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Fear and Rage - QuotesAlthough the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism. If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul. An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An Atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion. But believing in something doesn’t make it true. Hoping that something is true doesn’t make it true. The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts. If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter if he was God or not? God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws. Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? Euthyphro No man ever believes the Bible means what it says. He is always convinced that it says what he means. We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another. Perhaps my best years are gone but I wouldn’t want them back, not with the fire in me now. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake….We are not immune to the lure of wonder and mystery and awe: we have music and art and literature, and find that the serious ethical dilemmas are better handled by Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Schiller and Dostoyevsky and George Elliot than in the mythical morality tales of the holy books. Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and – since there is no other metaphor – also the soul. We do not believe in heaven or hell, yet no statistic will ever find that without these blandishments and threats we commit more crimes of greed or violence than the faithful. (In fact, if a proper statistical inquiry could ever be made, I am sure the evidence would be the other way.)…We are reconciled to living only once, except through our children, for whom we are perfectly happy to notice that we must make way, and room. We speculate that it is at least possible that, once people accepted the fact of their short struggling lives, they might behave better toward each other and not worse. We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact the corollary holds true—that religion has caused innumerable people to not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow…There is no need for us to gather every day, or every seven days, or on any high and auspicious day, to proclaim our rectitude or to grovel and wallow in our unworthiness. We atheists do no require any priests, or any hierarchy above them, to police our doctrine. Sacrifices and ceremonies are abhorrent to us, as are relics and the worship of any images or objects. To us no spot on earth is or could be “holier” than another: to the ostentatious absurdity of the pilgrimage, or the plain horror of killing civilians in the name of some sacred wall or cave or shrine or rock, we can counterpose a leisurely or urgent walk from one side of the library or the gallery to another, or to lunch with an agreeable friend, in pursuit of truth or beauty. God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (contributed by Belchea) The Aztecs had to tear open a human chest cavity every day just to make sure that the sun would rise. Monotheists are supposed to pester their deity more times than that, perhaps, lest he be deaf. How much vanity must be concealed—not too effectively at that—in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine plan? How much self respect must be sacrificed in order that one may squirm continually in an awareness of one’s own sin? How many needless assumptions must be made, and how much contortion is required, to receive every new insight of science and manipulate it so as to “fit” with the revealed words of ancient man-made deities? How many saints and miracles and councils and conclaves are required in order first to be able to establish a dogma and then—after infinite pain and loss and absurdity and cruelty—to be forced to rescind one of those dogmas? God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization. God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (contributed by Belchea) It takes a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army. Nikita Khrushchev (contributed by mario solis) Our Mother, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom never came. You who have been defiled, belittled, and diminished. Our Blessed Virgin Mary of Most Precious Blood, menstrual, ephemeral, carnal, eternal. Rosa Mystica, Black Virgin of Rhinestone and Velvet Mystery, Madonna of Volcanoes and Violence, your eye burns through the palm of my outstretched hand. Eye glowing with heavenly flames, one single Eye watching over me, on earth as it is in heaven. Dammit, mother dear. There are serpents in your garden. Licking your ears with forked tongues, poisoning your already damaged heart. I am suffocated by my impotent rage, my eyes are blinded by cataracts blue as your miraculous robes, I listen intently for snatches of melody, the piercing high-pitched wail of your song of terror. Here, clues to your ghostly presence in the lingering trail of your deadly perfume: wild roses and plumeria, the dizzying fragrance of damas de noche, the rotting bouquets of wilted sampaguita flowers you cradle in your arms. I would curse you in Waray, Ilocano, Tagalog, Spanish, English, Portuguese, and Mandarin; I would curse you but I choose to love you instead. Amor, amas, amatis, amant, give us this day our daily bread. Our mother who art, what have those bastards gone and done now? Your eyes are veiled and clouded by tears, veiled but never blinded. Dazzle us with your pity, let the scars tattooed on your face be a reminder of your perennial sorrow. Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison. Lamb of goddammit who taketh away the sins of the world! My dim eyes scan the shadows in vain, Ave Maria full of grace. Ita missa est. Manila I was born here, Manila I will die here, tantum ergo sacramentum. So the daughters say, so the sons seek out miracles, so the men will not live to see the light. Your long monkey toes grip the hairy coconuts strewn at your feet, virgin with one ear pierced by a thorn. Stigmata of mercy, the blood of a slain rooster spouts from the open palms of your monkey hands, stigmata of beautiful suffering and insane endurance, Dolores dolorosa. Spilled blood of innocents, dead by the bullet, the dagger, the arrow; dead by the slingshot of polished stones, dead by grenades, hunger and thirst; dead by profound longing and profound despair; spilled blood of ignited flesh, exploded flesh, radiated flesh; spilled blood of forbidden knowledge, bless us, Mother, for we have sinned. Our Mother who art in heaven, forgive us our sins. Our Lady of Most Precious Blood, Wild Dogs, Hyenas, Jackals, Coyotes, and Wolves, Our Lady of Panthers and Jaguars, Our Lady of Cobras, Mournful Lizards, Lost Souls, and Radio Melodramas, give us this day; Our Lady of Typhoons, deliver us from evil, forgive us our sins but not theirs. Ave Maria, mother of revenge. The Lord was never with you. