Pray as if everything depended on God, and work as if everything depended upon man.

Pray as if everything depended on God, and work as if everything depended upon man.

In isolated societies creeds can be preserved. It is where people of different traditions, outlook and creeds mingle freely and read more

In isolated societies creeds can be preserved. It is where people of different traditions, outlook and creeds mingle freely and exchange ideas that religious beliefs begin to be eroded. No one changes his beliefs without some instigation, some novel experience, some modification of the customary course of things, and in a closed society people believe what all their fellows obviously believe. Only when they are brought into contact with persons whom they respect holding different views do they begin to look at their inherited beliefs critically.

Nothing is so easy as to deceive oneself; for what we wish, we readily believe.

Nothing is so easy as to deceive oneself; for what we wish, we readily believe.

The foundation of all morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying; to give up pretending to read more

The foundation of all morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying; to give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge.

The Christian churches were offered two things: the spirit of Jesus and the idiotic morality of Paul, and they rejected read more

The Christian churches were offered two things: the spirit of Jesus and the idiotic morality of Paul, and they rejected the higher inspiration... Following Paul, we have turned the goodness of love into a fiend and degraded the crowning impulse of our being into a capital sin.

The Bible looks like it started out as a game of Mad Libs.

The Bible looks like it started out as a game of Mad Libs.

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you read more

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?".

"The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the read more

"The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church.

Faith, enthusiasm, and passionate intensity in general are substitutes for the self-confidence born of experience and the possession of skill. read more

Faith, enthusiasm, and passionate intensity in general are substitutes for the self-confidence born of experience and the possession of skill. Where there is the necessary skill to move mountains there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.