Atheists From The United States

"There’s nothing quite so pernicious as wishful thinking."

"Her audacity turned him on. There was nobody quite so arousing, he decided, as a worthy opponent."

"I am the Father of Lies. Over the years, my children have done me proud. I shouldn’t play favorites, but I am especially pleased with “The meek shall inherit the earth.” Likewise, I shall always retain a soft spot in my heart for “Every cloud has a silver lining.” As for “Time heals all wounds” and “Whenever God closes a door, He opens a window”—they, too, make me gloat unconscionably."

"“I knew this guy one, a demac on the Amoco Cádiz, dying of bone cancer. You know what he said? ‘When they give you morphine like there’s no tomorrow, there isn’t.’”"

"Say “rationalist” to the average New Age chucklehead, and you conjured up unappetizing images: killjoys obsessed with rules, boors fixated on order, logic-mongers skating around on the surface of things, missing the cosmic essence. Phooey. A rationalist could experience awe as readily as a shaman. But it had to be quality awe, Oliver believed, awe without illusions—the sort of awe he’d felt upon intuiting the size of the universe, or sensing the unlikeliness of his birth."

"“I don’t see you at Mass anymore.” “It’s like fucking, Father. You gotta be up for it.”"

"Life’s meaning doesn’t come from God! Life’s meaning comes from life!"

"A corpse was far too easy a thing to rationalize. Christianity had been doing it for two thousand years."

"As usual, He underestimated the human potential for self-deception."

"It was the most portentous mission since Saul of Tarsus has suffered an epileptic seizure and called it Christianity."

"Sweetie, if I’ve learned anything during my ten years at sea, it’s this. Never confuse your captain with God."

"That maxim, it’s not an argument against atheism—it’s an argument against foxholes."

"Somehow his grandfather had wrought an honorable and glamorous life from the sea. But that era was gone. The system was dying. Advising a young man to join the United States Merchant Marine was like advising him to go into vaudeville."

"When Cassie Fowler awoke, she was less shocked to discover that an afterlife existed than to find that she, of all people, had been admitted to it. Her entire adulthood, it seemed, year after year of spiting the Almighty and saluting the Enlightenment, had come to nothing. She’d been saved, raptured, immortalized. Shit. The situation spoke badly of her and worse of eternity. What heaven worthy of the name would accept so ardent an unbeliever as she?"

"“It’s tragic,” he said. “God killed them with His hurricane,” she said. “God had nothing to do with it.” “Actually I agree with you, though for reasons quite different from yours.”"

"“What’s theodicy?” asked Anthony. “Hard to explain.” “Sounds like idiocy.” “Much of it is.”"

"There are none so blind as those who see angels...None so deaf as those who hear gods."

"—Then there is the final possibility, my favorite. —Yes? —The final possibility is that I’m God. —You’re God? —Just a theory, but the data are provocative. I mean, look at me. Faceless, shapeless, holey, undifferentiated, Jewish, inscrutable...and a hermaphrodite to boot. Years ago, I told you sponges cannot be fatally dismembered, for each part quickly becomes the whole. To wit, I am both immortal and infinite. —You’re God? You’re God herself? You? —The data are provocative. —God is a sponge? A sponge? There’s not much comfort in that. —Agreed. —Sponges can’t help us. —Neither can God, as far as I can tell. I’d be happy to see some contrary data."

"“Another boyfriend?” “A character in one of my plays. Runkleberg’s my twentieth-century Abraham. One fine morning he’s out watering his roses, and he hears God’s voice telling him to sacrifice his son.” “Does he obey?” “His wife intervenes.” “How?” “She castrates him with his hedge clippers, and he bleeds to death.”"

"Never underestimate the value of a falsehood, friends. Never doubt the power of a lie. Blessed are the mendacious, for they shall grow wealthy beyond their wildest dreams."

"To Thomas’s eye, Union Square combined the exoticism of The Arabian Nights with the bedrock banality of American commerce, as if a medieval Persian bazaar had been transplanted to the twentieth century and taken over by Wal-Mart."

"Babies are like kittens, Julie, they grow into something much more sinister."

"The Sermon on the Mount—it never ends for you, does it? If somebody kicks your right buttock, turn the other cheek."

"“You see God as an engineer?” asked Urpastor Phelps. “I don’t see God as anything at all.” “An engineer, you said. An incompetent engineer.” “Incompetent, perfect, who knows? God is whatever we agree to pretend God is. God is our image of God.”"

"“You’re not very religious, are you?” said Irene. “I’m more into gravity.”"