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed are the fruits of thy womb. guavas, mangos, santol, magosteen, durian. Now and forever, world without end. Now and forever. Dogeaters (contributed by Alyssa) Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone but only his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind. Which not peace for the man who is forced to go to war, for he will find his peace. But wish peace for the man who goes to war willingly, for he will never find his peace. (contributed by Miguel) ... just because Intelligent Design theorists cannot think of how nature could have created something through evolution, that does not mean that scientists will not be able to do so either. Intelligent Design is a remarkably uncreative theory that abandons the search for understanding at the very point where it is most needed. If Intelligent Design is really a science, then the burden is on its scientists to discover the mechanisms used by the Intelligent Designer. And if those mechanisms turn out to be natural forces, then no supernatural force is necessary, and they can simply change their name to evolutionary scientists and get to work. Why Darwin Matters War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. (contributed by Keenan) My constellation reclines in its den in heaven; some men call me the Great Bear, but others the Offspring of a Dragon. Moreover, a smaller constellation accompanies my constellation, for the high position and throne of my father is always in the sky. So do not ask me so many things, Solomon, for eventually your kingdom will be divided. This glory of yours is temporary. You have us to torture for a little while; then we shall disperse among human beings again with the result that we shall be worshipped as gods because men do not know the names of the angels who rule over us. Asmodeus, Testament of Solomon 5:4-5 No fear... we are never sure of anything... fear never prevents [bad things] from happening. (contributed by Anne) Sometimes I dream of revolution, a bloody coup d'etatby the second rank - troupes of actors slaughtered by their understudies, magicians sawn in half by indefatigably smiling glamour girls, cricket teams wiped out by marauding bands of twelfth men - I dream of champions chopped down by rabbit-punching sparring partners while the eternal bridesmaids turn and rape the bridegrooms over the sausage rolls and parliamentary private secretaries plant bombs in the Minister's Humber - comedians die on provincial stages, robbed of their feeds by mutely triumphant stooges - And march - an army of assistants and deputies, the seconds-in-command, the runners-up, the right-hand men - storming the palace gates wherein the second son has already mounted the throne having committed regicide with a croquet mallet - stand-ins of the world stand up! The Real Inspector Hound (contributed by Kira) We live in a world of frightful givens. It is given you will behave like this, given you will care about that. No one thinks about the givens. Isn't that amazing? In the information society, no one thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thoughts. Jurassic Park (contributed by sansets) If you look at life as a whole, we have to admit life's good where we live. But in an evil Twilight Zone kind of way there's nothing else to choose. In the old days there was always a Bohemia or a creative under-world to join if the mainstream life wasn't your bag - or a life of crime, or even religion.And now there's only the system. All other options have evaporated. For most people it's the System or what... death? There's nothing. There's no way out now. Girlfriend in a Coma There are books of the same chemical composition as dynamite. The only difference is that a piece of dynamite explodes once, whereas a book explodes a thousand times. A Soviet Heretic (contributed by Space Oddity) The whole world is men's bloody fantasies. Empire of the Senseless (contributed by Space Oddity) We are born dead, and we are becoming more and more contented with our condition. We are acquiring the taste for it. Notes From Underground (contributed by Space Oddity) Either you think - or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilise and sterilize you. Tender is the Night (contributed by Space Oddity) I make little distinction betwee those who commit evil and those who stand by and do nothing. White Wolf People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. (contributed by Daniel White) The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win. Ender's Game It is the reformer who is anxious for the reform, and not society, from which he should expect nothing better than opposition, abhorrence and even mortal persecution. Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work. worthy the interposition of a deity, more humble & I believe true to consider him created from animals. (contributed by Jeremiah) Religions lead us to believe that the soul is the ultimate family jewel and that in return for our mindless obedience, they can secure it for us in their vaults, or at least insure it against fire and theft. They are mistaken. Villa Incognito (contributed by Erika) The best way to waste your life is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Don’t participate. Let Big Brother do the singing and dancing for you. Be a reporter. Be a good witness. A grateful member of the audience. Lullaby It's pathetic how we can't live with the things we can't undestand. How we need everything labeled and explained and deconstructed. Even if it's for sure unexplainable. Even God. Choke The laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom. Choke Those who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security. (contributed by Christophe C.) From him that steals, or borrows and returns not, a book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let book-worms gnaw at his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not. And, when at last he goes to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever. San Pedro monastery in Barcelona (contributed by Caity) Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty. The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet not withstanding go out to meet it. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We are not descended from fearful men, Not from men who feared to write, to speak, To associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. This is no time... to keep silent. Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death. I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm's way. (contributed by Vivimus) Let me tell you something: I've had enough of Irish-Americans who haven't been back to their country in 20 or 30 years come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home, and the glory of the revolution, and the glory of dying for the revolution. Fuck the revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What's the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory in bombing a Rememberance Day parade of old-age pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying, a cripple for life; or dead, under the rubble of a revolution that the majority of the people in my country don't want. No more. (contributed by Ashley) Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that, I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock'n'roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me. Beatles Anthology (contributed by Erin Macnold) Capitalism creates the illness to sell the cure. (contributed by Suzan) For in the sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil? Must give us pause: there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life. Hamlet (contributed by Lester) Now I know what loneliness is, I think. Momentary loneliness, anyway. It comes from a vague core of the self-- like a disease of the blood dispersed throughout the body so that one cannot locate the matrix, the spot of contagion. |
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