PAQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

[Note: cf. #393 Weinreich & #2420 Wilde.]

1039) Nothing more clearly show how little God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money, position and other worldly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them.

Jean de la Bruyere
"Of Worldly Goods" in
Characters (1688) [CQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

[Note: Often misquoted and misattributed to Dorothy Parker.]

1040) Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

Oscar Wilde
The Critic as Artist (1891)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1041) "Faith" means not wanting to know what is true.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The Antichrist (1888)[WQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1042) A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The Antichrist (1888)
quoted in The Cassell Dictionary of Cynical Quotations
Jonathon Green, ed. [PAQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

[Note: Possibly a simplification of Nietzsche's actual words (as translated):

That faith makes blessed under certain circumstances, that blessedness does not make of a fixed idea a true idea, that faith moves no mountains but puts mountains where there are none: a quick walk through a madhouse enlightens one sufficiently about this. [WQ]]

1043) I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (attributed)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1044) The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.

Sir Richard F. Burton
"Terminal Essay: Social Conditions"
The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night [WQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1045) Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes & wishes he was certain of.

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Notebooks & Journals v.2: 1877-1883 (1975) [QMT]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1046) Christian, n. One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1047) Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1048) Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1049) We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

H.L. Mencken
Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956) [WQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1050) Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

Robert Heinlein
Time Enough for Love (1973) [WQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1051) There are scores of thousands of human insects who are ready at a moment's notice to reveal the will of God on every possible subject.

George Bernard Shaw
"The Sin of Athanasius"
Treatise on Parents and Children (1910)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

[Note: A fuller quotation:

We are overrun with Popes. From curates and governesses, who may claim a sort of professional standing, to parents and uncles and nurserymaids and school teachers and wiseacres generally, there are scores of thousands of human insects groping through our darkness by the feeble phosphorescence of their own tails, yet ready at a moment's notice to reveal the will of God on every possible subject; to explain how and why the universe was made (in my youth they added the exact date) and the circumstances under which it will cease to exist; to lay down precise rules of right and wrong conduct; to discriminate infallibly between virtuous and vicious character; and all this with such certainty that they are prepared to visit all the rigors of the law, and all the ruinous penalties of social ostracism on people, however harmless their actions maybe who venture to laugh at their monstrous conceit or to pay their assumptions the extravagant compliment of criticizing them.]

1052) Going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than going to a garage makes you a car.

unknown
(variously attributed to Garrison Keillor
and Laurence J. Peter)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1053) I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.

Galileo Galilei
letter to Christina of Tuscany
quoted by Perry McAdow Rogers in
Aspects of Western Civilization: problems and sources in history (1988) [WQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1054) I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.

Thomas Jefferson
letter to Dr. Woods (undated)
quoted by John E. Remsburg in
Six Historic Americans: Thomas Jefferson
citing Franklin Steiner
"Thomas Jefferson, Freethinker" in
Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents (1936) [PAQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)