In part two you’ll find a whole mess of philosophers, authors, human rights activists, politians and some pop culture references. Some have questioned those I chose to put on the list citing some of their less-than-perfect deeds as proof. My intention here is not to present the (false) idea that all atheists are paragons of virture. Unlike theists, I harbor no delusions that my people are inherently “better” than any others. Rather, my intention is to show how atheists/agnostics/non-believers are now, will be and always have been major players on the stage of world history, not a passive, invisible minority. And, as stated in part one – the list isn’t populated by atheists alone.

First up- Founding Fathers (for those who think non-true xtians(tm) would not/could not be elected president):

Benjamin Franklin - Inventor, Foundating Father
“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”
“Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.”

Thomas Jefferson - American president, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat.
Deist, avid separationist.
“Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies.”
“Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the
homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.”
“Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.” [Notes on Virginia]

Abraham Lincoln – American president
John T. Stuart, Lincoln’s first law partner: “He was an avowed and open infidel, and sometimes bordered on Atheism…He went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard.”

Joseph Lewis quoting Lincoln in a 1924 speech in New York: ” The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”

William Howard Taft - American President and Chief Justice
“I do not believe in the divinity of Christ and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe.”

Ulysses S. Grant -18th President of the United States
“Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private schools, supported entirely by
private contributions. Keep the church and the state forever separated.”

James Madison – 4th American president and political theorist.
“In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.”

John Adams – 2nd President of the United States
“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.”

Now for some contentious “real estate”:

Charles Robert Darwin – English naturalist
He professed himself an Agnostic, regarding the problem of the universe as beyond our solution, “For myself,” he wrote, “I do not believe in any revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.

(no, he didn’t “repent” on his death bed)

Clarence Seward Darrow – American lawyer
“I believe that religion is the belief in future life and in God. I don’t believe in either. I don’t believe in God as I don’t believe in Mother Goose.” quoted in Manual of a Perfect Atheist.

Next, a whole mess of authors and philosopers:

Epicurus – Ancient Greek philosopher who was the founder of Epicureanism, one of the most popular schools of Hellenistic Philosophy.
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) – American Author
“Faith is believing something you know ain’t true.”
“Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain
of.”

Carl Sagan - American astronomer and author
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

John Stuart Mill – English philosopher and economist
“The time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all to make their dissent from religion known.”

Arthur C. Clarke – British author and inventor
“It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him.” Quoted from Clarke’s autobiography.

Friedrich Nietzsche - German philosopher
“Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s?”

Ambrose Bierce – American writer
Author of The Devil’s Dictionary. Here are some entries:
“PRAY: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”
“FAITH: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
“RELIGION: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.”
“OCEAN: A body of water occupying about two thirds of a world made for man- who has no gills.”
“SAINT: A dead sinner revised and edited.”

Dan Barker – Former clergyman, author of ‘Losing Faith in Faith’
“You are an intelligent human being. Your life is valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently evil — you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself.”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca “the Younger,” – Roman stoic philosopher, writer, and politician
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.”

Gallus Petronius – Roman courtier and wit .
“It is fear that first brought Gods into the world.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – German author (1749-1832).
“This occupation with ideas of immortality is for people of rank, and especially for ladies who have nothing to do. But a man of real worth who has something to do here, and must toil and struggle to produce day by day, leaves the future world to itself, and is active and useful in this.”

Arthur Schopenhauer – German philosopher
There was, Schopenhauer believed, no Absolute, no Reason, no God, no Spirit at work in the world: nothing but brute instinctive will to live. [A History of God]

Herbert George “H.G.” Wells - English author
“I do not believe I have any immortality. The greatest evil in the world today is the Christian religion.”

Marcel Proust- French author

Ezra Loomis Pound - American poet, critic
“Religion, oh, just another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art.”

Robert Frost – American poet
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.

E. M. Forster – English novelist
“Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch, which ought to be applied as sparingly as possible…. I do not believe in it for its own sake at all.”

James Joyce
“There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.”

Virginia Woolf
“I read the book of Job last night, I don’t think God comes out well in it. ”

DH Lawrence - British writer
“God is only a great imaginative experience.”

