“How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few his precepts!
O! ’tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.”
— Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1757.
“Jesus wasn’t a Christian, and he never preached in a church. He was also a drinker, and liked to hang out with sinners. We think of him very highly in the Church of Stop Shopping. We put him right up there with Lenny Bruce.”
— Reverend Billy
“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”
— Lenny Bruce (or, these days, tiny syringes.)
“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”
— Lenny Bruce
“Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than going to the garage makes you a car.”
— Dr. Laurence J. Peter
“Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?”
— Jules Feiffer
“Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.”
— Butch Hancock
“To hear many religious people talk, one would think God created the torso, head, legs and arms, but the devil slapped on the genitals.”
— Don Schrader
“Christian fundamentalism: the doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe-spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.”
— Andrew Lias
“The problem with fundamentalists insisting on a literal interpretation of the Bible is that the meaning of words change. A prime example is ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’ A rod was a stick used by shepherds to guide their sheep to go in the desired direction. Shepherds did not use it to beat their sheep. The proper translation of the saying is ‘Give your child guidance, or they will go astray.’ It does not mean ‘Beat the shit out of your child or he will become rotten’ as many fundamentalist parents seem to believe.”
— Author Unknown
“I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’ ‘Then why,’ asked the Eskimo earnestly, ‘did you tell me?'”
— Annie Dillard
“Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he’ll starve to death while praying for a fish.”
— Author Unknown
“Most sermons sound to me like commercials — but I can’t make out whether God is the Sponsor or the Product.”
— Mignon McLaughlin, “The Second Neurotic’s Notebook,” 1966.
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