Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Religion has ever been anti-human, anti-woman, anti-life, anti-peace, anti-reason and anti-science. The god idea has been detrimental not only to humankind but to the earth. It is time now for reason, education and science to take over.Collection: Life
Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.Collection: Atheist
I'm not saying that all American men are this way, but nine out of ten are breast-fixated, wham-bam-thank-you-rna'am cretins who just don't give a damn about anyone's gratification but their own.Collection: Men
I'm atheist because religion is a crutch, and only the crippled need crutches. I can get around perfectly well on my own two feet, and so can everyone else with a backbone and a grain of common sense.Collection: Atheist
There is no God. There's no heaven. There's no hell. There are no angels. When you die, you go in the ground, the worms eat you.Collection: Atheist
The agnostic is gutless and prefers to keep one safe foot in the god camp.Collection: Feet
I can't pinpoint a period in history or a place in the universe where religion has actually helped the welfare of man.Collection: Men
Even if I believed there was a real Jesus, I wouldn't fall for that line of hogwash. The "Virgin" Mary should get a posthumous medal for telling the biggest goddamn lie that was ever told. Anybody who believes that will believe that the moon is made out of green cheese.Collection: Jesus
Atheism is a very positive affirmation of man's ability to think for himself, to do for himself, to find answers to his own problems.Collection: Men
You hate me because I am the embodiment of all your doubts.Collection: Hate
... religion is a crutch, and only the crippled need crutches.Collection: Needs
The churches rose to power on the income from tax-free property. What earthly -or heavenly- right have they got to enjoy a privilege denied to everyone else, even including nonprofit organizations? None! My contention is that with the churches exempted from property taxation, you and I have to pay that much more in taxes to make up for what they're not contributing.Collection: Organization
Those so-called records in the Bible were written by devout ecclesiasts who wanted to believe, and wanted others to believe, in the coming of a Messiah. Until someone proves otherwise, therefore, these stories must be considered nothing more than folk tales consisting in equal parts of legend and wish fulfillment.Collection: Believe
The fear of hell is the basis for the Christian faith.Collection: Christian
About six years ago, Life magazine ran an article on the historicity of Jesus and I was floored to find that they conceded the only evidence we have for his existence is in the Gospels. But don't take Life's word for it. In his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus, the most definitive study that's ever been done on the subject, Albert Schweitzer admitted that there isn't a shred of conclusive proof that Christ ever lived, let alone was the son of God. He concludes that one must therefore accept both on faith.Collection: Jesus
So my life and the life of my family has been completely disrupted in absolutely every way. But it's been worth it. It's uncovered a vast cesspool of illegitimate economic and political power in which the Church is immersed right up to its ears, and I intend to dive in headfirst and pull it out of there dripping wet for all the world to see -- no matter how long it takes, no matter whose feet get stepped on in the process, no matter how much it costs, no matter how great the personal sacrifice.Collection: Sacrifice
The most heinous crime of the Church has been perpetrated not against churchmen but against churchgoers. With its poisonous concepts of sin and divine punishment, it's warped and brainwashed countless millions.Collection: Punishment
I told my kids I just want three words on my tombstone, if I have one. I'll probably be cremated. One is "woman." I'm very comfortable in that role. I've loved being a woman, I've loved being a mother, I've loved being a grandmother. I want three words: Woman, Atheist, Anarchist. That's me.Collection: Mother
The atheist realizes that there must not only be an acceptance of his right to hold his opinion, but that ultimately his is the job to turn his culture from religion, to eliminate those irrational ideas which have held the human race in intellectual slavery.Collection: Atheist
In his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus, the most definitive study that's ever been done on the subject, Albert Schweitzer admitted that there isn't a shred of conclusive proof that Christ ever lived, let alone was the son of God. He concludes that one must therefore accept both on faith. I reject both for the same reason.Collection: Jesus
Church wealth are moving into everything-gas stations, banks, television stations, supermarket chains, hotels, steel mills, resort areas, farms, wine factories, warehouses, bottling works, printing plants, schools, theaters-everything you could conceivably think of that has nothing to do with religion, they are moving into big. They're even coming in as stockholders in the big oil companies, and the Bank of America is almost entirely owned by the Catholic Church.Collection: Moving
I'd make an educated guess that 20 to 25 percent of the taxable property in the U.S. is Church-owned.In a recent book, Church Wealth and Business Income, it was estimated that this property -all of it tax-exempt -is worth upwards of 80 billion dollars. I know that's a fantastic, unbelievable figure, but there's every reason to believe that it's on the conservative side; and this amount is increasing yearly at a geometric rate.Collection: Believe
I went into the Army, and one day, in the middle of a bull session, somebody called me an atheist. Believe it or not, it was the first time I'd ever heard the word. It goes to show you how a person can grow up in America and have a college education and still not know a goddamned thing.Collection: Atheist
I can't deny that I was an intellectual prostitute along the way many, many times in college. I can remember one examination where they said. "Describe the Devil," and in order to get 12 points on that question one had to say that the Devil was red and had a forked tail and cloven hoofs and fangs and horns on his head. So I merrily wrote this answer down and got my 12 points. I always got straight hundreds in Bible study.Collection: College
I want a big man physically as well as intellectually. l want a man with the thigh muscles to give me a good frolic in the sack, the kind who'll tear hell out of a thick steak, and yet who can go to the ballet with me and discuss Hegelian dialectic and know what the hell he's talking about.Collection: Men
