The World's Largest Coalition of Nontheists and Nontheist Communities!

Favorite Atheist Sayings, No. 1

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true; by the wise as false, and by politicians as useful." --Seneca the Younger (4 B.C.E.-65 C.E.).

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on September 13, 2010 at 6:49pm

Have to steal this one, James! [grin!]

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tonya Wynn on November 2, 2010 at 9:49am

I agree with your saying. The worst aspect of religion/Gog to me is the power others claim with it/Him. For me, history, especially pertaining to religion, is more terrifying than any Steven King novel. Hell, my Bible teacher in 9th grade scared me by telling me off an exorcism she attended. I was afraid of what she'd do to me if she knew I was an atheist.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Fred Price on November 8, 2010 at 4:37am

@ AnnaSero
I think religion for many people is some sort of moral viagra.

now that is a good quote!!!!!!!
religious people use it like a drug, they always have too get their next hit, their next prayer.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on November 8, 2010 at 5:30am

"Moral viagra," maybe ... but with the additive quality of heroin!

Karl Marx had it exactly right: "Religion is the opiate of the people." I suspect that Lenin and Stalin learned that the hard way when they tried to get the general population to go "cold turkey" from it.

Religion is an addiction ... PERIOD.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve on November 20, 2010 at 12:45am

Yes! It's not so much viagra as the delusion that one is getting the job done, i.e., being moral.

This is a great explanation:

http://goodatheistarguments.blogspot.com/2010/09/religion-and-moral...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on November 20, 2010 at 5:17am

And the closing comment on that article is positively precious!

Actually, the moral function of religion is to allow bad people to feel good about themselves.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Timothy Grahek on November 21, 2010 at 11:40am

"We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans,and then blames them for his own mistakes"
- Gene Roddenberry

Ultimate.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Frank McHugh on December 1, 2010 at 8:51pm

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
-Epicurus
Not as pithy as some, but some 2300 years later and still waiting for an answer.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on December 1, 2010 at 9:50pm

Nutz to "pithy." It's plenty valid, and yet to gain a cogent answer from those who want to insist on believing in the Iron Age equivalent of the boogieman.

Epicurus had this business sussed ages ago. The question is: when will people give him the props he deserves?