If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.

We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.

One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human pre-history where nobody - not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms - had the smallest idea what was going on.

Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, religion no longer offers an explanation for anything important.

Knowing that we are primates, I think, is a fascinating discovery, and a very interesting and rather cheering one.

The museums of medieval Europe, from Holland to Tuscany, are crammed with instruments and devices upon which the holy men labored devoutly, in order to see how long they could keep someone alive while being roasted. It is not needful to go into further details, but there were also religious books of instruction in this art, and guides for the detection of heresy by pain.

There are all kinds of stupid people that annoy me but what annoys me most is a lazy argument.