Chapter 4,‘Organised abuse and the pleasures of disbelief’, uses Zizek’s (1991) insights into cite political role of enjoyment to analyse the hyperbole and scorn that has characterised the sceptical account of organised and ritualistic abuse....

The problem is that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them.”(The Decider, July 21, 2007)

Those acidic insults being poured down on you are found in satan’s gallons! Watch those who tackle you for you to fall down; watch them closely. They are wearing the booths Satan invented! Don’t attack...

When you find yourself looking ridiculous, reasoning isn’t worth a damn.

The fear of being ridiculed is gruesome than death.

Indeed, not all attacks—especially the bitter and ridiculing kind leveled at Darwin—are offered in good faith, but for practical purposes it is good policy to assume that they are.

I have spoken of Jonah, and of the story of him and the whale. — A fit story for ridicule, if it was written to be believed; or of laughter, if it was intended to...

Satire’s nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth.

What God says is best, is best, though all the men in the world are against it.

Ignore the voice that scorns and ridicules to ensure it does not mold you. Stifling subtleties like these, if unchecked, are oppressive. Freedom is a love supreme birthright, not a privilege to be governed by...

As for those who spite you, and seemingly just because, it’s only evident that they’re learning from you. Maybe you taste bad – kind of like medicine, kind of like truth – and to them,...

You can spit on a rose, but it’s still a rose.

Ridicule is the best test of truth.

It is never ridicule, but a compliment, that knocks a philosopher off his feet. He is already positioned for every possible counter-attack, counter-argument, and retort…only to find a big bear hug coming his way.

My confidence was of the hothouse variety, carefully cultivated under highly regulated conditions. One wrong look, one mean comment, and my facade would wither.

[Responding to the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce’s question whether he traced his descent from an ape on his mother’s or his father’s side]A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape...

The devil’s happy when the critics run you off.

So, really,” continued Jacob as if this were perfectly normal to expound on art in these circumstances, “when you think about it, the artists who make people stop and think, who push the form, who...

Altho’ I rarely waste time in reading on theological subjects, as mangled by our Pseudo-Christians, yet I can readily suppose Basanistos may be amusing. Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible...

Everyone pretends to be ‘free thinkers’, but few individuals pass the line into expressive territories that may be detrimental to their own social well-being.

ridicule is often harder to bear than self-denial.

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

The crazy creatives are the creatives who never go completely mad. They aren’t so easily disheartened by the seemingly endless amounts of scrutiny that creative individuals tend to receive because they, like insanity, are the...

To believers, the bible is a holy book, to unbelievers, it is a story book.

Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice.

I esteem myself happy to have as great an ally as you in my search for truth. I will read your work … all the more willingly because I have for many years been a...

A man does not have to feel less than human to realize his sin; oppositely, he has to realize that he gets no special vindication for his sin.

There goes the girl with the wings,” they say. “The damned dreamer with her eyes shut to the world.””There goes the misguided soul with her heart buried in the ground.”They taunt. They lie. They lie....

Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people the joke is...

In describing the honourable mission I charged him with, M. Pernety informed me that he made my name known to you. This leads me to confess that I am not as completely unknown to you...

He saw with sudden awful clarity that if he turned tail now and if, by some appalling miracle, she should survive, he’d never hear the end of it. She’d latch onto his flawed character and...

Don’t cry for someone who would love smiling when your tears are flowing.

I don’t really like using ridicule as a form of humor.

What would you think of an engineer who expounded the art of flying without revealing the secrets of the engine and propeller? That’s what you do, you engineer of the human soul. Just that. You’re...

If you think it’s offensive that I call alleged biblical miracles ridiculous, you should ask yourself whether or not it’s ridiculous to insist that Muhammad flew on a winged horse. Or that the earth was...