#sm

Given the level of understanding and the fact that they believed already in a set of myths and superstitions, it was the easiest and fastest way to proceed. ↗

— Mario Stinger

#atheism #confirmation-bias #religion #nature

We were greeted by the minister whose inclusive, non-judgemental smile was no more than a whisker away from a smirk. Have I made it clear? I don't like belief systems and even less like those that peddle self-righteousness. I have no doubt the minister was a sincere man, but I am not as impressed by the idea of sincerity as the sincere seem to be. ↗

— Jenny Diski

#belief #minister #religion #sincerity #religion

In the beginning God created man in His own image, and man has been trying to repay the favor ever since. ↗

— Voltaire

#religion #religion

To heal physically, one must heal the emotional aspect of the issue first or it will resurface in another way. ↗

— Stephen Richards

#cosmic-ordering #law-of-attraction #mind-body-spirit #mind-power #money

All true believers have good reasons for disbelieving in every god except their own,' said Birbal, 'and so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in none. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#god #religion #religion

But I am, personally, not a gambler. I wouldn’t spend £1 on the lottery, let alone take a punt on a pregnancy. The stakes are far, far too high. I can’t agree with a society that would force me to bet on how much I could love under duress. ↗

— Caitlin Moran

#freedom #freedom-of-choice #liberty #pro-choice #freedom

The Marxians love of democratic institutions was a stratagem only, a pious fraud for the deception of the masses. Within a socialist community there is no room left for freedom. ↗

— Ludwig von Mises

#liberalism #marxism #society #freedom

The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country. ↗

— Daniel Patrick Moynihan

#conspiracy-theories #democracy #dictatorship #freedom #human-rights

In modern states, the citizen is politically impotent. A citizen, it is true, may complain, make suggestions, or cause disruptions, but in the ancient world these were privileges that belonged to any slave. ↗

— Mark Mirabello

#freedom #slavery #freedom

I would be quite content to go to their children's bar mitzvahs, to marvel at their Gothic cathedrals, to 'respect' their belief that the Koran was dictated, though exclusively in Arabic, to an illiterate merchant, or to interest myself in Wicca and Hindu and Jain consolations. And as it happens, I will continue to do this without insisting on the polite reciprocal condition - which is that they in turn leave me alone. But this, religion is ultimately incapable of doing. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#religion #religion