Religion 1-Liners

A collection of short quips making strong points

These will not shake the faith of any believers, but it may give them some insight into how nonbelievers think about religion.

Seneca the Younger 4 BC - 65 CE
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

Bertrand Russell
And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.

George Bernard Shaw
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

Unknown
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.

Gene Roddenberry
We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.

Richard Lederer
There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.

Steven Weinberg
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Carl Sagan
You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe.

unknown
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.

unknown
Man created God in his image: intolerant, sexist, homophobic and violent.

Albert Einstein
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Napoleon Bonaparte
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

Carl Sagan
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

John Adams
The Government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion.

Voltaire
Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities.

Thomas Jefferson
I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.

unknown
People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs.

Benjamin Franklin
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?

Coral Yoshi
So you really think that God would plant a bunch of bones in the earth to test your faith? Either you're in denial or God has some serious self-esteem issues.

Arthur C. Clarke
I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent.

H. L. Mencken
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

Napoleon Bonaparte
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

Karl Marx
Religion is the opium of the masses.