“And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this artificial scaffolding...

{Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823}”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years.

Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks 'That's enough of that. It's time to intervene,' and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person.

Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either.

It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy.

And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.”
― Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

“Why should I have to hide the fact that I don't believe there’s a supreme being? There’s no proof of it. There’s no harm in saying you’re an atheist. It doesn't mean you treat people any differently. I live by the Golden Rule to do unto others, as you'd want to be treated.

I just simply don't believe in religion, and I don’t believe necessarily that there’s a supreme being that watches over all of us. I follow the teachings of George Carlin. George said he worshipped the sun. He was a fellow atheist. I’m in good company … Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Charles Darwin. It’s not like I’m not with good company and intelligent people. There have been some good, intelligent atheists who have lived in the world.”
― Jesse Ventura

“Is it not He whose immortal hand... has written there the death sentence of tyrants? He did not create kings to devour the human race. He did not create priests to harness us, like vile animals, to the chariots of kings and to give to the world examples of baseness, pride, perfidy, avarice, debauchery and falsehood. He created the universe to proclaim His power.

[The Cult of the Supreme Being]”
― Maximilien de Robespierre

“The purest form of thanksgiving unto God is a reflected in our knowledge and understanding about who He is, not what we receive from Him! Thanksgiving is a continuous celebration of God's awesome nature and Supreme Being!”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Daily Drive 365

“Current research in any field of Science has not yet reached the point where we could start exploring the existential question regarding God as a Supreme Entity driving causality in the universe. However, as modern Neuroscience progresses further and gets more advanced, we shall get to dive deeper into the physiological processes underneath the Qualia of God in human mind. What we have seen so far through our studies in Neurotheology, is that it is not God himself/herself/itself, rather it is people’s perception of God that influences the human life. The Qualia of God impact all aspects of human life by altering the body chemistry at a cellular level.”
― Abhijit Naskar, What is Mind?

“If you're claiming to be the Supreme Being (even if you're not doing a very good job at it), I wish you were a bit more mentally mature.”
― Carlo Zen, 幼女戦記 (1) Deus lo vult

“Who can know the mind of God?”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“Belief in God puts our life on autopilot. We know that someone up there is watching us and is in control. Losing our faith puts off the autopilot, we have to run it manually, and check if everything is alright for ourselves. No wonder religion has a wide appeal; most of us are lazy and would like a supreme being to be in charge”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity

“Fate’ and ‘coincidence’ are the mythological derivatives authored by those who refuse to see a ‘greater purpose’, because such a conclusion would naturally suggest a ‘Greater Being’.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Seasons are set by the Supreme Being.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Surrender means taking refuge in the Supreme Being.”
― Shiva Negi

“The Supreme Being longs to hear His Children talk to Him every day at any time.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“The light is flame of life.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“There is but one supremacy... and it remains known and unknown to it's human creation... of many hues, shapes and sizes.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“An atheist is essentially a person who believes in a rational world that works on the basis of certain natural laws without any interference from any `Supreme Being` or God.”
― Awdhesh Singh, Myths are Real, Reality is a Myth

“Nothing is permanent; good or bad time, good or bad relationship, good or bad people; but one, the supreme being.”
― Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma, Krishna Crux

“Life is about realizing oneself as a divine being with Supreme consciousness.”
― Shiva Negi

“The man of self-knowledge transcends life and death and lives in the ecstasy of Supreme consciousness.”
― Shiva Negi

“Life is meant for realizing one's own true Self (Atman) in the Supreme Consciousness (God).”
― Shiva Negi

“Life is meant to realize your True Self (Atman) in the form of Supreme Consciousness (God), and be immortal and blissful forever.”
― Shiva Negi

“An ignorant man seeks peace of mind in solitude, but an enlightened man finds eternal peace in the soul even in the midst of war.”
― Shiva Negi

“Spirituality is the realization of your true self as the Divine and become one with the Supreme Being.”
― Shiva Negi

“Life is a heaven on earth in the attainment of God with higher consciousness.”
― Shiva Negi

“स्वयं के प्रति सच्चा होना आत्मा को उजागर करने की सबसे बड़ी शक्ति है।”
― Shiva Negi

“All suffering is the price of life. All suffering must be in balance with all beauty. The pessimistic view is more an expression of the individual state of mind (outlook) than the external state of affairs (“objective reality”). According to Kant, the will is the universal legislator. Similarly, we can equate pure reason to the Supreme Being (essence) and practical reason to a plurality or multiplicity (the world, existence).”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“The true form of worship is surrender.”
― Shiva Negi

“The best way to attain self-knowledge is to surrender yourself to the Supreme Being.”
― Shiva Negi

“To realize your true self is to surrender yourself to the Supreme Being.”
― Shiva Negi