There are certain bodily functions of mine which I will not allow to be supervised. One of these is eating. Nobody's going to license me to do this. Another one is bodily disposals. I will defecate and urinate when I damn well please and as the spirit -and the physical necessity -moves me. And my sex life is peculiarly my own. I will engage in sexual activity with a consenting male any time and any place I damn well please.Collection: Sex
If anybody wants to engage in any kind of sexual activity with any consenting partner, that is their business. I don't feel that I can sit in judgment on them, or that society can sit in judgment on them. Anybody can do anything they damn well please, as long as the relationship isn't exploitive. And I don't feel that legality should have anything to do with it.Collection: Should Have
Engineers have a very limited education and background, I think you need to move into the broader humanities in order to become a total person.Collection: Moving
Pope John XXIII was an amoeba of goodness in a sea of waste, mistakenly believing that the Holy See could or would really change in any fundamental way.He was a tragic figure, for he raised a false hope, cast a brief ray of light that was snuffed out when he died.Collection: Believe
I hate to disappoint my haters, but I'm not the least bit interested in being a man. I'm perfectly satisfied with the female role.Collection: Hate
I want somebody, a men, who's whole and wholesome and has as much zest for living as I have. But I haven't found one who fills the bill; you can't hardly find them kind no more. And I know many women my size, psychologically and intellectually, who have the same problem.Collection: Men
It doesn't seem to occur to men that woman might be a worthwhile end in herself, or to see to it that she has a proper sexual release. And, to him, sex appeal is directly proportional to the immensity of a woman's tits.Collection: Sex
You don't need a marriage license to live with someone, to have the security of a home, to rear any number of children, to have years of companionship; it's not illegal, but the moment you want to screw somebody, you have to get a license from the state to use your genital organs -or run the risk of being charged with any number of crimes carrying sentences up to and including death. So sex is really the only sensible reason for getting married.Collection: Running
Legality can't create love if it isn't there, or preserve it if it's dying, but it can destroy love by making it compulsory.Collection: Dying
If you're talking about intellectual and social equality for women, we're not much better off.America is still very much a male-dominated society. Most American men feel threatened sexually unless they're taller than the female, more intellectual, better educated, better paid and higher placed statuswise in the business world. They've got to be the authority, the final word.Collection: Men
Male say they're looking for a girl just like the girl who married dear old dad, but what they really want, and usually get, is an empty-headed little chick who's very young and very physical -and very submissive.Collection: Girl
As a matter of fact. I think I actually frighten men. I think I scare the hell out of them time after time.Collection: Men
I need somebody who can at least stand up to me and slug it out, toe to toe. I don't mean a physical battle. I mean a man who would lay me, and when he was done, I'd say: "Oh, brother, I've been laid." Or if we had an argument, he would stand up and engage in intellectual combat and not go off and mope in the corner, or take reprisals, or go to drink.Collection: Brother
Marx was wrong--religion is not the opiate of the masses, baseball is.Collection: Baseball
Well, as a militant feminist, I believe in complete equality with men: intellectual, professional, economic, social and sexual; they're all equally essential, and they're all equally lacking in American society today.Collection: Believe
An Atheists loves himself and his fellow man instead of a god. An Atheist thinks that heaven is something for which we should work for now - here on earth - for all men together to enjoy.Collection: Atheist
Well, we are men. Let's start acting like it.Collection: Men
Organizing atheists is like hurding catsCollection: Atheist
I just can't see either a man or a woman in a dependency position, because from this sort of relationship flows a feeling of superiority on one side and inferiority on the other, and that's a form of slow poison. As I see it, men wouldn't want somebody inferior to them unless they felt inadequate themselves. They're intimidated by a mature woman.Collection: Men
If any one age could be singled out as the worst in the history of Christendom, it would be the administration of Pope Pius XII, the most reactionary head of the most reactionary single force in the world - a force that binds men's minds, a force that divides them, a force that chains them so that they are unable to think and act for themselves.Collection: Men
Let nature decide. When a cow is biologically ready to have sex relations, she mates with the nearest well-hung bull. When a flower is ready to scatter its seed, it pollinates. It's the same way throughout nature - except with man, who tries to postpone consummation of his sex drive, unsuccessfully for the most part, for six or eight years after he reaches puberty.Collection: Sex
I was overwhelmed by the number of calls we got from people offering to rent us houses, to take us out to dinner, to drive us around house hunting. Everyone was just indescribably kind in Havaii. Finally we moved into a house offered to us for an incredible $125 a month by a man who feels that the separation of church and state is a valid constitutional issue which should be fought for.Collection: Men
We were just floored by the kindness of the people here. The minister of the Unitarian Church in Honolulu invited my family over to his office the day we arrived and told us to make it our headquarters while we looked for a permanent residence. When we couldn't find a place for about a week, he let us live in the church; that's ironic, isn't it? But it points up the vastly different intellectual atmosphere that prevails here in Hawaii.Collection: Kindness
If this taxation exemptions for Church were rescinded, our property taxes would be substantially lowered, and those who rent houses and apartments would consequently be able to pass along this savings in the form of lowered rents. It could have a profoundly salubrious effect on the entire economy.Collection: House
An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death.Collection: Atheist