Farrell responds< Don't look now, Sammy, but your ignorance is showing again.>>
Dar< And how. Farrell gets the understatement of the year award for that one!
Consider the following a footnote to Farrell's excellent response on this issue. Almost without exception, I have the sources for the following quotes. I am sure others have many more:
I recommend the book "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church (2nd) Published by the Atlanta Freethought Society P.O. Box 2385, Stone Mountain, GA 300086-2385 (85 pgs. 8X11. All souces given in minute detail). Compiled/Edited by Edward M. and Michael E. Buckner. It contains hundreds of other and better examples. What follows is what I had collected before purchasing this book.
Isn't it fun to pop the imaginary balloons of young virgins like Sammy?
***
My earlier views at the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them. -Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Judge J. Wakefield
The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity. -John Adams
The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles." --John Adams. Letter to Jefferson 6/20/1815
The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma. -Abraham Lincoln, Salvation for Sale
I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by religious men who are certain they represent the Divine will. ... I hope it will not be irreverent in me to say, that if it be probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me. --Abraham Lincoln. Chapter 14 of Part 5 of *Six Historic Americans* by John Ramsburg.
As to Jesus of Nazareth... I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity. -- Benjamin Franklin, Salvation for Sale
During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. -James Madison
What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.--James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785
***Thomas Jefferson***
The Christian god can be easily pictured as virtually the same as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. -Thomas Jefferson, Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr
I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies. -Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible
It is between fifty and sixty years since I read the Apocalypse, and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac. -Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors. -Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, 1787
I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature. -Thomas Jefferson
Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. -Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13 1820
JEFFERSON, Thomas History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.-- letter to Baron von Humboldt,
************** This first one from Thomas Paine demonstrates a beautiful efficiency with words: ************
Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. --Thomas Paine, Age of Reason, pg. 186
"As to the book called the bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions and a history of bad times and bad men." --Thomas Paine writing to Andrew Dean August 15, 1806
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Dream on Sammy!
I think you should have sharpened your knives a little before hand.
D.
*** "Believing is easier than thinking. Hence so many more believers than thinkers." --Bruce Calvert ***