名人传记一（全英文）

handsomeboyUID: 2109560

由于考虑到考g是的阅读理解涉及到方方面面，大家要多看点这方面的文章。

为了大家，我上网收集了好多篇这类的文章，以后慢慢发上来，希望对大家有点作用。

谢谢。。。

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Positive Atheism's Big List of
John Adams
Quotations

   

John Adams (1735-1826)
Second President of the United States (1797-1801)



The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.
-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88), from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"

Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.
-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88), from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"

We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions ... shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power ... we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society.
-- John Adams, letter to Dr. Price, April 8, 1785, quoted from Albert Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom (1991)

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, letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching.
-- John Adams, letter to his brother-in-law, Richard Cranch, October 18, 1756, explaining why he rejected the ministry

I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself.
-- John Adams, letter to his brother-in-law, Richard Cranch, August 29, 1756, explaining how his independent opinions would create much difficulty in the ministry, in Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation (1987) p. 88, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"

When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.
-- John Adams, from Rufus K. Noyes, Views of Religion, quoted from from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents.
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 3, 1813, quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

Cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires.
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 16, 1814, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits.... Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters? If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola's. Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 5, 1816

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
-- John Adams, letter to his son, John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

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!
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, from George Seldes, The Great Quotations, also from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, 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 legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.
-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814, quoted in Norman Cousins, In God We Trust: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers (1958), p. 108, quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

The Church of Rome has made it an article of faith that no man can be saved out of their church, and all other religious sects approach this dreadful opinion in proportion to their ignorance, and the influence of ignorant or wicked priests.
-- John Adams, Diary and Autobiography

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 forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because of suspected heresy? Remember the Index Expurgato-rius, the Inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter, and the guillotine; and, oh! horrible, the rack! This is as bad, if not worse, than a slow fire. Nor should the Lion's Mouth be forgotten. Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years.
-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814, quoted by Norman Cousins in In God We Trust: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 106-7, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.
-- John Adams, "this awful blashpemy" that he refers to is the myth of the Incarnation of Christ, from Ira D. Cardiff, What Great Men Think of Religion, quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude....
     Of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve ... the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from episcopal fingers.
-- John Adams, "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law," printed in the Boston Gazette, August 1765

We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated. Adieu.
-- John Adams, one of his last letters to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825. Adams was 90, Jefferson 81 at the time; both died on July 4th of the following year, on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. From Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 234. Quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church."



Wilson: Early Presidents Not Religious

"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [Washington; Adams; Jefferson; Madison; Monroe; Adams; Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity....
     "Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism."
     -- The Reverend Doctor Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, in a sermon preached in October, 1831,; first sentence quoted in John E. Remsberg, "Six Historic Americans," second sentence quoted in Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, pp. 14-15




The Treaty of Tripoli
Signed by John Adams

"As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries....
     "The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation."
          -- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams (the original language is by Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul)




Oft-Misquoted Adams Quip

     • Load This Section With Frames Index

What you see in a great many atheistic quotes lists:

This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it!!!
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson (see Jefferson's reply)


What Adams was saying, in its actual context:

Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell.
-- John Adams, quoted from Charles Francis Adams, ed., Works of John Adams (1856), vol. X, p. 254


John Adams is here describing to Thomas Jefferson what he sees as an emotion-based ejaculatory thought that keeps coming to him. This was not his reasoned opinion. Although John Adams often felt an urge to advocate atheism as a popular world view (because of the sheer abuses perpetrated by religious charlatans), he was of the firm and reasoned opinion (basically undisputed in his day) that religion is essential to the goal of keeping the masses in line.

This slander against atheists is still somewhat popular today, widespread acknowledgement of its falsehood notwithstanding.

Thus, Adams was not above presenting such travesties as his National Day of Prayer and Fasting proclamation. These acts reflected his view that the masses needed religion to keep this world from becoming a bedlam. However, Adams, like Washington and Jefferson, did not apply this reasoning to himself -- as we can plainly see from the quotations in the main section: religion was good for the masses but not for John Adams, who was above all that and needed no piety in order to maintain his own sense of civility.

