John Stuart Mill "On Liberty":
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person
were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in
silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be
justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession
of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment
of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference
whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But
the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that
it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing
generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those
who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the
opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what
is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier
impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."
Sir Winston Churchill on Islam
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men."
"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."
[Churchill, W, The River War,
Vol. II, p248-50]
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As Bertrand Russell said: "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."
♦ There is more spirituality in reason's denial of God than there is in myth's affirmation of God, precisely because there is more depth... even an "atheist" acting from rational-universal compassion is more spiritual than a fundamentalist acting to convert the universe in the name of a mythic-membership god. [Ken Wilber]
♦ Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. [Pascal - Physicist, Mathematician & Philosopher]
♦ It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so... [Robert A. Heinlein]
♦ Religions are all alike -- founded upon fables and mythologies [Thomas Jefferson]
♦ A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." [Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche]
♦ The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. [George Bernard Shaw]
♦ Scientific criticism has no nobler task than to shatter false beliefs. [Engels]
♦ Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic. [Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin, 1973]
♦ "Scientific theories are distinguished from myths merely in being criticisable & in being open to modifications in the light of criticism." [Karl Popper - Postscript "Logic of Scientific Discovery"]
Napoleon on Religion:
♦ As for myself, I do not believe that such a person as Jesus Christ ever existed; but as the people are inclined to superstition, it is proper not to oppose them.
♦ Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
♦ Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. [quoted from Robert Byrne, 1,911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, 1988]
Lucretius [99-55 BCE]
♦ Such is the power of religion in persuading to evil.
♦ No fact is so obvious that it does not at first produce wonder,
Nor so wonderful that it does not eventually yield to belief.
♦ Such is the power of reason to overcome inborn vices
That nothing prevents our living a life worthy of gods.
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Karl Marx
♦ Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.
♦ The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion"
♦ The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.
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Epicurus (341-271 BCE)
[Do you want to be happy? Of course you do! Then what's standing in your way? Your happiness is entirely up to you. This has been revealed to us by a man of divine serenity and wisdom who spent his life among us, and showed us, by his personal example and by his teaching, the path to redemption from unhappiness. His name was Epicurus.]
♦ The just man is the freest of all men from disquietude; but the unjust man is a perpetual prey to it.
♦ It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.
♦ No pleasure is a bad thing in itself: but the means which produce some pleasures bring with them disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.
♦ If we were not troubled by apprehensions about the phenomena of the sky and about death, fearing that it concerns us, and also by our failure to grasp the limits of pains and desires, we should have no need to study nature.
♦ A man cannot dispel his fear about the most important matters if he does not know what is the nature of the universe but suspects the truth of some mythical story. So without the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.
♦ Irresistible power and great wealth may, up to a certain point, give us security as far as men are concerned; but generally, the security of men depends upon the tranquility of their souls, and their freedom from ambition.
♦ Of all the things that wisdom provides for living one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.
♦ Among desires some are natural and necessary, some natural but not necessary, and others neither natural nor necessary, but due to groundless opinion.
♦ The justice which arises from nature is a pledge of mutual advantage to restrain men from harming one another and to keep oneself from being harmed.
♦ There never was such a thing as absolute justice, but only agreements made in mutual dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing against the infliction or suffering of harm.
♦ Injustice is not an evil in itself, but only in consequence of the accompanying fear of being unable to escape those appointed to punish such actions.
♦ Overall, justice is the same for all people, for it is a kind of mutual advantage in the dealing of men with one another; but with reference to the individual peculiarities of a country or any other circumstances the same thing does not turn out to be universally just.
♦ He who desires to live tranquilly without having anything to fear from other men, ought to make himself friends; those whom he cannot make friends of, he should, at least avoid rendering enemies; and if that is not in his power, he should, as far as possible, avoid all intercourse with them, and keep them aloof, as far as it is for his interest to do so.
♦ The happiest men are those who have arrived at the point of having nothing to fear from those who surround them. Such men live with one another most agreeably, having the firmest grounds of confidence in one another, enjoying the advantages of friendship in all their fullness, they do not mourn a friend who dies before they do, as if there was a need for pity.
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Albert Einstein
♦ The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.
♦ A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
♦ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.
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Oscar Wilde
♦ When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
♦ I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated His ability.
♦ Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious.
♦ Extravagance is the luxury of the poor; penury is the luxury of the rich.
♦ The proper basis for a marriage is a mutual misunderstanding.
♦ To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
♦ When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong.
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♦ "When is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion." [Voltaire]
♦ Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires [Sigmund Freud]
♦ All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry [Edgar Allan Poe - American short-story writer, editor, poet and critic, 1809-1849]
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♦ He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals. [Immanuel Kant - one of the foremost thinkers of the Enlightenment. 1724-1804]