"i do not fear death. i had been dead for billions and billions of years before i was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." —mark twain

"when one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. when many people suffer from a delusion, it is called religion." —robert pirsig

"animals do not have gods, they are smarter than that." —ronnie snow

"the world holds two classes of men — intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence." —abu ala al-ma'arri

"lighthouses are more helpful than churches." —benjamin franklin

"the only church that illuminates is one that is burning." —buenaventura durruti

"give a man a fish, he'll eat it and fall asleep. teach a man to fish, he'll endanger entire species." —jerm ix

“give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.” —unknown

"no matter how inoffensive your godless billboard is, they will always be offended that some people out there don’t believe in their crazy bullshit." —thegoodatheist.net

“some atheists say arguing with believers is wasting time, but i quite like it. it reminds me of how smart i am.” —miles oliver abbott

“there is not enough love and kindness in the world to give any of it away to imaginary beings.” —friederich nietzsche

“it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” —carl sagan

"i'm an atheist, so i don't call it praying. i call it 'whispering into the abyss'."

"i don’t mind most religious people. i talk to them. you know, i listen to them banging on.. 'i prayed very hard and then the fairy came.' did he? good. have a biscuit. i only get annoyed when they try and make me see the fairy. 'you have to let the fairy into your heart.' look, i wouldn’t let him into my garden. i’d shoot him on sight, if he existed, which he doesn’t. now have another bicky and be quiet, please." —dylan moran

“the inspiration of the bible depends upon the ignorance of him who reads.” —robert g. ingersoll

“well, i believe that there’s somebody out there who watches over us. unfortunately, it’s the government.” —woody allen

"when i was a kid, i used to pray every night for a new bike. then i realized that 'the lord' doesn’t work that way, so i stole one and asked him to forgive me."

"i think the trouble with being a critical thinker or an atheist or a humanist is that you’re right. and it’s quite hard being right in the face of people who are wrong without sounding like a fuckwit. people go, 'do you think the vast majority of the world is wrong?' well, yes. i don’t know how to say that nicely, but yes.” —tim minchin

"to most christians, the bible is like a software license. nobody actually reads it. they just scroll to the bottom and click 'i agree'." —twitter.com/#!/almightygod

“gods are children’s blankets that get carried over into adulthood.” —james randi

“two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.” —unknown

“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

“it may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring.” —robert g. ingersoll

“there is no debate here — just scientists vs. non-scientists, and since the topic is science, the non-scientists don’t get a vote. we shouldn’t decide everything by polling the masses. just because most people believe something doesn’t make it true. this is the fallacy called argumentum ad numeram: the idea that something is true because great numbers believe it. as in: eat shit, 20 trillion flies can’t be wrong.” —bill maher, via huffpos on climate

"religion: comforting people in a world torn apart by religion." —jon stewart

“the invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.” —delos b. mckown

"i’m going for a piss. am i actually gonna piss on the church? it’d be quite a statement. yeah, baby, here i go! richard dawkins walks the walk, but does he actually follow through with an actual act of piss?” —peep show, jez

"with soap, baptism is a good thing.” —robert g. ingersoll

“the inventor of the plow did more good than the maker of the first rosary - because, say what you will, plowing is better than praying.” —robert g. ingersoll

"when my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me — it still sometimes happens — and ask me if carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. they also frequently ask me if i think i will see him again. carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. the tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. i don’t ever expect to be reunited with carl. but, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. we never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous — not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. we knew we were beneficiaries of chance.. that pure chance could be so generous and so kind.. that we could find each other, as carl wrote so beautifully in cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time.. that we could be together for twenty years. that is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful.. the way he treated me and the way i treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. that is so much more important than the idea i will see him someday. i don’t think i’ll ever see carl again. but i saw him. we saw each other. we found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful." —ann druyan, talking about her husband, carl sagan

"although 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." —isaac asimov

"every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. and, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. it really is the most poetic thing i know about physics: you are all stardust. you couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. they were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. so, forget 'jesus'. the stars died so that you could be here today." —lawrence krauss

"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." —ricky gervais: why i’m an atheist