Positive Atheism Magazine's Big List of Quotations asks all atheist and separationist web sites to remove this quip from their quotes collections unless they are willing to show it for what it is, in its full context complete with explanation.




Biographical sketches, source citations, notes, critical editing, layout, and HTML formatting are copyright © 1996-2002, by Cliff Walker. editor@positiveatheism.org

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Positive Atheism's Big List of Quotations
Associations

  American Association of School Administrators

If your school district is concerned about appropriate ways to include teaching about religions in your school curriculum, here are some important considerations:

The study of religions in public schools is permitted by the Constitution as long as the subject matter is presented objectively as part of a secular program of education.
Teachers of religion courses should be sensitive to varying beliefs of their students.
The First Amendment does not forbid all mention of religion in the public schools. It does prohibit the advancement or inhibition of religion.
Public schools are not required to delete from their curriculum materials that may offend any religious sensibility.
The decision to include -- or exclude -- material from the curriculum must be based on secular, not religious, reasons.
The material must be presented objectively.
Religion should be taught with the same care and discipline as other academic courses.
Schools should be especially sensitive to the developmental differences between elementary and secondary school students. Subjects or teaching methods that may be appropriate for secondary students may not be appropriate for younger children.
     -- quoted from The Great Quotations On Religious Freedom compiled by Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr.




The American Baptist Bill of Rights

Believing religious liberty to be not only an inalienable human right, but indispensable to human welfare ... Baptists condemn every form of compulsion in religion or restraint of the free consideration of the claims of religion.
-- The American Baptist Bill of Rights. The Road to Freedom of Religion, 1944 Rufus W. Weaver (ed.) pp. 17-18 (This statement was approved by four U.S. Baptist denominations in 1939. Quoted from The Great Quotations On Religious Freedom compiled by Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr.)




American Jewish Congress

The principle of separation of church and state as a foundation of our constitutional system has always meant that religion is outside the recognition and sphere of the political government and that the state has no constitutional power to enter alliances with churches and other religious bodies.
-- November 19, 1951, quoted from The Great Quotations On Religious Freedom compiled by Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr.




American Lutheran Church

Laws mandating voluntary prayer in the public schools are unnecessary. Moreover, were the state to mandate such prayer, it would be no longer genuinely voluntary ... Devotional exercises to cultivate and nurture the religious faith of young people do not belong in the schools, but in the home and the church.
-- Resolution adopted, October 1984, quoted from Menendez and Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom




Americans for Religious Liberty

We believe in the American tradition of religious and intellectual freedom within a secular democratic state. We believe in the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison which gave birth to this tradition. We believe in the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights which make it the law of the land.
     In this time of political, religious and moral confusion we re-affirm our commitment to this tradition and call upon all Americans to do the same.

A free and secular democratic state guarantees religious liberty. It guarantees equal freedom to the religious and the non-religious. It makes religious faith a private matter and gives no special privileges to any religious idea or practice. Both prayers sponsored by public schools and public aid to private schools are violations of its integrity.
     A free and secular democratic state promotes good citizenship. It fosters respect for the law and respect for the rights and dignity of all citizens. It establishes a free and religiously neutral system of public education. It provides for moral instruction in the public schools through the use of reason and common sense. It encourages religious and other private institutions to reinforce these values in accordance with their own religious beliefs.
     A free and secular democratic state values education in science. It recognizes that a strong country needs citizens who are trained in the methods of science and makes it available through public institutions. Since it protects the integrity of science and free inquiry it refuses to allow public school classrooms to be used for religious indoctrination. It especially defends the integrity of modern biology. The evolution of life is science. It is more than speculation. It is an established truth, which over one hundred years of biological research has confirmed.
     A free and secular democratic state supports intellectual freedom. It encourages free speech and open discussion. It recognizes that creative and useful ideas emerge from controversy. It protects public schools and public libraries from arbitrary censorship.
     A free and secular democratic state secures personal freedom and privacy. It defends the individual against the tyranny of transient majorities or determined minorities. It allows all people to follow their own consciences and restrains them only when they harm the public welfare. It makes abortion and sexual behavior between consenting adults issues of personal choice.
     A free and secular democratic state provides equal dignity for all. It refuses to place any ethnic, racial, religious, sex or age limitation on the enjoyment of rights and privileges. It deplores any effort to deny women equal status with men.
     A free and secular democratic state defends the independence of its court system. It resists any attempt to strip the courts of their authority to review controversial legislation. It affirms the truth that a good democracy is a constitutional democracy.
     A free and secular democratic state is the traditional American guarantee of religious, intellectual and moral freedom.
     In a world where many voices of extremism seek to subvert freedom, we need to be voices of reason and to rally to its support.
     -- Statement of Principles, 1982, from Menendez and Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom




