Frances Wright Quotes

It is possible to pull out justification for imposing your will on others, simply by calling your will God's will.

But we were made to believe and not allowed to think. We were told to obey, rather than to experiment and investigate.

Christians call it faith ... I call it the herd.

The opinion formulated by the Church has more value in my eyes than human reasons, whatever they may be.

I have no time to waste on this planet being told what to do by those who think that God has given them instructions.

It is pathetic to observe how lowly the motives are that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity... To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously - these have been thought points of honor with the gods.

A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say at the age of eighteen.

Sins are indispensable to every society organized on an ecclesiastical basis; they are the only reliable weapons of power; the priest lives upon sins; it is necessary to him that there be sinning.

Many argue that Christianity is "different" from other religions - that it is primarily about love of one's fellow man. The Crusades, The Inquisition, Calvin's Geneva all prove that this is not the case. These events were pre-eminently about obedience to authority.

Kiss the feet of Popes provided their hands are tied.

Religion fosters servility and solipsism.

No despotism is so formidable as that of a religion or a scientific system.

Assent - and you are sane - Demur - and you're straightaway dangerous - and handled with a chain.

It is reported in the supplement of the council of Nicæan that the fathers, being very perplexed to know which were the cryphal or apocryphal books of the Old and New Testaments, put them all pell-mell on an altar, and the books to be rejected fell to the ground. It is a pity that this eloquent procedure has not survived.

[priests are] the pretenders to power and dominion, and to a superior sanctity of character, distinct from virtue and good morals.

Isn't the essential pillar of Catholicism papal infallibility? Well, then how can the church ever change its mind about anything unless God gets confused one day? Not all religions claim the direct authority of God speaking to their leader. You know, I'm an atheist, but I'm a Puritan atheist.

There are absolute atheists ... Absolute atheism is in no way a mere absence of belief in God. It is rather a refusal of God, a fight against God, a challenge to God.

Roman Catholics utter their Papal edicts, Protestants quote their Bible, Fundamentalists declare their orthodox theological dogmas, and we are all expected to renounce private reflection and peacefully acquiesce to these pronouncements. And the result is that the dignity of the person is violated by such oppressive, intelligence-smothering forms of communication.

That she does not crouch today where St Paul tried to bind her, she owes to the men who are grand and brave enough to ignore St Paul, and rise superior to his God.

At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world.

The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should guard against the encroachment of religion in areas where it has no place, and in particular the control of education by religious authority. The attempts to ban the teaching of evolution or other scientific theories -- a feeble echo of medieval church tyranny and hostility to learning, but an echo nonetheless are serious threats to freedom of inquiry and should be vigorously combated.

Religion is the natural reaction of the imagination when confronted by the difficulties in a truculent world.

The Ten Commandments are for lame brains. The first five are solely for the benefit of the priests and the powers that be; the second five are half truths, neither complete nor adequate.

In a sense, the religious person must have no real views of his own and it is presumptuous of him, in fact, to have any. In regard to sex-love affairs, to marriage and family relations, to business, to politics, and to virtually everything else that is important in his life, he must try to discover what his god and his clergy would like him to do; and he must primarily do their bidding.

... your spiritual teachers caution you against enquiry--tell you not to read certain books; not to listen to certain people; to beware of profane learning; to submit your reason, and to receive their doctrines for truths. Such advice renders them suspicious counsellors.