H. P. Lovecraft – American author
“We all know that any emotional bias — irrespective of truth or falsity — can be implanted by suggestion in the emotions of the young, hence the inherited traditions of an orthodox community are absolutely without evidential value…. If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. With such an honest and inflexible openness to evidence, they could not fail to receive any real truth which might be manifesting itself around them. The fact that religionists do not follow this honourable course, but cheat at their game by invoking juvenile quasi-hypnosis, is enough to destroy their pretensions in my eyes even if their absurdity were not manifest in every other direction.”

Pearl S. Buck – American author
“I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.”

George Orwell – American author
From A Clergyman’s Daughter, 1935:
“When I eat my dinner I don’t do it to the greater glory of God; I do it because I enjoy it. The world’s full of amusing things – books, wine, travel, friends – everything. I’ve never seen any meaning in it all, and I don’t want to see one. Why not take life as you find it?.”

Ayn Rand – Russian born American author
“Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves — or whether it should be ours here and now and on this Earth.”

Jean Paul Sartre- French philosopher and author
“Dostoievsky said, ‘If God didn’t exist, everything would be possible.’ That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to. He can’t start making excuses for himself.”

Robert A. Heinlein - American science-fiction author
“History does not record anywhere or at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.” [Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love]

Simone de Beauvoir- French author, feminist, and philosopher
“I cannot be angry at God, in whom I do not believe.”

Douglas Adams – British author ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’
“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”

Albert Camus – French author
Preached a heroic atheism. People should reject God defiantly in order to pour out all their loving solicitude upon mankind. [A History of God]

Activists, Politians, Revolutionaries:

Jesse Ventura
“Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people” –

Gloria Steinem -women’s rights activist
“By the year 2000, we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God.”
“It’s an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don’t try to make it posthumous.”

Simon Bolivar – Venezuelan soldier and South American liberator atheist. Excommunicated by the Catholic Church.

Matilda Joslyn Gage – American feminist
“From Augustine down, theologians have tried to compel people to accept their special interpretation of the Scripture, and the tortures of the inquisition, the rack, the thumb-screw, the stake, the persecutions of witchcraft, the whipping of naked women through the streets of Boston, banishment, trials of heresy, the halter about Garrison’s neck, Lovejoy’s death, the branding of Captain Walker, shouts of infidel and atheist, have all been for this purpose.”

Marilla Ricker – American feminist and activist
““A religious person is a dangerous person. He may not become a thief or a murderer, but he is liable to become a nuisance. He carries with him many foolish and harmful superstitions, and he is possessed with the notion that it is his duty to give these superstitions to others. That is what makes trouble. Nothing is so worthless as superstition. . . .”

Olive Shreiner – Peace and Anti-Apartheid campaigner

Joseph McCabe – English anti-religion campaigner
The epitaph he requested was “He was a rebel to his last day.” [The Secular Web]

Fenner Brockway – peace campaigner
Brockway was a labor leader who opposed British imperialism and advocated giving freedom to its colonies.

Ferdinand Magellan - Explorer
“The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I
have more faith in a shadow than in the church.”

“Oh-So-Typical” Scientists reference:

Richard Dawkins – British ethologist and popular science writer.
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”

Thomas Henry Huxley – English biologist
Huxley coined the term “agnostic.”

Burrhus Frederick “B. F.” Skinner- American Psychologist
In an interview with CBS radio a few weeks before his death, Skinner was asked if he feared death. He replied, “I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.”

Composers, Artists, General Eccentrics:

Irving Berlin
In her biography of her father, Irving Berlin: A Daughter’s Memoir, Mary Ellin Barrett mentions her father’s “agnosticism,” (p.123) and refers to him as a “nonbeliever,” (p.124)

Howard Hughes- American manufacturer, film producer, and recluse

Vincent Van Gogh – Dutch painter
“I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.”

And in case those don’t float your fancy, here’s more pop-culture-friendly examples:

Sir Charles Spencer “Charlie” Chaplin – British born actor, director, and producer (1889-1977).
“By simple common sense I don’t believe in God, in none.”

W. C. Fields - American entertainer
An acquaintance of Field’s recounts the story of Fields, an atheist, having once been found reading the Bible. When asked what he was doing reading the Bible, Fields responded, “I’m looking for loopholes.” [Movie W. C. Fields: Striaght Up]

Gypsy Rose Lee – stripper
“Praying is like a rocking chair – it’ll give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.”