"it is rather more noble to help people purely out of concern for their suffering than it is to help them because you think the creator of the universe wants you to do it, or will reward you for doing it, or will punish you for not doing it.problem with this linkage between religion and morality is that it gives people bad reasons to help other human beings when good reasons are available." —sam harris

“you will notice that the kind of people who turn to jesus tend to be the sort of people who haven’t done that well with everybody else.” —dylan moran, like totally

“morality is doing what is right, regardless of what you are told. religion is doing what you are told, regardless of what is right.” —unknown

"agnostics are atheists without balls." —stephen colbert

“i think it makes much more sense to believe in the existence of trolls and dwarves than to believe in god: either way, you have no proof, but at least it’s more fun.” —miles oliver abbott

"i don’t think it’s healthy to have an imaginary friend.” —a catholic priest on FOX news

"including creationism in science curriculim is like including the study of the tooth fairy in dental school." —unknown

"if you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people." —house

"science flies you to the moon. religion flies you into buildings." —richard dawkins

“science knows it doesn’t know everything; otherwise, it’d stop. but just because science doesn’t know everything doesn’t mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you.” —dara o’briain

"religions are easy to invent. most traditional religions have little or nothing to do with reality, are dependent on obfuscation, interpretation, guilt, and unreasoning faith.." —anton lavey

"i do not believe in god because i do not believe in mother goose." —clarence darrow

"being an atheist does not help someone be a good person just like being a christian does not help someone be a good person.. morality (our sense of right and wrong) is independent of religious beliefs. look at it this way: if a boy really wants his friend’s bicycle and the only reason he doesn’t steal it is that he’s afraid of being punishment, we wouldn’t consider him to be a very good person. but if the boy really wants his friend’s bicycle and he doesn’t steal it because he knows the other boy would feel bad and he doesn’t want to make others feel bad, then we’d consider him to be a good person. behaving well only to avoid punishment is not really being a good person." —atheist revolution

"atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. in fact, ‘atheism’ is a term that should not even exist. no one ever needs to identify himself as a ‘non-astrologer’ or a ‘non-alchemist.’ We do not have words for people who doubt that elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs." —sam harris

"religious people often accuse atheists of being arrogant and of placing ourselves in the position of god, but really it is the theist who has all the vanity. he can't stand to think that he will ever cease to exist. as freud said, christianity is the most egotistical of the religions. it is based on the premise 'jesus saves me.'" —marian noel sherman

“religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man.. living in the sky. who watches everything you do every minute of every day. and the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. and if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. but he loves you. he loves you. he loves you and he needs money.” —george carlin

"listen. there are 200 countries in the world now. do these people honestly think that god is sitting around picking out his favorites? why would he do that? why would god have a favorite country? and why would it be america out of all the countries? because you have the most money? because he likes our national anthem? maybe it’s because he heard we have 18 delicious flavors of classic ricea-a-roni! it’s delusional thinking! and america is not alone with this sort of delusions. military cemeteries around the world are packed with brainwashed dead soldiers who were convinced god was on their side. america prays for god to destroy our enemies. our enemies pray for god to destroy us. somebody’s gonna be disappointed. somebody’s wasting their fucking time. could it be everyone?” —george carlin

“i don’t watch football anymore, i gave that up. i got tired of the interviews after the games, because the winning players always give credit to god, and the losers blame themselves. you know, just once i'd like to hear a player say, ‘yeah, we were in the game—until jesus made me fumble. he hates our team.’" —jeff stilso

phil donahue: ..you're not smart enough to know whether or not there's a god.

ayn rand: yes. i am, and everybody here is.

phil donahue: is what?

ayn rand: smart enough. it doesn't take much intelligence.

