The Chickadee's Corner

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“There is no heaven or afterlife… that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

-- Stephen Hawking

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“We atheists lead happy lives, never concerned with the-dying-and-burn forever-in-hell nonsense. We know better. We enjoy happiness with our friends and neighbors and ignore all the greed and rituals that pay the parasite priests. Let them wallow in their medieval superstition while we enjoy all the wonders of our God-free universe."

— Harry Harrison in “They’re Afraid of Us!” on the Harry Harrison Official News Blog, April 23, 2011

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“It is sometimes said that science has nothing to do with morality. This is wrong. Science is the search for truth, the effort to understand the world; it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.”

— Linus Pauling

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“Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by the dozen.”

— Michel de Montaigne, Essays 1580

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“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. . . . Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find inducements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you.”

— Thomas Jefferson's letter to nephew Peter Carr, written from Paris, Aug. 10, 1787

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“For more than three thousand years men have quarreled concerning the formulas of their faith. The earth has been drenched with blood shed in this cause, the face of day darkened with the blackness of the crimes perpetrated in its name. There have been no dirtier wars than religious wars, no bitterer hates than religious hates, no fiendish cruelty like religious cruelty; no baser baseness than religious baseness. It has destroyed the peace of families, turned the father against the son, the brother against the brother. And for what? Are we any nearer to unanimity? On the contrary, diversity within the churches and without has never been so widespread as at present. Sects and factions are multiplying on every hand, and every new schism is but the parent of a dozen others.”

— Felix Adler, founding address of New York Society for Ethical Culture, May 15, 1876

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“The assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent deity.”

— Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871

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“All religions, without exception, have done humanity more bad than good.”

— José Saramago, Inter Press Service, Oct. 21, 2009

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“I believe in you and me . . . I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If those things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. But I don’t believe in a personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a natural on the next roll of the dice.”

—Frank Sinatra, Playboy, Feb. 1963.

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“It was only when I finally undertook to read the Bible through from beginning to end that I perceived that its depiction of the Lord God--whom I had always viewed as the very embodiment of perfection--was actually that of a monstrous, vengeful tyrant, far exceeding in bloodthirstiness and insane savagery the depredations of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Attila the Hun, or any other mass murderer of ancient or modern history.”

—Steve Allen, Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion & Morality, 1990

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“The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires.”

--Susan B. Anthony

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“We all ought to understand we're on our own. Believing in Santa Claus doesn't do kids any harm for a few years but it isn't smart for them to continue waiting all their lives for him to come down the chimney with something wonderful. Santa Claus and God are cousins.

Christians talk as though goodness was their idea but good behavior doesn't have any religious origin. Our prisons are filled with the devout.

I'd be more willing to accept religion, even if I didn't believe it, if I thought it made people nicer to each other but I don't think it does.”

—Andy Rooney, Sincerely, Andy Rooney, 1999

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“ . . . I decided (after listening to a 'talk radio' commentator who abused, vilified, and scorned every noble cause to which I had devoted my entire life that) I was both a Humanist and a liberal, each of the most dangerous and vilified type. I am a Humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create a reasonably decent society. I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril. I do not believe that pure reason can solve the perceptual problems unless it is modified by poetry and art and social vision. So I am a Humanist. And if you want to charge me with being the most virulent kind—a secular humanist—I accept the accusation.”

—James Michener, Interview, Parade Magazine (Nov. 24, 1991)

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"The Lord made Adam. The Lord made Eve. He made them both a little bit naive. They lived as free as the summer breeze, Without pajamas and without chemise, Until they stumbled on the apple tree.

Then she looked at him, and he looked at her, And they knew immediately what the world was fer. He said “Give me my cane.” He said “Give me my hat. The time has come to begin the begat.”

So they begat Cain, and they begat Abel, Who begat the rabble at the Tower of Babel. They begat the Cohens, and they begat O’Rourkes. And they begat the people who believe in storks . . ."

—Lyrics from "Finian's Rainbow" song, "The Begats," by Burton Lane

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(via atheistcartoons.com » like father, like son?)

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(via atheistcartoons.com » so close)

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(via atheistcartoons.com » a little story)