John Lennon – British Rock Icon
“Imagine there’s no heaven,
It’s easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today”

From the song, “God,”
“God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain
I don’t believe in magic
I don’t believe in I-Ching
I don’t believe in Bible
I don’t believe in Tarot
I don’t believe in Hitler
I don’t believe in Jesus
And, from the song, “I Found Out,”
There ain’t no Jesus gonna come from the sky
Now that I found out I know I can cry
I found out!”

Frank Zappa- American composer, guitarist, singer and satirist.
“If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine — but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good — and CARES about any of it — to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.” [The Real Frank Zappa Book, ("Church and State" chapter) by Frank Zappa and Peter Occhiogrosso, p. 301]

Barry White – American Singer
“Referring to religion, Barry told Reuters in 1999 interview, “I don’t like stories, things I can’t prove.”

Dave Matthews South African rock musician

Lance Armstrong – American professional road racing cyclist. Seven time winner of the Tour de France race.
Interviewer: “For a miracleman, you’re not very religious.”

Armstrong: “I don’t have anything against organized religion per se. We all need something in our lives. I personally just have not accepted that belief. But I’m one of the few.”

George Carlin – comedian
“Religion is just mind control.”

Angelina Jolie Actor
“There doesn’t need to be a God for me. There’s something in people that’s spiritual, that’s godlike.”

Neil Jordan – Irish Film Director
“Because God is the greatest imaginary being of all time. Along with Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, the invention of God is probably the greatest creation of human thought.”

Jodie Foster- Actor
““I absolutely believe what Ellie [Arroway, the atheist astronomer in the movie "Contact"] believes–that there is no direct evidence, so how could you ask me to believe in God when there’s absolutely no evidence that I can see? I do believe in the beauty and the awe-inspiring mystery of the science that’s out there that we haven’t discovered yet, that there are scientific explanations for phenomena that we call mystical because we don’t know any better.”

Seth Green – actor
“The Onion: Is there a God?
Seth Green: Is there a God? It really depends on what religion you subscribe to.
O: Oh, man, that’s cheap. Everyone else was like, “I don’t know. Maybe.”
SG: God is, to me, pretty much an idea. God is, to me, pretty much a myth created over time to deny the idea that we’re all responsible for our own actions.

Barry Manilow – Singer
“Q: Do you believe in God?
A: Yes. His name is Clive Davis, and he’s the head of my record company.
Q: How important is your Judaism to you?
A: It isn’t. My humanism is. ”

Todd McFarlane - Comic Artist/Writer
“In the letters page of his comic book Spawn, a Christian writer criticised McFarlane’s heavily satire-laden portrayal of religion and God. In the following response, McFarlane went on to explain his religious beliefs. “I go on record by stating that I do not believe in God,” he wrote at one point.”

Jack Nicholson- Actor
“In an 1992 interview in Vanity Fair, Nicholson said, “I don’t believe in God now,” but he added that “I can still work up an envy for someone who has a faith. I can see how that could be a deeply soothing experience.”

Homer Simpson – Animiated American Icon
“I’m normally not a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me Superman!”

Christopher Reeve – Actor
“Even though I don’t personally believe in the Lord, I try to behave as though He was watching”

And last to be listed, though #1 on the list: Pat Tillman
I’m sure you’ve heard the charge that atheists are not or cannot be patriots. I’m sure you’ve heard the charge that “there are no atheists in foxholes.”

And I’m sure you’ve seen countless professional atheletes thank god for their victories at every turn. Funny that they never mention him when they lose.

Pat Tillman was a safety for the Arizona Cardinals. Instead of signing a three-year, $3.6 million contract, he enlisted in the Army when the Afghan war began. He was killed on April 22 at the age of 27. He was an atheist. His eulogy by his brother Kevin

(You never see the ones thank god leaving their posh lives behind to join up and defend the country, do you.)

Sources (in addition to those cited in part one):
http://en.thinkexist.com/by/curiosity/by_religious_belief/atheists/
http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/atheistquotes.html
http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/quotes.htm
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/General_1/some_well_known_atheist_artists_bands/

Okay, I am selfish enough that, rather than just commenting on Our Rockstar’s last post, I am going to do my own separate post as a followup.

