I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or...

Aaah … when two Neptunes appear in the sky it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Harry…

Does a man of sense run after every silly tale of hobgoblins or fairies, and canvass particularly the evidence? I never knew anyone, that examined and deliberated about nonsense who did not believe it before...

As Sandy and his wife warmed to the tale, one tripping up another in their eagerness to tell everything, it gradually developed as distinct a superstition as I ever heard, and not without poetry and...

When I argue with devout statists, sometimes other voluntaryists tell me that I’m wasting my time, opining that a particular statist is never going to “get it.” I often respond by saying that that’s rarely...

We have to HIDE from each other because we think that we are the only ones BROKEN. We think we’re the only ones whose original selves we ground up and smashed under the jack-booted heel...

Those distinct substances, which concretes generally either afford, or are made up of, may, without very much inconvenience, be called the elements or principles of them.

With their backs to the sunrise they worship the night.

We continue to need exhortations to be sympathetic and just, even if we do not believe that there is a God who has a hand in wishing to make us so. We no longer have...

And how easy it is to recognize the revenant shapes that the old unchanging enemies—racism, leader worship, superstition—assume when they reappear amongst us (often bodyguarded by their new apologists).

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and...

Patriotism … is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.

These Outwallers that killed Hector – the Sossag – they were serving a Power of the Wild called Thorn. Aye?””Naming calls. But yes.” The captain drank.”So I call him and he comes and I gut...

But if God and immortality be repudiated, what is left? That is the question usually thrown at the atheist’s head. The orthodox believer likes to think that nothing is left. That, however, is because he...

Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham....

How could the human mind progress, while tormented with frightful phantoms, and guided by men, interested in perpetuating its ignorance and fears? Man has been forced to vegetate in his primitive stupidity: he has been...

We, peopling the void air, make gods to whom we impute the ills we ought to bear.

For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who,...

Superstition has been defined as the use of a form whose significance has been forgotten.

Atheism deprives superstition of its stand ground, and compels Theism to reason for its existence.

It is now established by verifiable evidence that religion stultifies the brain and is the great obstacle in the path of intellectual progress.The more religious a person is, the more he is steeped in ignorance...

[Theology is a] web of contradictions and delusions.

He discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels. In Alphonso’s Clericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real jacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander, the Conqueror of Emathia was said to have...

If superstition could contradict science, the world may as well be on the back of a turtle. But giving into turtle worship was a bridge too far.

May it [American independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under...

What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.[Lincoln’s maxim and philosophy]

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Science has never killed or persecuted a single person for doubting or denying its teaching, and most of these teaching have been true; but religion has murdered millions for doubting or denying her dogmas and...

So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere...

It is also the irrational instinct of religionism, the vague yearning for something to worship—a reflection or shadow of the true devotional principle—which prompts men to project a subjective image of the lower, personal mind,...

I’m not scared of the Maos and the Stalins and the Hitlers. I’m scared of the thousands of millions of people that hallucinate them to be “authority”, and so do their bidding, and pay for...

Statism ends with an eye roll.

It’s not like I got caught masturbating, for chrissake; she doesn’t know me, why the hell would she care if I’m superstitious? – Karen

When I think of how much this world has suffered; when I think of how long our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the foot of the throne, and in the...

Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one’s belief, no...

In a segment of the Sermon on the Mount, appearing in Matthew 5, Jesus is reported to have set six new teachings of his against six old Jewish teachings. The latter are introduced by such...

The general root of superstition : namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.

All that is mererationalism; the superstition (that is the unreasoning repugnanceand terror) is in the person who admits there can be angels butdenies there can be devils. The superstition is in the person whoadmits there...

. . . have not some religions, including the most influential forms of Christianity, taught that the heart of man is totally corrupt? How could the course of religion in its entire sweep not be...

We should be agnostic about those things for which there is no evidence. We should not hold beliefs merely because they gratify our desires for afterlife, immortality, heaven, hell, etc.

[We need reforms] to make the Negro church a place where colored men and women of education and energy can work for the best things regardless of their belief or disbelief in unimportant dogmas and...

It is one of the greatest Curses visited upon Mankind, he told me, that they shall fear where no Fear is: this astrological and superstitious Humour disarms men’s Hearts, it breaks their Courage, it makes...

We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.

During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead...

A superstition is a premature explanation that overstays its time.

How I suffered when I had to preach to you those pious lies that I detest in my heart. What remorse your credulity caused me! A thousand times I was on the point of breaking...

A new type of superstition has got hold of people’s minds, the worship of the state. People demand the exercise of the methods of coercion and compulsion, of violence and threat. Woe to anybody who...

It’s never pleasant to have one’s unquestioning beliefs put in their historical context, as I know from experience, I can assure you.

It is for the good of states that men should be deluded by religion.

Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of...