All in a Day's Work

Have been busy preparing for the big day (Actually two days) on the 22nd and 25th for the past two weeks. Therefore, I shall enjoy my local vacation till the end of the week.

Cheers!

Was given an introduction to Nichiren Buddhism yesterday night by Weizhang. It's good to know that many religions in the East are still promoting peace and self-improvement, very much retaining the essence and roots of religion. I guess the benefits of being a clear thinker allows me to comprehend and appreciate the finer points of every religion.

On Religion

Some quotes by famous (or not-so-famous) people

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities -- Voltaire

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful -- Seneca

What excellent fools religion makes of men! -- Ben Jonson

They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than the truth as authority -- Gerald Massey (Egyptologist)

Faith means not wanting to know what is true -- Friedrich Nietzsche

The urge to save humanity is almost always a falseface for the urge to rule it -- H.L. Mencken

Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief -- James Russell Lowell

War has been used by religious leaders and followers alike as a way of justifyi8ng their own greed, power, and stupidity -- Senator Wayne Morse

Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant, a robber baron is better than an inquisitor -- C.S. Lewis (religious writer)

In the long run, the most unpleasant truth is a safer companion than a pleasant falsehood -- Theodore Roosevelt

I believe in an America where the separation of Church and State is absolute -- John F. Kennedy

If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors, but witchdoctors, no transport faster than a horse, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? -- Richard Dawkins

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion -- Aristotle

There is much in the Bible against which every instinct of my being rebels -- Helen Keller

There is nothing more negative than the result of the critical study of the life of Jesus -- Albert Schweitzer

It is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason -- Mary Wollstonecraft

Missionaries are perfect nuisances and leave every place worse than they found it -- Charles Dickens

They came with a Bible and their religion--stole our land, crushed our spiritŠand now they tell us we should be thankful to the "Lord" for being saved -- Chief Pontiac

If by "God," one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... It does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity -- Carl Sagan

I believe in a wall of separation between church and state so high that no one can climb over it -- Sam Ervin

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private schools, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separated -- Ulysses S. Grant

The first clergyman was the first sly rogue who encountered the first fool -- Voltaire

What excellent fools religion makes of men! -- Ben Jonson

Far more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion -- C.P. Snow

Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's? -- Friedrich Nietzsche

I was born a heretic. I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows -- Susan B. Anthony

For who is to tell you the truth?ŠNo one. You must search it out yourself! The department of war will not tell you. Certainly the church isn't going to tell you the truth. Search in all obscure placesŠnot the established high towers and cathedrals for the answers -- William Allen White (editor)

The motive of fear is the be-all and the end-all of religion -- H.L. Mencken

To free a man from error is to give, not take away -- Arthur Schopenhauer

All religions die of one disease--that of being found out -- Joan Morley

When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life -- -Sigmund Freud

And of all the plagues with which mankind are cursed, ecclesiastical tyranny's the worst -- Daniel De Foe

If I had my way, the world would hear a pretty stern command -- exit Christ -- Thomas Carlyle

We were not delivered into this planet by some god, but have come forth from it. We are its eyes and mind, its seeing and thinking -- Joseph Campbell

Finding that no religion is based on facts and cannot therefore be true, I began to reflect what must be the condition of mankind trained from infancy to believe in error -- Robert Owen

Our human ancestors thought long and hard on who and what they were and came up with the best explanations they could make. The frightening thing is that we--almost at the end of the 20th century, entering the space age becoming a society based on knowledge, are still hanging onto those explanations, which date back to our stone age -- Gene Roddenberry

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free -- Charles Evans Hughes

As long as there is poverty, there will be gods -- Will Durant

In all countries, religion or superstition is closely related with crime -- Havelock Ellis

Religion and its practices have consistently been one of women's fiercest enemies. The fact that many women do not realize this shows how thorough the brainwashing and intimidation have been -- Arnold Toynbee

The Bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton