Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2008-12-31 Dec 31, 2008Belief means not wanting to know what is true.~ Friedrich NietzscheHeresies are experiments in man’s unsatisfied search for truth.~ H. G. WellsThe truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings.~ H. L. Mencken Dec 30, 2008The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.~ George Bernard ShawLet them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty.~ John AdamsNeither the trappings of robes, nor temples of stone, nor a fixed liturgy, nor an extensive literature or history is required to meet the test of beliefs cognizable under the Constitution as religious. So far as our law is concerned, one person's religious beliefs held for one day are presumptively entitled to the same protection as the beliefs of millions which have been shared for thousands of years.~ Judge Jack B. Weinstein Dec 29, 2008We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving Grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.~ Abraham LincolnLong before I was ordained a priest, I knew that my church was the most implacable enemy of this republic. My professors … had been unanimous in telling me that the principles and laws of the Church of Rome were absolutely antagonistic to the principles which are the foundation stones of the Constitution of the United States of America.~ Charles Chiniquy[Heresy is] the dislocation of a complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein.~ Hilaire BellocAt the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect. Any attempt to level and discard all religion would have been viewed with universal indignation.~ James Meacham Dec 26, 2008As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes; and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity.~ Benjamin FranklinIf faith cannot be reconciled with rational thinking, it has to be eliminated as an anachronistic remnant of earlier stages of culture and replaced by science dealing with facts and theories which are intelligible and can be validated.~ Erich FrommThe day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his Father, in the womb of a virgin will be classified with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors.~ Thomas Jefferson Dec 25, 2008And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, 'It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.'~ Jesus of NazarethBlessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.~ Jesus of NazarethEvery kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.~ Jesus of Nazareth Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print