So Cocksnack Falwell has decided to “draw a line in the sand” and declare “Friend or Foe” in the Xian Right’s war to turn our liberal democracy into a theocracy, eh?

The article cites the 500,000 recipients of his weekly “Falwell Confidential” newsletter (I am gonna start subscribing to these listservs just to watchdog these fuckheads). It also cites the 150,000-member American Family Association (the monkey-brains who think Target is fighting the ONLY winter holiday we are allowed to have).

Let’s think about these numbers, people. Here is the latest population estimate of the United States, according to the CIA World Factbook: 295,734,134.

650,000 meatheads and their retarded social agenda constitute — and stop me if I am wrong here on my math — 0.2 percent of the entire U.S. population.

What a wise man once told me: these people are not any kind of a majority. They are just highly motivated. Eric Hoffer, the famous “longshoreman philosopher” made it abundantly clear in his first and best-known book, “True Believer”, that history is made by minorities. Most of humanity is just trying to get by, scrape a living, go along to get along. Despite Bill O’Reilly’s rantings and ratings, I can guarantee you most Americans don’t even know this xmas debate thing is happening.

What I am trying to say is that we don’t need an army to beat these fuckers. As the Dover decision points out, we just need a few good Americans to keep punching them back in the kisser every time they come out swinging.

Keep up the good fight, folks. Americans may be dumb, ignorant, backwards-ass possum eaters, but they seem to always (eventually) figure out when their rights are being violated and stop fascism (there, I said it) in its tracks.

Now that it’s unconstitutional to teach Intelijunt Desine as an alternative to evolution, it’s made me wonder:

How can we as a country get some things right and others so wrong?

The Dover decision is for every assbag that ever said “If you don’t want GOD in the Pledge of Allegiance/national motto/US currency, then LEAVE to a GODLESS country!”

I can’t wait to tell them to LEAVE and go to a SCIENCELESS country. But these cocksnacks exist and will continue to exist, saying that Judge Jones is oppressing and censoring them. Face it Chet – you lost. You tried to mask Creationism as science by dressing it up with a fancy name. BANG! Shot down by scientists and biology professors who saw through the bullshit. You tried to get your religion into public schools by electing close-minded hillbillies. Score currently stands tied 1-1. You then tried to go through the courts to have Creationism taught to children as a viable explanation for the origin of species. BANG! Shot down. Kansas, you’re next…

Speaking of BANG, I wish I had a bazooka for every dumbass who still thinks that I’m out to destroy Christmas. No, really, check out what this lying piece of shit has to say:

“It’s a sad day in America when you have to retain an attorney to say ‘Merry Christmas,’ ” said Mike Johnson, an Alliance Defense Fund attorney in Louisiana who will push the Christmas cause.”

Whaaa??? If there is someone in the world who is holding you back from saying “Christy Christmas and a very Christy New Christ” to every mouth-breathing motherfucker who walks down the street, please tell them I have a bazooka saved for them too. Problem is, there is no one stopping you from doing so. Not person number one. Scream it from the top of your lungs. Wear the stupid sweaters, making sure to piss your dog off by making them wear one too. Have them match for shit’s sake – I don’t care.

But stop playing victim! I’m sick of these assholes making things up to raise money for the Jerry Falwell retirement fund. Show me evidence!

While we’re on evidence, I have a new pet peeve. It’s all the creduloids that drop by and spout their bullshit but don’t back it up. It’s fine if you disagree with me; even Your Rockstar can’t be right about everything. But when I ask you fuckers for evidence, here are the responses I’ve been getting:

1. “Do the research yourself!”
2. “You’re stupid!”
3. “Pastor Hank on www.ilovejeebus.org says it’s true!”
4. A shitty poem on an even shittier blog
5. The claimant disappears completely to uplink with the mother-ship.

Oh well. At least we’ve held religion out of public schools for the time being.

Judge Rules Against ‘Intelligent Design’. Dover is over, and the good guys win.

Update: PDF of actual decision here.