Central Conference of American Rabbis

Religion flourishes best when it is free of political alliances.
-- 1962, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

We believe that in any decision whether or not to terminate pregnancy, the individual family or woman must weigh the tradition as they struggle to formulate their own religious and moral criteria to reach their own personal decision ... We believe that the proper locus for formulating these religious and moral criteria and for making this decision must be the individual family or woman and not the state or other external agency.
     As we would not impose the historic position of Jewish teaching upon individuals nor legislate it as normative for society at large, so we would not wish the position of any other group imposed upon the Jewish community or the general population.
     We affirm the legal right of a family or a woman to determine on the basis of their or her own religious and moral values whether or not to terminate a particular pregnancy. We reject all constitutional amendments which would abridge or circumscribe this right.
     -- quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom


On Creationism in School Textbooks

Whereas the principles and concepts of biological evolution are basic to understanding science; and
     Whereas students who are not taught these principles, or who hear "creationism" presented as a scientific alternative, will not be receiving an education based on modern scientific knowledge; and
     Whereas these students' ignorance about evolution will seriously undermine their understanding of the world and the natural laws governing it, and their introduction to other explanations described as "scientific" will give them false ideas about scientific methods and criteria,
     Therefore be it resolved that the Central Conference of American Rabbis commend the Texas State Board of Education for affirming the constitutional separation of Church and State, and the principle that no group, no matter how large or small, may use the organs of government, of which the public schools are among the most conspicuous and influential, to foist its religious beliefs on others;
     Be it further resolved that we call upon publishers of science textbooks to reject those texts that clearly distort the integrity of science and to treat other explanations of human origins for just what they are -- beyond the realm of science;
     Be it further resolved that we call upon science teachers and local school authorities in all states to demand quality textbooks that are based on modern, scientific knowledge and that exclude 'scientific' creationism;
     Be it further resolved that we call upon parents and other citizens concerned about the quality of science education in the public schools to urge their Boards of Education, publishers, and science teachers to implement these needed reforms.
     -- 95th Annual Convention, 1984, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom




Cincinnati Board of Education

Religious instruction and the reading of religious books, including the Holy Bible, are prohibited in the common schools of Cincinnati. The children of the parents of all sects and opinions, in matters of faith and worship, are to enjoy alike the benefit of the common school fund.
-- Resolution, 1869, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom




Episcopal Church

We insist that the use of religious radio and TV and local pulpits in support of particular candidates in the name of God distorts Christian truth and threatens American religious freedom.
     Our refusal to entangle religion in partisan politics, and our wariness of contemporary movements that do, is rooted in a wise American tradition of avoiding the almost certain risk of political tyranny in the name of God.
     -- House of Bishops, pastoral letter, October 8, 1980

