Quotations used in his three
programmes in roughly the order in which they were used - laboriously
compiled by Sue Lord and as yet unedited.
If you find any typos or
errors please e-mail secularsites@freeuk.com
Lucretius
"Is God willing to
prevent evil but not able?
Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able but not willing?
Then he is malevolent. "
Aristophanes
"Surely you don’t
believe in the gods. What is your argument?, Where’s your proof?"
Jonathan Miller
"There is a sense in
which the road to atheism is paved, not with science, but with religious
intentions" (of Deists)
Jonathan Miller on David
Hume:-
"Although he never
admitted to being an atheist as such, he was clearly and unquestionably
the most vividly elegant skeptic of them all." (Renaissance
Philosophers)
Adam Smith (1723-90) on
Hume
"I have always
considered David Hume as approaching as nearly the idea of a perfectly
wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will
allow"
David Hume 1711-76
"Generally speaking,
errors in religion are dangerous, those in philosophy are only
ridiculous"
"God’s power is
infinite. Whatever he wills is executed but neither man nor other
animals is happy. Therefor he does not will their happiness. Epicurus
questions are yet unanswered"
"No-one, I am confident
will mistake my intentions. No-one has a deeper sense of religion or
pays more profound admiration to the supreme being"
George Bush Snr
"I don’t know that
atheists should be considered patriots, nor should they be considered
citizens".
John Adam
"God is an essence we
know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of there will
never be any liberal science in the world"
Thomas Jefferson
"The clergy believe that
any power confided in me will be used in opposition to their schemes.
And they believe rightly"
James Buchanan
"I have seldom met an
intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and distorted by
religion"
see also http://home.att.net/~jrhsc/presidents.html-
William Henry Harrison
"We admit of no
government by divine right....The only legitimate
right to govern is an express
grant of power from the governed"
George Washington
"Let us with caution
indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without
religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle"
"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on
the
Christian Religion."
President Thomas Jefferson
–"I do not find in
Christianity one redeeming feature."
President Abraham Lincoln
-"The Bible is not my
book, nor Christianity my religion."
President James Madison
- "A just government has no
need for the clergy or the church."
President John F. Kennedy "I believe in an
America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man
has the same right to attend or not attend the churchof his
choice."
President George W. Bush "The United States
is a Christian nation founded upon Christian principles and
beliefs."
Havelock Ellis "The whole religious complexion of the
modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic
asylum"
Emile Zola – "Civilisation will not attain
perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last
priest"
Alexander Pope 1688-1744
"Nature and nature’s
laws lay hid by night
God said "let there be
Newton and all was light"
Bertrand Russell
"So far as I can
remember there’s not one word in the gospels in praise of
intelligence"
Jonathan Miller-
"While the deists were busy reconstructing Christianity, at the
same time being careful to avoid the accusation of atheism, the world of
science had been steadily progressing"
On the Blasphemy Law 1697 –"originally had no
mention of Atheism, but would have caught any denial of Christianity
etc. - the punishment for which was death without pardon or
reprieve"
Puerre Charron –
Catholic Theologian 1541-1603 on wisdom:-
"All Religions have this
in common, that they are an outrage to common sense for they are pieced
together out of a variety of elements, some of which seem so unworthy,
sordid and at odds with man’s reason, that any strong and vigorous
intelligence laughs at them"
The Reformation –
'an Internal Reconstruction by 17th & 18th
century Deists –
- upper class critics of
religion with limited tolerance – class and status'
Thomas Hobbes –1588-1679
-- Materialist & ‘monist’
"The universe, the whole
mass of things that are, is corporeal, that is to say, body, and hath
the dimensions of magnitude, length, breadth and depth. Every part of
the universe is ‘body’ and that which is not ‘body’ is no part
of the universe, and because the universe is all, that which is no part
of it is nothing, and consequently nowhere."
Richard Bently
- biblical scholar 1662-1742 said of Hobbes "Not one English
infidel in 100 is any other than a Hobbist, which I know to be rank
Atheism"
Thomas Curteis1725
‘Dissertation on Atheism’
"‘Tis very
questionable there ever was such a monster in nature as a serious
atheist who lived and died so, in the clear exercise of his reason and
senses"
Baron d’Holbach
Frenchman and first avowed atheist.
"If we go back to the
beginning we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods, that
fancy enthusiasm or deceit adorned them, that weakness worships them,
that credulity preserves them and that custom respect and tyranny
support them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own
interests."
"If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of
nature is calculated to destroy them"
"It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of religion
that we shall discover truth, reason and morality."
From:- ‘The System of Nature’ – The Atheists Bible
Epicurus (341-270 BCE)
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 God both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor
willing?
Then why call him God?
and:-
Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which
cannot exist when I do?
Long time men lay oppressed
with slavish fear.
Religious tyranny did
domineer.
At length the mighty one of
Greece
Began to assent the liberty
of man.
Richard Hooker priest
1554-1600
"With our
contentions their irreligious humour is much strengthened – nothing
pleaseth them better than these manifold oppositions upon the matter of
religion"
Matthew Hammond Unitarian
burned at the stake by the Bishop of Norwich.
"Christ is not God, not
the saviour of the world, but a mere man, a sinful man and an abominable
idol. All who worship him are abominable idolaters and Christ did not
rise again from death to life nor did he ascend into heaven."
Encyclopedia Britanica
on Atheism 1771
"Many people have
pretended to atheism or have been recorded atheist by the world. But it
is justly questioned whether any man seriously adopted such a
principle"
Thomas Curteis 1725
Dissertation on Atheism
"’Tis very
questionable there ever was such a monster in nature as a serious
atheist who lived and died so in the clear exercise of his reason and
senses."
The London Magazine 1774
"An atheist is I think
impossible, most who would be thought atheists are so out of indolence,
because they will not give themselves time to reason"
Yuri Gagarin speaking from orbit – "I don’t
see any God up here"
Victor Hugo –
"There is in every
village a torch- the schoolteacher, and an extinguisher: the
priest."
Galileo Galilei 1564
– 1647
"In questions of science
the authority of a thousand is not worth the reasoning of a single
individual"
" To command their professors of astronomy to refute their own
observations is to command them not to see what they do see and not to
understand what they do understand."