Reason/s & Belief

Religion has always aimed to smooth the sufferer's passage to the next world, not to save him for this world.

what men have hitherto attributed to the gods are nothing but the ideals they value and grope for in themselves

Just as the fundamental principle of justice is outraged when a man or an institution is condemned by jurist or popular opinion when an opportunity is not given to present the facts on both aspects of the case, just so is no man justified in making a decision between theism and atheism until he becomes acquainted with both sides of the controversy.

Societies that prioritize private liberty to excess, that let individuals accumulate all the powers they can, find that vast inequalities emerge. Those inequalities congeal into hierarchical social classes and rigid castes and severely restrict freedom of opportunity for all but the privileged and wealthy.

regardless of any cultural pieties that stand stubbornly in the way

Balancing liberty and justice in healthy proportions is wiser than naively supposing that both can be maximized

Any list of principles and ideals from humanist manifestos and resolutions at most affirm priorities for constant vigilance and standards that work for humanistic cultures so far.

people hundreds of years in the future will find fault with our ways

Even our moral successes today will be regarded as immoral compromises by distant generations; they’ll point to our fine ideals, our imperfect reach, and our impotent blindness.

Humanism can’t respect blind cultural piety, but it does recognize that religion is hardly the only source of oppression.

I describe humanism as acting in the best interest of all those we know exist.

two good reasons to be a humanist: altruism and enlightened self-interest

I help others simply because I want them to be happy and not have to suffer

because I want to live in a world where I would be helped

compassion

Empathy

solidarity

We must treat others as our equals in order to ensure a balanced world.

No one deserves to be treated better or worse than someone else.

It is through our impact on others, how we will be remembered, and whether or not we make the world a better place, even just for some, that we will achieve any true lasting "immortality."

We live on in the hearts and minds of those who we loved and loved us, those whose lives we made better

we should try to make the earth better for everybody

like a star over the horizon, it is a direction that we can move towards

critical liberal intellectual

honorary president of the American Humanist Association

known for his humanist beliefs

eight rules for writing a short story:

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.

Start as close to the end as possible.

No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

Write to please just one person.

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense.

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.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

Eskimo:"If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"

Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies.

"I don't see any god up here" - Yuri Gagarin - first man in space, while in space.

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

Since no one really knows anything about God, those who think they do are just troublemakers.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfullly as when they do it from a religious conviction

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.

Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did.

Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.

My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it either.

Among theologians, heretics are those who are not backed with a sufficient array of battalions to render them orthodox.

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.

A theologian is like a blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat which isn't there - and finding it!

All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.

Faith, if it is ever right about anything, is right by accident

The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.