"Everyone would like to behave like a pagan, with everyone else behaving like a Christian."
(Albert Camus / 1913-1960)
"The Jehovah of the Jews is a suspicious tyrant, who breathes nothing but blood, murder, and carnage, and who demands that they should nourish him with the vapours of animals. The Jupiter of the Pagans is a lascivious monster. The Moloch of the Phoenicians is a cannibal. The pure mind of the Christians resolved, in order to appease his fury, to crucify his own son. The savage god of the Mexicans cannot be satisfied without thousands of mortals which are immolated to his sanguinary appetite."
(Paul-Henri, baron d'Holbach / 1723-1789)
"Christian Hell, fire. Pagan hell, fire. Muslim Hell, fire. Hindu hell, flames. According to religions, God was born a grill-room owner."
(Victor Hugo / 1802-1885 / Things Seen / 1887)
"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)