Science, Reason & Rationality

Heroes:

QUOTES
"Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. Amen! If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it." ~ Dan Barker
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." ~ Christopher Hitchens
"Atheism is not therapy, but restored mental health, because claiming the existence of God is a mental delusion." ~ Michel Onfray
"Larry King: Do you believe in God?
Stephen Hawking: Yes, if by God is meant the embodiment of the laws of the universe." ~ Larry King Live, December 25, 1999"The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by "God", one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity." ~ Carl Sagan
"Scepticism is the first step towards truth." ~ Denis Diderot
"I contend we are both Atheists, I just believe in one fewer God than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible Gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." ~ Stephen F. Roberts
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." ~ Carl Sagan
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." ~ Marcello Truzzi
"The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness." ~ Pierre-Simon Marquis de Laplace
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." ~ Benjamin Franklin
"Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind, it dies." ~ Mahatma Gandhi
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." ~ Susan B. Anthony
"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 he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do." ~ [from Usenet]
"Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense." ~ Chapman Cohen
"Men never commit evil so fully and joyfuly as when they do it for religious convictions." ~ Blaise Pascal
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, & the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." ~ Karl Marx
"The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church." ~ Ferdinand Magellan
"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
"Creationists make it sound like a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night." ~ Isaac Asamov
"Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men." ~ Voltaire
"Only Sheep need a shepherd!" ~ unknown
"I still say a church steeple with a lightening rod on top shows a lack of confidence." ~ Doug McLeod
"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means." ~ George Bernard Shaw
"The first clergyman was the first rascal who met the first fool." ~ Voltaire
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." ~ Denis Diderot