"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." ~ Marcus Aurelius

"Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion...several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and then cuts his throat, if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven." -Mark Twian

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." -Carl Sagan

*
Ideas not Ideals
Secular not Sectarian
Theory not Theology
*
You have the right to speak,
You do not have the right to be heard.
*
Religion is not sacred,
It merely hijacks what is sacred to humanity.
*
Freedom of speech means nothing without
freedom of thought.
*
Evolution is scientific fact,
Natural selection is the theory.
*
Knowledge is gained from a book,
But wisdom is gained through life.

* (above personal quotes from YT'er InstinctandIntellect)
------------------------
10 Tenets Of Skepticism

by BGH

1 - I do not need the opiate they call religion, for I shall hold nothing on faith alone. I will require evidence, reason and critical thought to arrive at conclusions.

2 - Because I may know your holy book better than you does not mean I am repressing a hidden inner 'true' belief in your deity, it means that I care if what I believe is true. I will spend time and energy looking into claims to verify there is substantial reason to believe and when there is not I will abandon those beliefs.

3 - I will not only research and investigate one side of an issue, I will try to inform myself of many facets of a topic.

4 - I shall hold arguments from popularity as irrelevant. How many people believe a 'thing' does not necessitate 'truth'.

5 - I shall dismiss arguments from ignorance. Because we do not know the true cause does not infer that a supernatural or pseudo-scientific explanation is the correct one.

6 - I believe extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

7 - My systematic doubt is not a negative, it is an asset, along with continuous inquiry, for I value the truth.

8 - "We don't know", is a perfectly acceptable answer instead of a made-up one. I accept that there are limits to our knowledge at this time.

9 - I shall exhibit a joy and wonder in learning about the world while trying to keep at bay emotion driven thinking.

10 - I will question, question, question, question, question, question, question...

------------------------------ ----
"This is the era of petty kingdoms and a new dark age. But I ask you, my friends, did not we need precisely this war? Shall we be governed by injustice and superstition or shall we be governed by reason? Mankind is the animal that invented knowledge,(he has become strong through technology, because in truth, he is the weakest and most frightened animal, and this is why we are so clever) there is nothing we cannot do! Think to yourself for a second that we are just animals, and look at what promise we have, we happy few!

Take heart my friends for we shall conquer!

Ask yourself this: what kind of person needs a god, what sort of animal needs dogma?

Up here the air is crisp and clear, we are brave enough to admit our ignorance, and still have respect for each other. Down there in the cities men still Believe, but is not all that buzzing and jumping around like the deeds and words of insects?"
~ diogeneslaertius666