"Christian, n. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin."
(Ambrose Gwinett Bierce / 1842-1914 / The Devil's Dictionary)
"Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbors."
(Ambrose Gwinett Bierce / 1842-1914 / The Devil's Dictionary)
"The great brainwave of the inventors of Christianity: "God is love!" And then? What does it change?
You may always preach a god of love to men, they will make use of him to sanctify their villainies and their crimes "for the good fight" as well as the massacres en masse, blessing priests leading the way."
(François Cavanna / born en 1923 / Lettre ouverte aux culs-bénits)
"It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / quoted from Michael Shermer, Introduction to the paperback edition" of How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, 2000)
"Christianity, above all, comforts; but there are souls which are naturally happy and which do not need to be comforted. Then, those, Christianity starts by making them unhappy, having otherwise none action on them."
(André Gide / 1869-1951 / Journal 1889-1939)
"At the bottom of religious persecution is the doctrine of self-defence; that is to say, the defence of the soul. If the founder of Christianity had plainly said: 'It is not necessary to believe in order to be saved; it is only necessary to do, and he who really loves his fellow-men, who is kind, honest, just and charitable, is to be forever blest' -- if he had only said that, there would probably have been but little persecution. "
(Robert Green Ingersoll / 1833-1899)
"Difference of opinion is advantageous is religion. The several sects perform the office of a censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support rogeury and error all over the earth."
(Thomas Jefferson / 1743-1826 / Notes on the State of Virginia / 1781-1785)
"I have examined all of the known superstitions of the world and I do not find in our superstitions of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all founded on fables and mythology. Christianity has made one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites."
(Thomas Jefferson / 1743-1826)
"Archbishop: a Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ."
(Henry Louis Mencken / 1880-1956)
"Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than action; innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates unduly over "thou shalt."
(John Stuart Mill / 1806-1873 / On Liberty / 1859)
"The nec plus ultra of wickedness is embodied in what is commonly presented to mankind as the creed of Christianity."
(John Stuart Mill / 1806-1873 / Autobiography / 1873)
"Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity."
(Friedrich Nietzsche / 1844-1900 / Twilight of the Idols / 1888)
"The spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it is a great triumph over Christianity."
(Friedrich Nietzsche / 1844-1900 / Twilight of the Idols / 1888)
"What is more harmful than any vice? Practical sympathy and pity for all the failures and all the weak : Christianity."
(Friedrich Nietzsche / 1844-1900 / The Antichrist / 1888)
"The Christian resolve to find the world evil and ugly, has made the world evil and ugly."
(Friedrich Nietzsche / 1844-1900)
"It is not their love of humanity, it is the impotence of their love which has prevented the present-day Christians from bringing us to be burnt at the stake."
(Friedrich Nietzsche / 1844-1900)
"Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope."
(P.J. O'Rourke / born in 1947)
"The Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral was, as we see in the... passages from St. Paul, based upon the view that all sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is regrettable. A view of this sort, which goes against biological facts, can only be regarded by sane people as a morbid aberration. The fact that it is embedded in Christian ethics has made Christianity throughout its whole history a force tending towards mental disorders and unwholesome views of life."
(Bertrand Russell / 1872-1970 / Marriage and Morals)
"There are two kinds of existentialist; first, those who are Christian...and on the other hand the atheistic existentialists, among whom...I class myself. What they have in common is that they think that existence precedes essence, or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the turning point."
(Jean-Paul Sartre / 1905-1980)
"There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing and predatory as it is -- in our country particularly, and in all other Christian countries in a somewhat modified degree -- it is still a hundred times better than the Christianity of the Bible, with its prodigious crime -- the invention of Hell. Measured by our Christianity of to-day, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the Deity nor His Son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilt."
(Mark Twain / 1835-1910 / Reflections on Religion / 1906)
"If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be -- a Christian."
(Mark Twain / 1835-1910 / Notebook)
"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778 / Letter to Frederick the Great)