Henry L. Mencken

Henry L. Mencken

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top atheist quotes (total: 10)

atheist quote	context
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart		286 2354
I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind--that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.		18 471
"Puritanism- The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."		15 438
Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility."		11 334
A few years ago we finally persuaded psychiatrists to remove homosexuality from the list of recognized disorders. Maybe it's time we started lobbying them to add belief in God to the list. Belief in an angry, intolerant one anyway. "I demand assurances that a given religion will not cause or potentiate mass homicidal psychosis or priestly pedophilia, before we let it indoctrinate helpless children and vulnerable adults. Bloodthirsty, authoritarian theology threatens Canada as much as tobacco, obesity and booze put together. It endangers out planet more than global warming, nuclear winter or rogue asteroids."		13 103
Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.		7
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.		1 7
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.		1 6
For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.		3
One has to go along with what Mencken said about the superstitious: "He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has a right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge." [Mencken, ("Aftermath," The Baltimore Evening Sun, September 14, 1925]		1 5