Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason
In the affairs of the world, men are saved not by faith, but by the lack of it.
John Adams
Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years? This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.
George Washington
Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by the difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most…
Thomas Paine
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history…
Thomas Jefferson
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot.... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose. Christianity neither…