What o you think of these quotes?

Question

I don't have anything against organized religion per se. We all need something in our lives. I personally just have not accepted that belief. But I'm one of the few.”
-- Lance Armstrong, Time, Sept. 29, 2003

“I don't believe in heaven and hell. I don't know if I believe in God. All I know is that as an individual, I won't allow this life--the only thing I know to exist--to be wasted.”
-- George Clooney, profile in Washington Post (September 28, 1997)

“If some good evidence for life after death were announced, I'd be eager to examine it; but it would have to be real scientific data, not mere anecdote. As with the face on Mars and alien abductions, better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.”
-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," from The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Dark, 1996


“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.”
-- Susan B. Anthony.,The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Vol. I, page 197, edited by Ida Hustad Harper (1908). (Also see Women Without Superstition: "No Gods - No Masters".)

“Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the Church, and the private schools, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.”
-- Ulysses S, Grant, address delivered in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1875

“My parents did not practice any organized religion, although my father was raised Roman Catholic and my mother was Jewish. But there was always an ethical context to our lives, a very strong notion of individual moral responsibility.”
-- Harrison Ford, Parade, July 7, 2002

“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
-- Benjamin Franklin, Works, Vol. XIII, p. 506


“This loathsome combination of Church and State.”
-- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) to C. Clay, 1815

“I don't believe in God now.”
-- Jack Nicholson, Vanity Fair, 1992 (cited in Who's Who in Hell edited by William Allen Smith)

“Talking to god is crazy.
Hearing god is schizophrenia.
Acting on it is insanity.”
-- Robert Patterson


“Faith is believing what you know ain't so.”
-- Mark Twain, "Puddinhead Wilson's New Calendar," I, Ch. 12, p. 132, Following the Equator, (1894).


“I am happy that I can aid those admirable men, both living and dead, who by their pens or their tongues have aided the great cause of human liberty and universal happiness.”
-- James Watson, "A Voice from the Bastille," February 23, 1833


“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiment in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy which has marked the present age would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination, so far that we should never again see their religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.”
-- George Washington, letter to Sir Edward Newenham, Oct. 20, 1792.

no not cut and pasted they are from different sites

Answer 1

sorry i wont read all the quotes because there are just so many! i did however read the one by george clooney about how he said he didn't believe in heaven, hell, or God but knows that life is not to be wasted.....so in other words he is saying that life has meaning and that in order for his life to have meaning that someone gave his life meaning (God)....oh the irony! some people have no idea what they believe and why!

Answer 2

Washington: there's nothing wrong with religious differences per se, but I agree they shouldn't be carried out to such extremes as war.
Watson: I agree with the sentiment, but not necessarily with the particular application since I'm unfamiliar with the situation in which it was said.
Twain: self-contradictory.
Patterson: relies on the unprovable assumption that there isn't a supernatural entity that speaks to people
Nicholson: wow, there are some celebrities who are atheists. Who knew?
Jefferson: relatively uncontroversial
Franklin: ditto
Ford: unless one is perfectly good, one has fallen short of God's standard
Grant: uncontroversial
Anthony: agree in principle, but perhaps not in application
Sagan: raises the bar too high in demanding scientific evidence for that which science cannot investigate; implies that science alone deals with facts and everything outside its purview is fantasy
Clooney: a celebrity who's agnostic; like Nicholson, just because he's a celebrity doesn't add any authority to what he says. And how exactly does one know what a wasted life is without some reference to an absolute of what that life should ideally be to compare it to?
Armstrong: his choice

Answer 3

Real faith means believing what you know is so. If you know that it's not so, then you don't believe it. Stupid Mark Twain! I thought he was smarter than that. I gather you are atheist or agnostic. How come you didn't quote someone like Billy Graham or Martin Luther King Jr.? I am all for separation of church and state, by the way. So why doesn't the gov't leave the church alone? People often want the church to pay taxes. Why should a non-profit organization pay taxes? And why is it that the gov't wants all traces of religion removed from our society? With the homosexual agenda and increasing sexual revolution, via pornography, comes more and more hatred of Christianity because of its morality. Then the gov't will gladly outlaw the Bible, especially Romans, and they've even been known to shut down churches on occasion because the gov't didn't like the churches' moral positions. Harrison Ford's parents were not very religious but I'll bet that their moral values came from the religions they were raised with. Without the influence of Christianity and Judaism, I don't believe they would've been good moral people. What are good morals anyway, if God doesn't exist? There's no way to know. More on separation of church and state, the main purpose of the ACLJ (American Center for Law and Justice) is to protect religious Americans and others from the ACLU, which was founded by Roger Baldwin to advance communism around the world. Probably the majority of their cases center around the separation of church and state. One should remember this. If they can take Christians' rights, they can take non-Christians' rights as well.

Answer 4

Gravel speaks the certainty just to empower you, i replaced into an Obama supporter yet then I had to ask myself if the money Obama gets from his supporters that pay $500 and extra for a donation...i found out that he's no longer helping human beings like me. i could have the money for possibly $10 and that i've got a puzzling time believing that 36 Million replaced into raised from human beings like me. Gravel is sturdy persist with the money. that's the place your applicants real pursuits are shown. Gravel does not concern everyone and does not what you to be afraid or frightened. the guy has nerves of metallic!! VOTE GRAVEL 08"

Answer 5

One at a time!

Answer 6

I have to agree with them about religion because, all religion, other than the Jewish religion, which is made by God, is made by man and is man’s attempt to please their gods and control other people .All religions have rules, rituals and laws to follow. Every religion believes that they have the answers for redemption. The answer for redemption through religion, lies within man’s ability to perfectly follow it’s teachings which man can not do. Jesus is the only one who followed religion perfectly.

Jesus is God’s way to reach down to mankind with love, forgiveness, acceptance and grace. Jesus is not a religion. He is God and He is the way for man to have fellowship with God.

When we come to Jesus, we are full of the original sin nature and the sins that we have committed. He cleanses us when we accept Him as our Lord and Savior and repent of those sins.

Our redemption and salvation results from Jesus’ willful and sacrificial death on the cross to take our place for our sin nature and our sins. He is the only atonement possible because He is without sin. Jesus does it for us because we are incapable of following any religion perfectly. He did follow the law perfectly.

Coming to Jesus, not religion, is what God requires for us to become forgiven, sanctified, and have the personal relationship with God that He intended from the start. Jesus, who is God's way of showing us His love, is the only way to God because He is God.

I suppose that some of those people that you have mentioned now know this. Don't you?

Answer 7

I find it more interesting to live not knowing rather than having all the answers and then in the end finding out I was wrong.

Answer 8

Most intelligent people don't buy into religion. Those who do are rarely fanatical about it, more often hedging their bets and not devoting much time and effort to promoting it.

Answer 9

These people I respect. How eloquently phrased, and without rancour, bigotry or hate.
Smacks of common sense, but is altogether much better.

Answer 10

Interesting........where did you find them?

Edit: Brent Y, thats exactly what I was thinking but I didn't want to offend anyone.