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[9] UCAN further charged Cingular with violating numerous CPUC requirements by consistently telling customers with questions about non-communications service charges on their wireless phone bill that Cingular has no responsibility and cannot assist customers with their inquiries.

This time of year, it’s easy for atheists to feel like they are alone in the world. At least, this is what happens to me. Being constantly blasted whereever I go by reminders that only Xtians have the right to a holiday in December gets annoying. (Though, watching them get in fist fights over toys is kinda funny – as long as no one actually gets hurt).

When it gets to feeling a little lonely, and when I tire of psychos like Falwell, Robertson and O’Reilly bitching about the imaginary “war on xmas”, it cheers me up to remember who’s company I keep. And though I’m obviously biased, they are infinitely superior to the likes of Falwell, Robertson and O’Reilly. I am not speaking of strickly atheists – though there are plenty on this list. I am speaking of all people who have issue with organized religion, as I do myself. Belief in god is not the problem, organizing it into a heirarchy with stone cold dogma for which you are willing to discriminate, slander or kill, is.

Noteworthy Atheists/Freethinkers/Agnostics/Deists*(in no order at all)

Personal heros:

Margaret Sanger - American birth control activist, founder of Planned Parenthood
“No Gods, No Masters.”

Susan B. Anthony – American civil rights
What you should say to outsiders is that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our Association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself shall not stand upon it.” [Susan B. Anthony: A Biography, by Kathleen Barry, New York University Press, 1988, p.310]

Elizabeth Cady Stanton – American social activist
The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation.

Voltairine de Cleyre -American feminist and activist
“I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly.”

List:

François-Marie Arouet Voltaire - French Enlightenment writer, essayist, deist and philosopher
“The first clergyman was the first rascal who met the first fool”

“Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.” [Philosophical Dictionary, 1764]

“If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.”

Denis Diderot - French philosopher and writer
“Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest”

Robert G. Ingersoll -American political leader and orator
“As people become more intelligent they care less for preaches and more for teachers”

Abu Ala Al-Ma’arri -Syrian poet and write
“The world holds two classes of men – intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.”

Thomas Edison – American inventor
“I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.”

Sigmund Freud- Austrian physician and pioneer psychoanalyst
“In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is palpable.” Sigmund Freud, Austrian physician and pioneer psychoanalyst (1856-1939).

George Bernard Shaw – Irish playwright
“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means.”

Frank Lloyd Wright – American architect
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”

Albert Einstein - German born American threoretical physicist
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” [From a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954. It is included in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, published by Princeton University Press.

Ernest Hemingway - American author
"All thinking men are atheists." [A Farewell to Arms]

Isaac Asimov Russian-born American author
“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.”

Gene Roddenberry - Creator of Star Trek
“We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.”

“I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will–and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.”

Stephen Hawking- Theoretical Physicist
“At a physicist’s conference Hawking was attending after his book A Brief History of Time was published, a reporter approached him to ask if he did in fact believe in God, given the “mind of God” reference near the end of the book. Hawking responded quickly (suggesting his answer was pre-prepared) “I do not believe in a personal God.”

Stephen King - Author
“The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance…logic can be happily tossed out the window.”

Edgar Allan Poe - American poet, short story writer, editor and critic and one of the leaders of the American Romantics.
“The pioneers and missionaries of religion have been the real cause of more trouble and war than all other classes of mankind.” [ Ira D. Cardiff, What Great Men Think of Religion, quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief]

Bertrand Russell - British logician, philosopher, and mathematician
“So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.”

Oscar Wilde - Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and short story writer
“When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything equal to it.”

Andrew Carnegie - Scottish-American businessman and major philanthropist
“I give money for church organs in the hope the organ music will distract the congregation’s attention from the rest of the service.”

“I don’t believe in God. My god is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.”

Annie Wood Besant - Theosophist, women’s rights activist, writer and orator
“No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism.”

Christopher Marlowe – English dramatist and poet
“I count religion but a childish toy and hold there is no sin but innocence.” – the character Machiavel, in The Jew of Malta, “Prologue.” The lines are often modernized: “I count religion but a childish toy and hold there is no sin but ignorance.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley - English poet thrown out of Oxford University for writing the essay, The Necessity of Atheism in 1810
“If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced.”

