You find as you look around the world that every single bit of human progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is, the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not a Christian pp 20-21
There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that he believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to his preaching – an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers, but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence. You do not, for instance find that attitude in Socrates. You find him quite bland and urbane toward the people who would not listen to him; and it is, to my mind, far more worthy of a sage to take that line than to take the line of indignation. ibid.
The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be believed only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called faith. Robert G Ingersoll
The old beliefs will be brought back to honour again. The whole secret knowledge of nature, of the divine, the demonic. We will wash off the Christian veneer and bring out a religion peculiar to our race. Adolf Hitler
Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter. Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
The Christian religion and Masonry have one and the same common origin: both are derived from the worship of the Sun. The difference between their origin is, that the Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun. ibid.
There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing, and predatory as it is – in our country particularly and in all other Christian countries in a somewhat modified degree – it is still a hundred times better than the Christianity of the Bible, with its prodigious crime – the invention of Hell. Measured by our Christianity of to-day, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the Deity nor his Son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilled. Mark Twain, Autobiography
Millions of men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth. Thomas Jefferson
The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw in the mysticisms of Plato materials with which they might build up an artificial system, which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order and introduce it to profit, power and preeminence. Thomas Jefferson
I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies. Thomas Jefferson
Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man. Thomas Jefferson
[W]e may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law. Thomas Jefferson
The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion. George Washington
‘No place’ in the law for Christianity: There is no place in British law for Christian beliefs ... two High Court judges said yesterday. Daily Telegraph article 1st March 2011
cf.
We’re a Christian nation; we were founded that way. In God We Trust? Robin Dyer, preacher
It’s time for America to quit pretending we’re not Christian. Dr David Gibbs, Christian Law Association
Christianity is part of the laws of England. Matthew Hale, 1609-76, English judge
I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved – the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history. John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson September 1816
The ‘divinity’ of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find Christianity encumbered with.
The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation where or when has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate a free inquiry? ... The most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hands, and fly into your face and eyes. John Adams
As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed? John Adams, December 1816
What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where are fifty gospels, condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are the forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because suspected of heresy? Remember the ‘Index Expurgatorius’, the Inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter and the guillotine. John Adams
Fundamentalist Christianity is on the rise among the electorate of the world’s only superpower, right up to and including the president ... Fundamentalist American Christianity is attacking science, but what is it offering instead? A mirror-image of Islamic extremism: an American Taliban. Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil? The God Delusion, Channel 4 2006
And I want to show how the scriptural roots of the Judeo-Christian moral edifice are cruel and brutish. Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil? The Virus of Faith
They long for nuclear war. Because nuclear war will presage the second coming of Christ. Richard Dawkins, Freethought Radio interview September 2006
Christianity has always been peculiarly judgemental about what people get up to in the bedroom. Richard Dawkins, Sex, Death and The Meaning of Life I: Sin, Channel 4 2012
The Cambridge archaeologist Colin Renfrew suggests that Christianity survived by a form of group selection because it fostered the idea of in-group loyalty and in-group brotherly love. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion p170
I have described atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sadomasochistic and repellent. We should also dismiss it as barking mad, but for its ubiquitous familiarity which has dulled our objectivity. ibid. p253
Not the first time in the world that a sort of sickly Christian passivity has been preached in the face of Fascist dictatorship. Christopher Hitchens v Tony Blair: Is Religion a Force for Good in the World? 2010
The Bishop of Carlisle [COE] recently ... said that the floods in northern Yorkshire that devastated a large part of England in the summer, and killed and dispossessed a large number of people, were punishment for homosexuality. To connect meteorology to morality seems to me I have to say flat-out idiotic. Christopher Hitchens
Why don’t we give God a son and murder him cruelly in an illiterate part of the Middle-East. That ought to solve it. That’s what you have to believe to be a Christian. Christopher Hitchens, Collision: Christopher Hitchens v Douglas Wilson
I’m told I have to have a share in this human sacrifice even though it took place long before I was born. I had no say in it happening. I wasn’t consulted about it. Had I been present I would have been bound to do my best to stop the public torture and execution of the eccentric teacher. Christopher Hitchens v Alister McGrath, Georgetown University Washington, 2007
Only when gentle Jesus meek and mild makes his appearance are those who won’t accept the message are told they must depart into everlasting fire. ibid.