"Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate."
— Captain Kirk, Star Trek: The Original Series, "Who Mourns for Adonais?"
The Emperor Of Mankind: Okay, remember The Age Of Strife?
"Kitten": Aren't you referring to The Age Of Apostacy, sir?
The Emperor Of Mankind: No. The Age Of Strife. Let me tell you... it was when Asshole Psyckers first started appearing, and all of Asshole Mankind started fighting each-other over Asshole reasons. That is when I first emerged. I destroyed all Asshole Religions that existed on Terra. Do you want to know why?
"Kitten": Because you are the One True God, My Lord.
The Emperor Of Mankind: Wrong. It is because Religion is stupid superstitious brainwashing crap that makes you into an Asshole. This is why I specifically said when designing The Imperial Truth: that Equality, Science, and Galaxy Conquest is the way to go, and Religion needs to be thrown out a window.
"Kitten": Aren't you referring to The Age Of Apostacy, sir?
The Emperor Of Mankind: No. The Age Of Strife. Let me tell you... it was when Asshole Psyckers first started appearing, and all of Asshole Mankind started fighting each-other over Asshole reasons. That is when I first emerged. I destroyed all Asshole Religions that existed on Terra. Do you want to know why?
"Kitten": Because you are the One True God, My Lord.
The Emperor Of Mankind: Wrong. It is because Religion is stupid superstitious brainwashing crap that makes you into an Asshole. This is why I specifically said when designing The Imperial Truth: that Equality, Science, and Galaxy Conquest is the way to go, and Religion needs to be thrown out a window.
A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable.
Education on the value of free speech and the other freedoms reserved by the Bill of Rights, about what happens when you don't have them, and about how to exercise and protect them, should be an essential prerequisite for being an American citizen or indeed a citizen of any nation, the more so to the degree that such rights remain unprotected. If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.
Christianity will doubtless still survive in the earth ten centuries hence—stuffed and in a museum.
— Mark Twain, Notebook
Bruce: Is this in the old days, when people still put ice in their drinks and believed in someone named God?
Mark: [laughs] Yes. I know it sounds ridiculous, but there was a time when people were so stupid they believed in a man called God.
Bruce: It's hard to imagine people actually being that stupid.
Mark: Oh, they must have been incredibly stupid! [laughs]
Mark: [laughs] Yes. I know it sounds ridiculous, but there was a time when people were so stupid they believed in a man called God.
Bruce: It's hard to imagine people actually being that stupid.
Mark: Oh, they must have been incredibly stupid! [laughs]
"I am for that thing in your genome that demands it. I am for that thing which keeps you animals alive. I am, at most, a slice of monkey suspended within the stuff of universal intelligence. You are a monkey in nice clothes.
In the harsh environment you refer to as a habitable planet, group behaviors are required to survive long enough to procreate. Since you are stupid monkeys, you have no natural affinity for group altruism.
And so you have evolved a genetic pump that delivers pleasant chemicals to your monkey brains. One that is triggered by awe and fear of an anthropomorphism of your environment. Earth mothers. Sky gods. Bits of bush that catch fire. Interesting-looking rocks. An oddly-shaped branch. You’re not fussy.
When your brain does this idiot work, you stop in front of that bump or stick and consider it fiercely. Other monkeys will, like as not, stop next to you and emulate you. You genetic pump delivers morphine for you souls. You have your fellow monkeys join in. Perhaps so they can feel it too. Perhaps because you feel it might please the stick god to have more monkeys gaze at it in narcotic awe.
The group must be defended. Because as many monkeys as possible must please the stick god, and you can continue to get your fix off praying to it.
You draw up rules to organize and protect the group. Two hundred thousand years later, you put Adolf Hitler into power. Because you are, after all, just monkeys."
In the harsh environment you refer to as a habitable planet, group behaviors are required to survive long enough to procreate. Since you are stupid monkeys, you have no natural affinity for group altruism.
And so you have evolved a genetic pump that delivers pleasant chemicals to your monkey brains. One that is triggered by awe and fear of an anthropomorphism of your environment. Earth mothers. Sky gods. Bits of bush that catch fire. Interesting-looking rocks. An oddly-shaped branch. You’re not fussy.
When your brain does this idiot work, you stop in front of that bump or stick and consider it fiercely. Other monkeys will, like as not, stop next to you and emulate you. You genetic pump delivers morphine for you souls. You have your fellow monkeys join in. Perhaps so they can feel it too. Perhaps because you feel it might please the stick god to have more monkeys gaze at it in narcotic awe.
The group must be defended. Because as many monkeys as possible must please the stick god, and you can continue to get your fix off praying to it.
You draw up rules to organize and protect the group. Two hundred thousand years later, you put Adolf Hitler into power. Because you are, after all, just monkeys."
— Morrigan Lugus, Supergod #3
"One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker."
— attributed to Voltaire
"Ever hear the phrase 'there's no atheists in a foxhole'? I've been in a lot of foxholes."
"Everyone has the right to believe what they want. Says so on the Alliance charter... only in fancier words."
