I have managed most of my life to exclude religious speculation from my mode of thought. I've found that, on the whole, it adds very little to economics.
--John Kenneth Galbraith
"What I've Learned"
Esquire, Jan. 2002
There's more hypocrites in church than anyplace else.
--Singer Loretta Lynn, ibid
If you really believe, death should be great. You're going to a better place. Why wouldn't you want to go sooner? Mark Twain said the least-liked instrument on earth is the harp. There isn't one famous harpist. Harps are boring. But these people can't wait to get into heaven where if they're very good, they get harps twenty-four hours a day.
--Talkshow host Larry King, ibid
For a nonbeliever like myself, I'd like to ask the pope: Why didn't you make your God in the bible a little more credible?
--Scientist Edward Teller, ibid
The first thing they teach kids is that there's a God--an invisible man in the sky who is watching what they do and who is displeased with some of it. There's no mystery why they start that with kids, because if you can get someone to believe that, you can add on anything you want.
--Comedian George Carlin, ibid
. . . I decided I was an atheist early on.
--Humorist Dave Barry
[Dallas] Star-Telegram profile
Nov. 25, 2001
I was raised Catholic and explored all kinds of religion--Mormon, Methodist, Judaism and so on--but none of it made any kind of logical sense. It seemed to be the blanket, if you will, covering up an excuse for hate and conflict and war.
--"Survivor" winner Richard Hatch
Diversity (Idaho gay newspaper)
November 2001
If Mormons were left to their own devices, they would own the country.
--Stephen Pace
Salt Lake City business consultant
New York Times, Jan. 20, 2002
. . . The first years of the 21st Century have proved religion's death notices highly premature. And nowhere does it seem more alive than on the field of battle.
--Reporter Ron Grossman
"Return of religion in war bodes ill for peace"
Chicago Tribune, Jan. 6, 2002
Unbelief is widespread, yet few can be bothered to argue for their unbelief. This is partly because religion is now commonly treated in western societies as a lifestyle choice, a matter of taste, not reason.
--The Economist
"The perils of religious correctness"
Nov. 10, 2001
As an agnostic, I feel out of step with a president who seems to equate faith with patriotism. . . . Rhetoric that invokes a supreme being only fans the flames of zealotry which fuel conflicts.
--Linda Angeloff Sapienza
"My Turn," Newsweek, Dec. 10, 2001
Even today in a relatively secular society like ours, it's rare to hear someone point out in the clearest way that systems of religious belief are more or less baldly arbitrary and obviously ridiculous. It's as if you decided that Harry Potter were inerrant or that the film version of The Lord of the Rings was a documentary. . . . I am out here asserting that the stuff is just a wee bit cracked.
--Crispin Sartwell
"Here's to doubting Thomases"
Los Angeles Times, Dec. 27, 2001
I believe that the scientist is trying to express absolute truth and the artist absolute beauty, so that I find in science and art, and in an attempt to lead a good life, all the religion I want.
--J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964)
Quoted in JAMA, 11/14/01
To slap a [religious] label on a child at birth--to announce, in advance, as a matter of hereditary presumption if not determinate certainty, an infant's opinions on the cosmos and creation, on life and afterlives, on sexual ethics, abortion and euthanasia--is a form of mental child abuse.
We deliberately set up, and massively subsidise, segregated faith schools. As if it were not enough that we fasten belief-labels on babies at birth, those badges of mental apartheid are now reinforced and refreshed. In their separate schools, children are separately taught mutually incompatible beliefs.
--Richard Dawkins
"Children must choose their own beliefs"
The Observer [UK], Dec. 30, 2001
I think the thing that--the prayer that I would like America is to ask for is to pray for God's protection for our land and our people, to pray against--that thereีs a shield of protection, so that if the evil ones try to hit us again, that we've done everything we can, physically, and that there is a spiritual shield that protects this country.
--George W. Bush
"Remarks at Town Meeting"
Ontario, Calif., Jan. 5
Transcript, White House Press Office
Western man has witnessed a mad tragedy actuated by faith. But it is not clear whether for most people this only underlines the need for a true God--to save us from the false ones--or whether gods, all gods, were the problem, not the solution. Never mind me: I am a convinced unbeliever.
--Matthew Parris
"What are we doing, in God's name?"
The Times [UK], Dec. 29, 2001
It Pays to Complain!
Since Sept. 11, the Foundation has received complaints about public schools across the nation erecting "God Bless America" messages or signs, as religionist principals unfortunately capitalized on the terrorist attacks to promote personal religious agendas.
In one such instance, the principal of Bonham Middle School in Temple, Texas, refused to remove the sign last October after alert Foundation member Cristy Wade complained in writing.
In November, Cristy appealed to the Foundation to add its complaints. The Foundation wrote both the principal and the district superintendent firm letters, noting: "This exercise in religious patriotism has gone on long enough, and now looks simply like a religious principal taking advantage of a national tragedy to inflict 'God' on a captive audience of public schoolchildren. There are many appropriate, sensitive ways for a school and its marquee to show unity and sympathy for the victims of Sept. 11 without opportunistically promoting religion."
Although the principal remained obdurate, refusing to remove the display that had been up nearly three months, the Superintendent (see letter above), complied with our request.
Cristy, above, is pictured by the public school's newly secular message of unity.
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