from <link>

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Sir Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-1971)

"Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies." - Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan.

"Dogma is the sacrifice of wisdom to consistency." - Lewis Perelman

"Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo." - H. G. Wells (1866-1946)

"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato (427-347 B.C.)

"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it." - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

"The cynics are right nine times out of ten." - Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain." - Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805)

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." - H. G. Wells (1866-1946)

"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." - Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)

"Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact." - George Eliot (1819-1880)

"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." - Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.)

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy." - Goethe (1749-1832)

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." - Jimi Hendrix

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"Facts are the enemy of truth." - Don Quixote - "Man of La Mancha"

"The truth is more important than the facts." - Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steven Wright

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." - Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." - Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953

"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

"Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street." - Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)

"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life." - Frank Zappa

"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire (1694-1778)

"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." - Will Durant

"I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means." - Clarence Darrow, Scopes trial, 1925.

"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?" - Bumper Sticker

"God, please save me from your followers!" - Bumper Sticker

"Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so." - Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

"Wit is educated insolence." - Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

"My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher." - Socrates (470-399 B.C.)

"I would have made a good Pope." - Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994)

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book - I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas (1900-1966)

"From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it." - Groucho Marx (1895-1977)

"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?" - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing." - Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

"Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"They’re killin’ me, Whitey, they’re killin’ me" - Coach Vince Lombardi

http://www.vincelombardi.com/

"Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night" Bette Davis-All About Eve

<link>

"Where am I & why am I in a handbasket?"-bumper sticker

<link>

"Me Doc, are you there? The walls are talking to me again" Stephan King-The Shinning (novel, not movie)

<link>

"I can’t get these damn wrists to bleed" Alice Cooper-The Quiet Room

<link>

"What a dump!" Bette Davis-Who’s afraid of Virginia Wolf?

<link>

"I like being stupid, no one wants anything from me" Judy Holliday-Born Yesterday

<link>

"Everytime I climb the mountain, it turned into a hill"-Ronnie James Dio-Strange Highways

<link>

"We don’t know enough to know that we don’t know what we are doing" DIY’er

http://www.bobvila.com/

"I contend that we are both atheists."

This is good. I'm an atheist in respect to Christianity and al-Islam, while agnostic toward Buddhism and the Cargo Cults while being mildly theistic toward the ancient Egyptian and Judaic G*ds. The ancient Romans understood this and were comfortable trying and executing early Pauline Christians as atheists toward the Roman Gods.

Fun, fun. I have read at very least, the first, which is a favorite of mine. Wikiquote has quite a few more if you care to look. One of those that I found appropriate:

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. ~ Jonathan Swift

"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." - Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)

My daughter and I were reading an alphabet book last night and she got stuck on 'T'. The word was 'typewriter', and it just hit me that she may go her entire life without even seeing a typewriter!! Something that was a tremendous invention and vitally important to communication (only, what, 20 years ago?) is now so completely obsolete that my daughter may never encounter one!

And if Wright thought typewriters were dangerous... he'd be horrified by internet chat rooms!! :-)

As long as a key interface for written communications remains the QWERTY keyboard, whether on PC, Laptop, Blackberry, etc., the typewriter - in an evolved form - lives (and we're still using pens and pencils, keeping the old quill and leadstick going, too).

I never thought the skill of touch-typing would be of much use in my systems career; boy, was I ever wrong. :)

Seems bizarre to be giving a thumbs up to a post with the topic in all-caps!

I will point out that you are not articulating a point very well.

But, I really liked the quotes and some of them may even be useful advice.

Thanks.

It seems to me that if one of your gods is the top dog God that Moses identified as the one who brought the Jews out of Egypt, then you can’t really be totally atheist towards Christianity and Islam. Both of these religions make the claim that their god is one and the same as the Moses god. Jesus talked about a new covenant, or relationship, between the Jewish people and their Moses God, but I don’t see that he was introducing a new god or was selecting a different god from the many who had some following in the Ancient world. And I think Islam says that Mohammed received the final revelation from God and that he was the last of a long line of prophets; and although to be referred to as Allah, this is the same God as of the Christians and Mosaic Jews.

Now acceptance of the details about God as described by each of these three religions is certainly open to discussion. But in the end it looks similar to the situation of Elvis, some people prefer the younger slimmer hip shaker, some like the older slightly paunchy guy in the white suit, and others say he can still be seen walking around today, sometimes in a green leisure suit. Elvis appears in different forms, but he is ultimately the same person in each version.

I have frequently made similar arguments in debates with several of the conservative Christian posters here -- that YHWH, the Father of the Christian Trinity and Allah are the same entity. But they usually counter that irrespective of clearly having a common source, the characteristics of the deity as described by the different religions are different, thus they are not actually the same entity. Actually, I think most of them would say that YHWH and the Father are the same, but Allah is not.

I still tend to hold to your position -- that it is the same entity, even if different people ascribe different attributes to the deity. For one thing, even within the major religious divisions, (eg within Christianity) there is considerable difference in the views of the deity.

But as a generalization, it seems that most Christians and Muslims view a much more anthropomorphic G_d, and a much more interventionist G_d than do the adherents of many other religions.

Men rarely (if ever) managed to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. ----Robert A. Heinlein

How about these from Voltaire

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."

"If God made us in his image we have certainly returned the compliment."

I forgot this one

"The son of God is the same as the son of man; the son of man is the same as the son of God. God, the father, is the same as Christ, the son; Christ, the son, is the same as God, the father. This language may appear confused to unbelievers, but Christians will readily understand it."

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

Is H.L. Mencken, not Voltaire.

Reptilicus:

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

Is H.L. Mencken, not Voltaire.

Mencken also has a quote that I really like, i have it posted above my computer at work.

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag & begin slitting throats"