I AM AN AGNOSTIC

He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave. William Drummond

Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. R W Emerson

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

The Messiah Is Not Coming--and He's Not Even Going to Call! Israeli Hit Tune In 2001

And do you think that unto such as you
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew
God gave a secret, and denied it me?
Well, well--what matters it? Believe that, too.
Look not above, there is no answer there;
Pray not, for no one listens to your prayer;
Near is as near to God as any Far,
And Here is just the same deceit as There.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing?
Then He is malevolent.
Is He both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is He neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God? Epicurus 341-271 BC

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most responsive to change. Charles Darwin

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

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last. Winston Churchill

Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish.

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. Anonymous

It is time we realized that to presume knowledge where one has only pious hope is a species of evil. Sam Harris

Traditions deserve to be respected only insofar as they are respectable--that is, exactly insofar as they themselves respect the fundamental rights of men and women. Amin Maalouf

If anything is, or can be, certain, the writers of the Bible were mistaken about creation, astronomy, geology; about the causes of phenomena, the origin of evil and the cause of death.