"you are never called upon to prove a negative. that's a law of logic." —ayn rand

“i cannot be called upon to know a negative or to prove a negative. if there is a god and you prove it, that’s fine. but you don’t tell me you can’t know that there isn’t. i would say yes i know there isn’t because i have been given no evidence.” —ayn rand

“tell a devout christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what so ever.” —sam harris

“on saturday night, i would see men lusting after half-naked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when i was playing organ for tent-show evaneglists at the other end of the carnival lot, i would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children, asking god to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. and the next Saturday night they’d be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. i knew then that the christian church thrives on hypocrisy, and that man’s carnal nature will out no matter how much it is purged or scourged by any white-light religion.” —anton lavey

"the human body is nothing but a set of chemical reactions. the chemical reactions powering a human life are no different from the reactions powering the life of a bacterium, a mosquito, a mouse, a dog or a chimp. when a human being dies, the chemical reactions stop. there is no 'soul' mixed in with the chemicals, just like there is no soul in a bacterium, a mosquito, a mouse, a dog or a chimp. why would there be an afterlife for the chemicals that make up a human body? the whole notion of your 'soul' is completely imaginary. the concept of a 'soul' has been invented by religion because many people have trouble facing their own mortality. it makes people feel better, but the concept is a complete fabrication. it is when you think about the chemical reactions powering your life and your brain that you realize how completely imaginary your 'soul' truly is. and at that point, everything about religion comes unraveled." —god is imaginary

“i am going to create man and woman with original sin. then i’m going to impregnate a woman with myself as her child, so that i can be born as a man. once alive, i will kill myself as a sacrifice to myself. to save you from the sin i originally condemned you to.” —a little of a lot that does not make sense

"look forward to heaven every day ~ fail to enjoy anything in life as a result!"

"lack the knowledge to explain scientifically ~ god did it!" (sarcasm)

"help actors and actresses win awards ~ do nothing about world hunger!"

"religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines. —bertrand russell

“it was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. i do not believe in a personal god and i have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. if something is in me which can be called religious, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. —albert einstein

“i’ll respect your beliefs once they’re deserving of respect — that is to say, when they’re not based on some ancient book about an invisible sky daddy and his zombie self-child that was scribbled together by some misogynistic dudes in a desert — or whatever particular illogical mythology you prefer to subscribe to. feel free to keep believing, but don’t assume that gives you immunity from criticism. pleasantries and political correctness only allows insane ideas to flourish. why are so many people starting to criticize christianity? it’s not a mass conspiracy — it’s because you’re wrong.” —jen mccreight, looking at your vagina, or criticising religion?

"if i were to suggest that between the earth and mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided i were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. but if i were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, i should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. if, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the inquisitor in an earlier time.” —bertrand russell

"let’s say the consensus is that our species, homo-sapiens has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years. in order to be christian you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about twenty five, dying of their teeth, famine, struggle, war, bitterness, suffering, misery. all of that for about 98,000 years, heaven watches it with complete indifference, and then 2000 years ago thinks that’s enough of that, it’s time to intervene. the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the middle east. don’t let’s appear to the chinese where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization, let’s go to the desert and have another revelation. this is nonsense. it can’t be believed by a thinking person.” —christopher hitchens

"creationists talk about god creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. but i tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in west africa, [a worm] that’s going to make him blind. and [i ask them], ‘are you telling me that the god you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful god, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that god created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child’s eyeball? because that doesn’t seem to me to coincide with a god who’s full of mercy’.” —david attenborough

"religion disapproves of original thought the way dracula does sunlight." —pat condell

"saying atheism is a belief system is like saying not going skiing is a hobby. i’ve never been skiing. it’s my biggest hobby. i literally do it all the time." —ricky gervais

"i find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. but it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously." —douglas adams

"religion has run out of justifications. thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important. where once it used to be able, by its total command of a worldview, to prevent the emergence of rivals, it can now only impede and retard — or try to turn back — the measurable advances that we have made."—christopher hitchens

"when they say 'i’ll pray for you', give that wonderful reply: 'i’ll think for you'." —richard dawkins

"atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature." —carl sagan

"it is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. but is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? it does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it." —carl sagan"christianity is the best way to cure gayness. just get on your knees, take a swig of wine, and accept the body of a man into your mouth." —stephen colbert

"science will win because it works." —stephen hawking

"some believers accuse skeptics of having nothing left but a dull, cold, scientific world. Iiam left with only art, music, literature, theatre, the magnificence of nature, mathematics, the human spirit, sex, the cosmos, friendship, history, science, imagination, dreams, oceans, mountains, love, and the wonder of birth. that’ll do for me." —lynne kelly

"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

"a man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." —albert einstein

"religion is an insult to human dignity. with or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion." —steven weinberg“a casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”— friedrich nietzsche