     Whereas, the state legislatures of several states have recently passed socalled "balanced treatment" laws requiring the teaching of "Creation-science" whenever evolutionary models are taught; and
     Whereas, in many other states political pressures are developing for such "balanced treatment" laws; and
     Whereas, the terms "Creationism" and "Creation-science" as understood in these laws do not refer simply to the affirmation that God created the Earth and Heavens and everything in them, but specify certain methods and timing of the creative acts, and impose limits on these acts which are neither scriptural nor accepted by many Christians; and
     Whereas, the dogma of "Creationism" and "Creation-science" as understood in the above contexts has been discredited by scientific and theologic studies and rejected in the statements of many church leaders; and
     Whereas, "Creationism" and "Creation-science" is not limited to just the origin of life, but intends to monitor public school courses, such as biology, life science, anthropology, sociology, and often also English, physics, chemistry, world history, philosophy, and social studies; therefore be it
     Resolved, that the 67th General Convention affirm the glorious ability of God to create in any manner, whether men understand it or not, and in this affirmation reject the limited insight and rigid dogmatism of the "Creationist" movement, and be it further
     Resolved, that we affirm our support of the sciences and educators and of the Church and theologians in their search for truth in this Creation that God has given and intrusted to us; and be it further
     Resolved, that the Presiding Bishop appoint a Committee to organize Episcopalians and to cooperate with all Episcopalians to encourage actively their state legislators not to be persuaded by arguments and pressures of the "Creationists" into legislating any form of "balanced treatment" laws or any law requiring the teaching of "Creation-science."
     -- 67th General Convention, 1982




• National Research Council
• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• National Science Teachers Association

The Kansas standards effectively eliminated consideration of any aspects of evolution that examine the origins of the Earth and life and processes that may give rise to the formation of new species ... (and) adopted a position that is contrary to modern science.
-- joint statement in response to the Kansas Board of Education's 1998 move to restrict the teaching of evolution and to promote biblical creationism, quoted from Morris Sullivan. "CREATIONISM: Monkeying With Science Education," in Impact Press (December, 1999-January, 2000)




National Academy of Sciences

Many scientific explanations have been so thoroughly tested and confirmed that they are held with great confidence. The theory of evolution is one of these well-established explanations. An enormous amount of scientific investigation since the mid-19th century has converted early ideas about evolution proposed by Darwin and others into a strong and well-supported theory. Today, evolution is an extremely active field of research, with an abundance of new discoveries that are continually increasing our understanding of how evolution occurs.
-- statement in response to the Kansas Board of Education's 1998 move to restrict the teaching of evolution and to promote biblical creationism, quoted from Morris Sullivan. "CREATIONISM: Monkeying With Science Education," in Impact Press (December, 1999-January, 2000)




Biographical sketches, source citations, notes, critical editing, layout, and HTML formatting are copyright © 1996-2002, by Cliff Walker. editor@positiveatheism.org

[ Last edited by handsomeboy on 2005-6-23 at 00:24 ]

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Positive Atheism's Big List of
Ambrose Bierce
Quotations

    Ambrose Gwinett Bierce (1842-1914?)
American writer, characterized by his caustic wit and sense of realistic horror

     • Continue with Alphabetically Sequenced Quotations

Some heathens whose Idol was greatly weatherworn threw it into a river, and erecting a new one, engaged in public worship at its base.
    "What is this all about?" inquired the New Idol.
    "Father of Joy and Gore," said the High Priest, "be patient and I will instruct you in the doctrines and rites of our holy religion."
    A year later, after a course of study in theology, the Idol asked to be thrown into the river, declaring himself an atheist.
    "Do not let that trouble you," said the High Priest -- "so am I."
-- Ambrose Bierce, "Two Sceptics," Fantastic Fables

Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.
-- Ambrose Bierce, Collected Works (1912)

Nothing is more logical than persecution. Religious tolerance is a kind of infidelity.
-- Ambrose Bierce, Collected Works (1912), quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

Theology is a thing of unreason altogether, an edifice of assumption and dreams, a superstructure without a substructure.
-- Ambrose Bierce, Collected Works (1912), quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

Camels and Christians receive their burdens kneeling.
-- Ambrose Bierce, quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief




Entries in The Devil's Dictionary:

Academy, n. A modern school where football is taught.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Adore, v. To venerate expectantly.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Altar, n. The place whereon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female fool.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Bigot, n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Brahma, n. He who created the Hindoos, who are preserved by Vishnu and destroyed by Siva -- a rather nearer division of labor than is found among the deities of some other nations. The Abracadabranese, for example, are created by Sin, maintained by Theft and destroyed by Folly. The priests of Brahma, like those of the Abracadabranese, are holy and learned men who are never naughty.
     O Brahma, thou rare old Divinity,
     First Person of the Hindoo Trinity,
     You sit there so calm and securely,
     With feet folded up so demurely --
     You're the First Person Singular, surely.
               Polydore Smith
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Caaba, n. A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Clairvoyant, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is a blockhead.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Clergyman, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Convent, n. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Deluge, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Delusion, n. The tither of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-Denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Embalm, v. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his neighbor's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long inutility. We shall get him after awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime the violet and the rose are languishing for a nibble at his glutaeus maximus.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Evangelist, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbours.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Excommunication, n. ... Damning, with bell, book and candle / Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal. / A rite permitting Satan to enslave him / Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something he can see and feel.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Houri, n. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Immortality, n.
     A toy which people cry for,
     And on their knees apply for,
     Dispute, contend and lie for,
          And if allowed
          Would be right proud
     Eternally to die for.
                    G.J.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Impale, v.t. In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound. This, however, is inaccurate; to impale is, properly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the body, the victim being left in a sitting position. This was a common mode of punishment among many of the nations of antiquity, and is still in high favor in China and other parts of Asia. Down to the beginning of the fifteenth century it was widely employed in "churching" heretics and schismatics. Wolecraft calls it the "stoole of repentynge," and among the common people it was jocularly known as "riding the one legged horse." Ludwig Salzmann informs us that in Thibet impalement is considered the most appropriate punishment for crimes against religion; and although in China it is sometimes awarded for secular offences, it is most frequently adjudged in cases of sacrilege. To the person in actual experience of impalement it must be a matter of minor importance by what kind of civil or religious dissent he was made acquainted with its discomforts; but doubtless he would feel a certain satisfaction if able to contemplate himself in the character of a weather-cock on the spire of the True Church.

Impiety, n. Your irreverence toward my deity.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

[Excerpt]
Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911), seen in James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief, seen elsewhere

[Passage]
Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. (See Giaour.) A kind of scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to, divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs, voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, nuns, missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests, muezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders, primates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries, clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs, bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans, deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons, hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins, postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons, reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains, mudjoes, readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas, sacristans, vergers, dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals, prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and pumpums.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Irreligion, n. The principal one of the great faiths of the world.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Koran, n. A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Mammon (riches), n. The god of the world's leading religion.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Patriotism, n. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Piety, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man. The pig is taught by sermons and epistles / To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Rack, n. An argumentative implement formerly much used in persuading devotees of a false faith to embrace the living truth.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Redemption, n. Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned. The doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy religion, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Reliquary, n. A receptacle for such sacred objects as pieces of the true cross, short-ribs of saints, the ears of Balaam's ass, the lung of the cock that called Peter to repentance, and so forth. Reliquaries are commonly of metal, and provided with a lock to prevent the contents from coming out and performing miracles at unseasonable times.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Reprobation, n. In theology, the state of a luckless mortal prenatally damned. The doctrine of reprobation was taught by Calvin, whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, others are predestined to salvation.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Revelation, n. A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Reverence, n. The spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Theosophy, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science. The modern Theosophist holds, with the Buddhists, that we live an incalculable number of times on this earth, in as many several bodies, because one life is not long enough for our complete spiritual development; that is, a single lifetime does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose to wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good -- that is perfection; and the Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that everything desirous of improvement eventually attains perfection. Less competent observers are disposed to except cats, which seem neither wiser nor better than they were last year. The greatest and fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky, who had no cat.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Trinity, n. In the multiplex theism of certain Christian churches, three entirely distinct deities consistent with only one. Subordinate deities of the polytheistic faith, such as devils and angels, are not dowered with the power of combination, and must urge individually their clames to adoration and propitiation. The Trinity is one of the most sublime mysteries of our holy religion. In rejecting it because it is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray their inadequate sense of theological fundamentals. In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible one. In that case we believe the former as a part of the latter.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)




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