"Her libido blazed to life. She smiled, impressed by the party-crashing shamelessness of sex, its willingness to show up anywhere—a funeral, a sermon, a final farewell. This was the way to go out, all right, thumbing your labia at the cosmos."

"The wonders of nature, she learned, from wing of bee to sonar of bat to eyeball of baby, were not so much perfect machines as adequate contraptions. If nature bespoke a mind, it was a confused and inchoate one, a mind incapable of locating the optic nerve on the correct side of the retina, a mind unable to accomplish much of anything without resort to jerry-building and extinction."

"She had long ago accepted the fact that, when it came to the affectations with which radical feminists liked to impoverish their minds—crystal therapy, neo-paganism, Wicca—her skepticism placed her emphatically in a minority."

"Although Bix Constantine disbelieved in hell as intensely as he did in heaven, he knew what the place would be like. Hell, for Bix, was jealousy. It was failed journalists seeing their enemies receive Pulitzer Prizes. It was compulsive gamblers seeing jackpots gush from adjacent players’ slot machines and sex-starved young men seeing their friends piled high with naked cheerleaders."

"Better a citizen in hell than a slave in New Jersey."

"“Don’t believe everything you hear about hell. Next time you run into some anti-hell propaganda, consider the source.” “You inflict eternal punishment on people,” Julie countered. “Merely because it’s our job. And remember, we persecute only the guilty, which puts us one up on most other institutions.”"

"The problem is, only a few people get to be scientists. You see the dilemma? Given the choice between a truth they can appreciate and a lie they can live, most people will take you-know-what."

"I can’t help suggesting that a God who communicates through leukemia is at best deranged."

"When a species fixates on the supernatural, it ceases to mature."

"Hell was not perfect, but it was paradise compared with New Jersey."

"As with the rest of Phoebe’s species, Julie must not let her become dependent upon supernatural solutions, trading one addiction for another."

"What most people don’t realize is that something unprecedented has entered the world. Bang—science—and suddenly a proposition is true because it’s true, Julie, not because its adherents have the biggest churches or the grandest inquisitors or the most weeks on The New York Times bestseller list."

"She asked, “Do you believe science has all the answers?” “Huh?” “Science. Does it have all the answers?” “Everybody thinks he’s being oh-so-deep when he says science doesn’t have all the answers.” Done. All of it. Virginity gone, flesh ratified, mother spited, mission discovered—the gospel of empirical truth! Yes! Oh, yes! “Science does have all the answers,” said Howard, withdrawing. “The problem is that we don’t have all the science.”"

"He smiled. Julie’s wedding, exquisite thought. Would his grandchildren be free of godhead? Was divinity a recessive trait?"

"“Myriad contradictory worlds,” lectured Professor Jerome Delacato, “forever splitting off from each other like branches on a tree, so that, somewhere out there, I am presently giving a lecture explaining how the many-worlds hypothesis cannot possibly be true.”"

"The man was fat. His belly arrived like an advance guard, heralding the bulk to come, huge shoulders, a surplus chin. His white cassock had settled over his body like a tarpaulin dropped on a blimp."

"“Actually, the answer’s quite simple.” Two red eyes floated in the mist. “Really? Tell me. Why does God allow evil?” The red eyes vanished, leaving only the lantern and the night. “Because power corrupts,” said Wyvern’s disembodied voice. “And absolute power corrupts absolutely.”"

"“I’m really interested in this stuff.” Julie rubbed a carton labeled ELEMENTARY PARTICLES. “Physics?” “Physics, biology, stars, everything.” Howard said, “Good for you. These days most people prefer to impoverish their minds with mysticism.”"

"I think you’re so full of shit you’ve got roses growing out of your ass."

"People are always asking, does God exist? Of course she does. The real question: what is she like?"

"“Right before bed, I spend twenty minutes in this place. Then I can sleep.” “You mean you simply sit here, staring at everybody’s pain? All you do is look at it?” “Uh-huh. Just like God.”"

"The labels fascinated Julie—Cutty Sark, Dewar’s, Beefeater—each logo dense with staid print and Anglo-Saxon dignity, as if alcohol were really a type of literary criticism and not a leading cause of traffic fatalities and brain rot."

"“There’s something else, Beverly. I’m a minister of the Lord. This will be unusual for me, a kind of experiment.” “I know all about it, Reverend. You folks do more experimenting than Princeton’s entire physics department.”"

"“And what are you?” “Me? I knew God was dead even before the corpse showed up.”"

"What enormous potential for intermittent happiness the world offered."