If you think it is spiritual to burn food in front of starving people in hopes that your gods will bring this back to you in triplicate, you are missing the point and sowing animosity from all sides.

Man created god upon his thoughts to externalize, to give form to his belief to give a reason for what they could do. The gods stole away the energies, let man believe he was ruled rather than that he rules.

Everyone you meet is an aspect of the gods and has a lesson to teach you.

A modern culture built on the back of dying gods immerses me.

You play games with people’s lives.(…) You forget that they are fragile.

As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries-not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of...

Away with them, away; we should not believe fairy stories if we wish to be good. Think of them as persons from the fairy wood.

Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.

The gods were there to do the duties of a megaphone, because who else would people listen to?

Wizards don’t believe in gods. They didn’t deny their existence, of course. They just didn’t believe. It was nothing personal; they weren’t actually rude about it. Gods were a visible part of narrativium that made things work, that gave the world its purpose. It was just that they were best avoided close up.

It is said that whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. In fact, whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first hand the equivalent of a stick with a fizzing fuse and Acme Dynamite Company written on the side. It’s more interesting, and doesn’t take so long.

Om rubed his head. This wasn’t god-like thinking. It seemed simpler when you were up here. It was all a game. You forgot that it wasn’t a game down there. People died. Bits got chopped off. We’re like eagles up here, he thought. Sometimes we show tortoise how to fly. Then we let go.

Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces.

It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to...

On the Disc, the Gods aren’t so much worshipped, as they are blamed.

Atheism … goes back to the Ancient Greek (a — a negative prefix, theos — god), evidencing the antiquity of the outlook of those who saw no presence of God (or gods) in their everyday lives, or who even denied the very existence of God (or gods). There are different types of atheism, but atheism...

As though I had displeased the gods with my erotic hubris, I managed to be the only bisexual girl in the history of colleges who failed to arouse the interest of the campus queers immediately upon setting foot in the dorms.

The pagan gods are not dead, but can return to topple science with superstition and modern man with bestial pleasures that pre-date civilisation.

I fear that there will be no neat ending to this, in the manner of the old Greek plays. Where the Gods descend, and all is explained, and tidied away.

You want to meet your gods, you filthy cockroaches? Tell the evil sods that Molly Templar says hello when you see them.

The wine god sighed. ‘Oh Hades if I know. But remember, boy, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword. As a mortal, I was never a great fighter or athlete or poet. I only made wine. The people in my village laughed at me. They said I would never amount...

He’d learned years ago it was better not to dwell too much on who was related to whom on the godly side of things. After Tyson the Cyclops adopted him as a brother, Percy decided that that was about as far as he wanted to extend the family.

There are gods, but there is no God; and all gods become devils eventually.

There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous [founding nations upon superstition]; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful. The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature:...

And Jabim is the Lord of broken things, who sitteth behind the house to lament the things that are cast away. And there he sitteth lamenting the broken things until the worlds be ended, or until someone cometh to mend the broken things. Or sometimes he sitteth by the river’s edge to lament the forgotten...

Who is to say that prayers have any effect? On the other hand, who is to say they don’t? I picture the gods, diddling around on Olympus, wallowing in the nectar and ambrosia and the aroma of burning bones and fat, mischievous as a pack of ten-year-olds with a sick cat to play with and...

When he wasn’t busy chasing unseen mice around the academy, Ion spent hours in the Borean Study, searching through dusty books for anything that had to do with the banshee or the Shroud. But finding this anything proved to be difficult as well, especially when the books you’re reading have everything to do with something,...

As I see it the world is undoubtedly in need of a new religion, and that religion must be founded on humanist principles. When I say religion, I do not mean merely a theology involving belief in a supernatural god or gods; nor do I mean merely a system of ethics, however exalted; nor only...

It must be understood that in some cases the process by which a god or goddess degenerates into a fairy may occupy centuries, and that in the passage of generations such an alteration may be brought about in appearance and traits as to make it seem impossible that any relationship actually exists between the old...

It appeared to the Elders that the people here would believe anything about themselves, no matter how preposterous, as long as it was flattering. To make sure of this, they performed an experiment. They put the idea into Earthlings’ heads that the whole Universe had been created by one big animal who looked just like...

{From Luther Burbank’s funeral. He was loved until he revealed he was an atheist, then he began to receive death threats. He tried to amiably answer them all, leading to his death}It is impossible to estimate the wealth he has created. It has been generously given to the world. Unlike inventors, in other fields, no...

Gods are great,” said Atsula, slowly, as if she were imparting a great secret. “But the heart is greater. For it is from our hearts they come, and to our hearts they shall return…

Only the Gods are real.

Roots cannot grow into trees if there are no supernatural elements in the soil. Man cannot grow wealthy and famous if he doesn’t contribute to either, the good or evil.

People don’t believe in gods because they can’t wrap their minds around the idea of someone allowing all the terrible things in the world to happen.

Once upon a time, there was a man as great as the gods…But even the great can tremble with fear.Even the great can fall

Ni dieu ni maître!(Neither God nor master)[Feminist and labour slogan translated to ‘No gods, no masters’]

Gods and politics are the tools with which the godless and unprincipled manipulate the gullible.

Schopenhauer wrote that to desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake. He was correct.

It is time at last for all the gods to be silent.

Ready?” Aeron called over.Michael span to see him giving a thumbs up to the booth. His eye was drawn down to the huge war hammer hanging from his other hand.”How about we start with a chase? Try to touch the far wall and get back here before I cripple you.” He smiled as if he’d...

Of the things we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works.

Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.

I happen to be partial to humans – most, anyway. Clowns, not so much. Those evil bastards never stop smiling.

Rising from the dead? Glowing at sunrise? What did that make him, the god of cheerful mornings and macabre surprises?

If the gods do decide to wipe us out, is it such a bad thing? Maybe we’ve earned a little annihilation.

It is blasphemy to separate oneself from the earth and look down on it like a god. It is more than blasphemy; it is dangerous. We can never be gods, after all – but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.

Think of them like gods, Janice said, because that’s what they are. The nape of a human neck is especially easy to see through – that’s why they love it when we bow our heads. It doesn’t have anything to do with praying. Prayers bore them.

I’m telling you, you really should stick to mating within your species, whatever that is.”I would,’ I said, ‘but unfortunately, there are no gorgeous, all-powerful, all-knowing gods around here. I’d even settle for a demigod. It’s a step down, I know. But alas, there are nothing but low-brained mortals here. And half-brains, like you.

‘Are our gods better than Olaf’s god?’ Alfdis laughed. ‘That’s a silly question. Gods are gods. Our gods have been with us since the beginning of the world. We sacrifice to them, and they aid us when they see fit. Other people have their own gods and their own ways of dealing with them. That’s...