Quotes that make you think:

Here are a handful of my favorite quotes. I'm sure a lot of you have seen these before, but I think they are still worth sharing. What are some of your favorite quotes? --

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The Christian God is a being of terrific character- cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust

-Thomas Jefferson

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say there are nothing, or that there is no soul, no angels, no god. I cannot reason otherwise...I am satisfied, sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which we have no evidence

-Thomas Jefferson

Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone upon man

-Thomas Jefferson

During fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been it its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolences in the clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution

-James Madison

Lighthouses are more useful than churches

-Benjamin Franklin

This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it

-John Adams

As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how it has happened that millions of fables, tales, legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed

-John Adams

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has produced- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced.

-John Adams

And everyone should know of the 1797 Treaty with Tripoli drafted by George Washington himself.

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitian nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of harmony between the two countries.

And of course:

Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak mines are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

-Thomas Jefferson

"It is pathetic to observe how lowly are the motives that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity, and from what a hard-pressed and bitter existence they have been drawn. To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously -- these have been thought points of honor with the gods, for which they would dispense favors and punishments on the most exorbitant scale."

-- George Santayana

"We're here on Earth to fart around, don't let anybody tell you any different"

-Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

"God is the concept by which we measure our pain." JL ///oLo\\

Some favourite quotes from Mobile Atheist:

You do not need the Bible to justify love, but no better tol has been invented to justify hate.
-attributed to Richard A Weatherwax

Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.
- Robert Green Ingersoll

He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave.
- William Drummond

Is there an intelligent man or woman noe in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent.
- Robert Green Ingersoll

What is the function that a clergyman performs in the world? Answer: he gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell. It's a business almost indistinguishable from that of a seller of snake-oil for rheumatism.
- Henry Louis Mencken

The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be booted out; not any particular manifestation of that principle.
- John Stuart Mill

If the book the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same Infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?
- Robert Green Ingersoll

People will then often say, 'But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?' This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I've been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.)
- Douglas Adams

Momma Heathen wrote:the 1797 Treaty with Tripoli drafted by George Washington himself.

This isn't right. Washington had nothing to do with authoring the treaty. In fact it was originally in Arabic, and it was translated by Joel Barlow (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1796t.asp). From the Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_tripoli):

David Humphreys was appointed Commissioner Plenipotentiary on March 30, 1795, in order to serve with the negotiation of the treaty between the United States and the Barbary powers. On February 10, 1796, he appointed Joel Barlow and Joseph Donaldson as "Junior Agents" to forge a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship". Under Humphreys's authority, the treaty was signed at Tripoli on November 4, 1796, and certified at Algiers on January 3, 1797. Humphreys reviewed the treaty and approved it in Lisbon on February 10, 1797.

The official treaty was in Arabic text, and a translated version by Consul-General Barlow was ratified by the United States on June 10, 1797. Article 11 of the treaty was said to have not been part of the original Arabic version of the treaty; in its place is a letter from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. However, it is the English text which was ratified by Congress.

I've looked elsewhere, and, outside of being President when the process was initiated, it doesn't look like he had anything to do with the treaty.

"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits." - Dan Barker

"If science proves facts that conflict with Buddhist understanding, Buddhism must change accordingly. We should always adopt a view that accords with the facts." - Dalai Lama

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.

"I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment, to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure. " - Clarence Darrow

"Creationists make it sound like a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night" - Isaac Asimov

"The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation." - Elizabeth Cady-Stanton

"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

"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." - Gene Roddenberry

"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."

"If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be -- a Christian." - Mark Twain

"A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows." - Mark Twain

"If god is there, I hope he's not a bastard who judges me on what I believe"

"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

"The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly, teaches me to expect my own is also."

-Mark Twain

"Scientology, how about that? You hold on to the tin cans and then this guy asks you a bunch of questions, and if you pay enough money you get to join the master race. How's that for a religion?"

-Frank Zappa