The devil and God are components of a Siamese twin. Neither has any existence apart from the other. In denying the existence of the one, Christians have helped to kill the other. If there need to be no fear of hell, people may well ask what is the attraction of heaven? Gods and devils were born together. Gods and devils will die together.

Persecution is the compliment paid by a threatened lie to a conquering truth.

It is not, after all, so very hard to acquire a fortune; the real difficulty is to deserve one.

Atheism, the absence of belief in gods, is a comparatively late phenomenon in history.

The belief in God is not therefore based on the perception of design in nature. Belief in design in nature is based upon the belief in God. Things are as they are whether there is a God or not. Logically, to believe in design one must start with God. He, or it, is not a conclusion but a datum. You may begin by assuming a creator, and then say he did this or that; but you cannot logically say that because certain things exist, therefore there is a God who made them. God is an assumption, not a conclusion. And it is an assumption that explains nothing.

We cannot start with God and deduce the universe from his existence; we must start with the world as we know it, and deduce God from the world.

Who knows the origin of religion? Certainly not the one who believes in it. Understanding and belief are quite antagonistic. The man who understands religion does not believe in it, the man who believes in it does not understand it.