Mike Tidmus

“Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor — but they have few followers now.” — Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, British science fiction author, inventor and futurist, from Childhood’s End – 1953

“Normal, healthy, functional heterosexuals do not become paranoid or fixated on homosexuals. It is primarily people with sexual hang-ups, extreme religious indoctrination or deep, dark secrets that are preoccupied and consumed by the sexual orientation of others.” — Wayne Besen, author, activist and founder of Truth Wins Out, from The Tipping Point on LGBT Equality [...]

“The celebration of Confederate traitors as American heroes, the whitewash of school curriculums and the conservative reinterpretation of national history are weapons in America’s decades-long culture war. These policies reflect an impulse similar to the Cultural Revolution of Communist China: an attempt to gain authority by controlling the very definitions of truth available to young [...]

“It’s as though the further we push the edges of industrial beauty and refinement, invention and creation, the deeper we dive straight into hell, like a master chef creating the most delicious dish ever invented, using the last wild tuna on earth. Can this really be true? Is this our doomed equation?” — Mark Morford, [...]

“Men rarely (if ever) managed to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.” — Robert A Heinlein, American science fiction writer, 1907 – 1988

“New rule: If churches don’t have to pay taxes, they also can’t call the fire department when they catch fire. Sorry reverend, that’s one of those services that goes along with paying in. I’ll use the fire department I pay for. You can pray for rain.” — Bill Maher, comedian, political satirist, author, actor, TV [...]

“The Maker of the universe with stars a hundred thousand light-years apart was interested, furious, and very personal about it if a small boy played baseball on Sunday afternoon.” — Sinclair Lewis, from “Elmer Gantry,” 1926

“Oh, I believe you can change how people behave sexually, and this policy change won’t change that at all. Of course, forcing people to act sexually in ways which bring them no joy is also a great way to cause deep misery. I just look at all the tightly puckered smarmy jiveweasels inhabiting right wing [...]

“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.” — Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist, authorand non-believer, from The God Delusion

“No religion has the right to expect other people to follow its rules. It is absurd to demand that people obey religious laws they don’t believe in. And it is absurd to claim that failure to do so is a form of disrespect.” — Greta Christina, writer, atheist and lesbian, from Atheist Meme Of The [...]

“Religious people, even putting aside the Left Behind loonies, aren’t really concerned, because they have an imaginary friend who will look after them if they are good and pray hard and wear the right clothes and don’t cut their hair. Only atheists understand, deep down, that there is no divine Lone Ranger out there coming [...]

“There is no god. The only creators are chance and selection, and now Craig Venter.” — PZ Myers, biologist and non-believer, from First round of ill-informed objections to the first synthetic bacterium

“The fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, THAT my friends, is true perversion.” — Harvey Milk, assassinated gay rights activist, 22 May 1930 – 27 Nov 1978

“There comes a point in any society’s existence where it must ultimately, to paraphrase Martin Luther (who himself was more than happy to see opponents put to death), dig in its heels and say here we stand, we will do no other. We don’t need to be perfectly consistent philosophically or historically or theologically to [...]

“The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that [...]