" A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism. " | " In culture after culture, people believe that the soul lives on after death, that rituals can change the physical world and divine the truth, and that illness and misfortune are caused and alleviated by spirits, ghosts, saints, fairies, angels, demons, cherubim, djinns, devils, and gods. " | " Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think. " |
" When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. " | " To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. " | " Not only do I think the arguments for god's existence don't work, I think that this, more importantly, does not look like the kind of world that is created by a good, caring, powerful god. " |