no. 419

Vickram beamed at me. "Oh yes, madame. I am always happy. It is like this: What happens to us in life is for God to decide. But whether to be happy or not - that is our choice."

Anne Cushman, from Enlightenment For Idiots, p. 67

no. 390

“If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses? If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them? If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him? If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable? If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees? If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him? IF HE HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE UNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED?”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

no. 350

"I think there’s a lot to be said for the JudeoChristian idea of absolute good and evil. But sometimes it’s just easier to believe, as the ancient Greeks did, that this universe is being run by drunken, skirt-chasing, egotistical morons."

this guy's English professor

no. 339

“In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed”? Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’”

Carl Sagan

no. 324

"If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology."

Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness

no. 232

via

no. 226

"I've never been insulted by hateful satanists for not believing in their devil.
Only by loving Christians for not believing in their God."

Ricky Gervais

via

no. 201

"Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."

George Carlin

no. 200

"If there is a God, He will have to beg my forgiveness."

A phrase that was carved on the walls of a concentration camp cell during WWII by a Jewish prisoner