Henry Stephens Salt - Founder of the Humanitarian League
“…when I say I shall die, as I have lived, rationalist, socialist, pacifist, and humanitarian, I must make my meaning clear. I wholly disbelieve in the present established religion; but I have a very firm religious faith of my own – a Creed of Kinship I call it – a belief that in years yet to come there will be a recognition of brotherhood between man and man, nation and nation, human and subhuman, which will transform a state of semi-savagery, as we have it, into one of civilization, when there will be no such barbarity of warfare, or the robbery of the poor by the rich, or the ill-usage of the lower animals by mankind.” – [Henry Stephens Salt, Man of Letters.]

Pierre Curie – French chemist and physicist & Marie Curie - Polish-born French chemist and physicist (1867-1934).

Periyar - Indian social campaigner
“He who created the god was a fool; he who spreads his name is a scoundrel and he who worships him is a barbarian.”

Diego Rivera - Mexican muralist painter & husband of the brilliant Frida Kahlo
“If there really is a Holy Virgin or anyone up in the air, tell them to send lightening to strike me down or let the stones of the vault fall on my head. If you are unable to do that Mr. Priest, you’re nothing but a puppet taking money from stupid old women. You’re no better than the clown in the circus coaxing coins from the public. If God doesn’t stop me, then there must be no God. Get out of here! You see, there is no God! You’re all stupid cows!”

Jawaharlal Nehru - Indian statesman
A self-professed atheist, he said of India, “No country or people who are slaves to dogma and dogmatic mentality can progress.” [Key Ideas in Human Thought]

Sir Alfred Hitchcock – Film director and producer
Driving through a Swiss city one day, Hitchcock suddenly pointed out of the car window and said, “That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen.” His companion was surprised to see nothing more alarming that a priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand on the child’s shoulder. “Run, little boy,” cried Hitchcock, leaning out of the car. “Run for your life!”

Katherine Hepburn – American actress
In an interview in the October 1991 Ladies’ Home Journal that was advertised as her “most candid” ever, Hepburn said, “I’m an atheist, and that’s it. I believe there’s nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for each other.” p.215 (Hepburn on Internet Movie Database).

Quentin Crisp - English writer, actor and homosexual rights campaigner
“When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, ‘Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don’t believe? ”

William M. Gaines - American publisher of MAD Magazine
He was quite definitely an atheist, according to Frank Jacobs’s biography, The MAD World of William M. Gaines. When emphasizing his sincerity, Gaines would declare, “On my honor as an atheist . . .” Also, when long-time contributor Dave Berg would greet him with “May God give you his blessing,” Gaines would politely reply, “Dave, shut the hell up!”

Charles Schultz - American cartoonist
“The term that best describes me now is “secular humanist.”

Madalyn Murray O’Hair - American atheist activist

Kurt Vonnegut - American author
“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.”

Helen Keller - American lecturer
“There is so much in the bible against which every insinct of my being rebels, so much so that I regret the necessity which has compelled me to read it through from beginning to end. I do not think that the knowledge I have gained of its history and sources compensates me for the unpleasant details it has forced upon my attention.”

Funniest quote to finish:

Dr. James Watson – American biologist, (Discoverer of DNA.)
“I don’t think we’re here for anything, we’re just products of evolution. You can say ‘Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don’t think there’s a purpose’ but I’m anticipating a good lunch.”

*- Deists are included because of their rejection of organized religion. Deists are the most sensible, logical and sane of all theists- and therefore our natural allies in the realm of believers. (imo, anyway).

sources:
http://www.jmarkgilbert.com/atheists.html
http://www.wonderfulatheistsofcfl.org/Quotes.htm
http://www.celebatheists.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/ath/blath_bio_index.htm
http://no-god.com/article/quote.html
http://www.infidelguy.com/modules.php?name=Black_Freethinkers
http://quinnell.us/religion/famous/cd.html

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I got around to seeing The God Who Wasn’t There last night. I recommend it highly. I think I’ll be giving a few copies for HumanLight gifts.

If you’ve read anything like, for example, Frank R. Zindler’s Did Jesus Exist, the movie won’t contain a ton of facts you haven’t heard. But most people haven’t read such a thing, and so will be hearing lots of new and worthwhile stuff. And whether you’ve read such things before or not, it’s a fun, funny, and provocative telling.

