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Meditation 201
Quotations XVII

"I hate quotations, tell me what you know." Ralph Waldo Emerson.

But as some people do like quotations and think they can be useful in succinctly communicating an opinion, we will post a selection occasionally. This is the seventeenth in an ongoing series. Quotations are now indexed to assist anyone trying to locate a specific one.

1. Supposing you got a crate of oranges that you opened, and you found all the top layer of oranges bad, you would not argue, ‘The underneath ones must be good, so as to redress the balance’; You would say, ‘Probably the whole lot is a bad consignment’; and that is really what a scientific person would say about the universe. Bertrand Russell
   
   
2. Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver. Robert G. Ingersoll
   
   
3. Religion often gets credit for curing rascals when old age is the real medicine. Austin O'Malley
   
   
4. If I were asked for a one-sentence soundbite on religion, I would say I was against it. Salman Rushdie
   
   
5. If there were no ministers and no priests, how long would there be any churches? Lemuel K. Washburn
   
   
6. We have thousands of religions with 10,000 answers and none of them completely agreeable. Ray Bradbury
   
   
7. God is a child who amuses himself, going from laughing to crying for no reason, each day reinventing the world to the chagrin of hair-splitters, pedants, and preachers, who try to teach God his job as Creator. Elie Faure
   
   
8. Dateline Phnom Penh - 26 November 1994. A Texas evangelist fled Cambodia on Saturday after a mob, angry over his failure to perform faith-healing miracles, rioted outside his hotel. Only the arrival of 20 armed police on Friday night kept the crowd from storming the luxury Hotel Cambodiana, where the Rev. Mike Evans and his entourage were staying after arriving for a scheduled five-day visit here Wednesday. The preacher's appearance had been heralded on radio and television stations. "Blind eyes will open, the paralyzed will walk," promised the promotional announcements. Thousands of Cambodians, including sick, blind and paralyzed people from remote areas, came to the capital to attend his meetings. Associated Press
   
   
9. Religion is a means of exploitation employed by the strong against the weak; religion is a cloak of ambition, injustice and vice. Georges Bizet
   
   
10. All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few. Stendhal
    
    
11. A sober, devout man will interpret 'God's will' soberly and devoutly. A fanatic, with bloodshot mind, will interpret 'God's will' fanatically. Men of extreme, illogical views will interpret 'God's will' in eccentric fashion. Kindly, charitable, generous men will interpret 'God's will' according to their character. E. Haldeman-Julius
    
    
12. Anything beyond the limits and grasp of the human mind is either illusion or futility; and because your god having to be one or the other of the two, in the first instance I should be mad to believe in him, and in the second a fool. Marquis de Sade
    
    
13. As set forth by theologians, the idea of "God" is an argument that assumes its own conclusions, and proves nothing. Johann Most
    
    
14. When no one had answers they created God. Now we have most of them, and one day we will have all of them, rendering God useless. Anonymous
    
    
15. The greatest threat presented by modern religion is the archaic morals system that an insidious minority of Christians including the Radical Right, Christian Coalition, the RIAA along with many other influences and organizations wish to incorporate into our secular law! W.J. Wallace Jr.
    
    
16. The chief characteristic of the religion of science is that it works. Isaac Asimov
    
    
17. When politics and religion are intermingled, a people is suffused with a sense of invulnerability, and gathering speed in their forward charge, they fail to see the cliff ahead of them. Frank Herbert, Dune
    
    
18. Since the masses of the people are inconsistent, full of unruly desires, passionate, and reckless of consequences, they must be filled with fears to keep them in order. The ancients did well, therefore, to invent gods, and the belief in punishment after death. Polybius
    
    
19. I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. Frank Lloyd Wright
    
    
20. I don't believe in god because I don't believe in Mother Goose. Clarence Darrow