Fundie-types would despise it, but it’s a great movie to share with your soft-and-squishy “I’m not so much religious but spiritual, and Jesus was a great man” friends. If you have any of those, I mean.

But the motherfucker has media legs, and it must be addressed.

Group Fights Wal-Mart on ‘Happy Holidays’

Yeah, it is a stupid fucking wedge issue for the likes of Bill O’Reilly — but guess who’s fucking show had the highest ratings during the time of the Iraq War? I’ll not sit by and watch hypocrisy and lies fly in a democracy.

There’s no war on fucking xmas, you lying sons-of-bitches. This is what we have known about in major cities for years. America, by its very nature, is becoming more diverse, and you dinosaurs just need to recognize that. America is facing the largest cultural shift in its history. Around the year 2050, whites will have become a “minority.” This is uncharted territory for this country, and this demographic change will affect everything. Alliances between the races are bound to shift. Political and social power will be re-apportioned. Our neighborhoods, our schools and workplaces, even racial categories themselves will be altered. Any massive social change is bound to bring uncertainty, even fear. But the worst crisis we face today is not in our cities or neighborhoods, but in our minds. We have grown up with a fixed idea of what and who America is, and how race relations in this nation work. We live by two assumptions: that “race” is a black and white issue, and, that America is a “white” society. Neither has ever been strictly true, and today these ideas are rapidly becoming obsolete.

That, by the way, was shamelessly plagiarized from findarticles.com.

So deal with it. Your society will change and change drastically. One day you will feel like a black man walking down the streets of Greenwich, Connecticut. Make sure you make some friends with those people before that day comes.

Live together or die.

(Um, after we destroy all religion, that is… hehe…)

Imagine you’re involved in setting up and running a no-holds-barred performance art “open mike” night at a local venue, and performance artists come and perform without limits. So, vulgarity, profanity, nudity, sexuality, whatever, can be (but aren’t always) a part of the piece.

And then you notice that there’s a subgroup of the “performers” who come who are just there to get off by masturbating in front of the audience — not because they think it’s an interesting artistic statement, but because it gets them off. And the other performers and the audience start to resent this.

Now personally, I think that people who get off by masturbating in front of other people should get to do that, if there are people who want to watch (perhaps in exchange for being watched in turn themselves). I wish for them grand stages on which to display themselves in their chosen forms of self-flagellation. But I don’t want them at my performance art nights.

On the other hand (so to speak), I don’t at all want to ban sexuality, genitalia, or masturbation as part of legitimate performance art pieces. Wearing a Bush mask and masturbating on on a map of Iraq with an F-117A Stealth fighter shaped Fleshlight — now that’s art.

So what to do? I might post a notice, saying “Hey, please don’t just use the stage to masturbate in front of people just because that’s what gets you off. If your art work requires it, fine; but please don’t use our time and attention for your sexual self-gratification as opposed to your artistic self-expression.” Then, I would hope for self-policing. And if that didn’t work, I suppose I could just use my best judgement to ban people and pieces that seemed to violate the general principle.

I think I’ll try posting a notice. I would hate to have to do the other thing. (End of allegory.)

This is how I feel about folks who come to this blog wanting to “witness for Christ”. What, you think we haven’t heard that tedious shit before? Share it with your masturb– er, Jesus-loving friends, but we ain’t interested. And we get real tired of pointing out what bullshit it is.

Which isn’t to say theists (even Xians) don’t make legitimate and instructive contributions at this blog in the comments section. I think some theistic visitors (Dena and Frank come to mind) say some things that are worth hearing and make a real contribution. So, I don’t want to tell theists to go away.

But I do want to say: Read what it says in the upper right corner of the blog, and take note of this: You can disagree, debate, argue, and discuss. But don’t expect that it’s our place either to give you a free forum for your public mastu– er, witnessing for Christ, or that it’s our job to take time to educate you, the 3427th theist I’ve met in the last year who’s spouting that same ignorant bullshit, partially because they’ve never really met a real live atheist other than that kid in 7th grade who wore the black turtleneck and actually just turned out to be gay instead.

Maybe it’s time we should get ourselves a FAQ. Thoughts?