"Everyone has the right to believe what they want. Says so on the Alliance charter... only in fancier words."
— possible responses to Ashley Williams' asking Commander Shepard if being religious bothers him/her, Mass Effect
"Religion is poison."
— attributed to Mao Zedong
[...] the idea that religion is hooey is found in practically any science fiction book that touches the subject: I will mention Gather, Darkness by Fritz Leiber, Sixth Column by Heinlein, Foundation by Asimov (especially the section called 'The Traders'), Players of Null-A by A.E. van Vogt; Gods Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (and its hentai knock-off Priest-Kings of Gor by John Norman); Nightside the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe; The City Of The Chasch by Jack Vance — all of these stories and many more concern gullible or ignorant worshipers bowing to aliens or to machines or to alien machines as gods. The gods in an SF book usually have a natural rather than a supernatural explanation, and the preferred explanation is the deceptions of priestcraft. As in Scooby-Doo cartoons, the ghost turns out to be Mr. McGreedy from the Haunted Museum in a rubber mask.
Tell them their empty whispers fall upon deaf ears - their gods are dead, human logic has killed them.
— Perturabo, Horus Heresy
Materialist: As we reach for the stars, we must put away childish things; gods, spirits and other phantasms of the brain. Reality is cruel and unforgiving, yet we must steel ourselves and secure the survival of our race through the unflinching pursuit of science and technology.
Fanatic Materialist: Although it hurts, we must grow up and put aside our outdated notions of morality. There is no 'divine spark' granting special value to a living mind. No object has any intrinsic value apart from what we choose to grant it. Let us embrace the freedom of certitude, and achieve maximum efficiency in all things!
Spiritualist: There are those think it behooves us to remember how tiny we are, how pointless our lives in this vast uncaring universe... What nonsense! The only truth we can ever know is that of our own existence. The universe - in all its apparent glory - is but a dream we all happen to share.
Fanatic Spiritualist: Our science has proved that Consciousness begets reality. We regard with patience the childlike efforts of those who delude themselves it is the other way around, as they play with their blocks of 'hard matter'.
Neutral (default): No comment
— Stellaris Ethos selection screen.
"We were discussing," he said, "the views of ancient historians on the dangers of navigating this Red Sea?"
"True," I replied. "But weren't their fears exaggerated?"
"Yes and no, Professor Aronnax," answered Captain Nemo, who seemed to know his Red Sea by heart. "To a modern ship, well rigged, solidly constructed, and in control of its course thanks to obedient steam, some conditions are no longer hazardous that offered all sorts of dangers to the vessels of the ancients. Picture those early navigators venturing forth in sailboats built from planks lashed together with palm–tree ropes, caulked with powdered resin, and coated with dogfish grease. They didn't even have instruments for taking their bearings, they went by guesswork in the midst of currents they barely knew. Under such conditions, shipwrecks had to be numerous. But nowadays steamers providing service between Suez and the South Seas have nothing to fear from the fury of this gulf, despite the contrary winds of its monsoons. Their captains and passengers no longer prepare for departure with sacrifices to placate the gods, and after returning, they don't traipse in wreaths and gold ribbons to say thanks at the local temple."
"Agreed," I said. "And steam seems to have killed off all gratitude in seamen's hearts."
"True," I replied. "But weren't their fears exaggerated?"
"Yes and no, Professor Aronnax," answered Captain Nemo, who seemed to know his Red Sea by heart. "To a modern ship, well rigged, solidly constructed, and in control of its course thanks to obedient steam, some conditions are no longer hazardous that offered all sorts of dangers to the vessels of the ancients. Picture those early navigators venturing forth in sailboats built from planks lashed together with palm–tree ropes, caulked with powdered resin, and coated with dogfish grease. They didn't even have instruments for taking their bearings, they went by guesswork in the midst of currents they barely knew. Under such conditions, shipwrecks had to be numerous. But nowadays steamers providing service between Suez and the South Seas have nothing to fear from the fury of this gulf, despite the contrary winds of its monsoons. Their captains and passengers no longer prepare for departure with sacrifices to placate the gods, and after returning, they don't traipse in wreaths and gold ribbons to say thanks at the local temple."
"Agreed," I said. "And steam seems to have killed off all gratitude in seamen's hearts."
— 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea note
"My God!" someone gasped, reverting to ancient superstition at the sight that appeared on the telescreens.
"My son is dying, Dr. Warren. I will not allow that to happen again. There’s only room for one God in this lab, and it’s not yours."
— Walter Bishop, Fringe
Hunaker hissed, "For Christ's sake, Ryan!"
He shrugged. It amused him how people still invoked the name of a deity, or, as he understood it from his reading way back in...well, when he was reading, some kind of secondary deity who seemed to be a son of the primary deity. But he did it himself, when cussing or expressing shock or anger, often using words that had no meaning for him whatsoever, although that of course was a legacy from his father who'd done exactly the same, and probably his father before him, and so on back to pre-Nuke.
He shrugged. It amused him how people still invoked the name of a deity, or, as he understood it from his reading way back in...well, when he was reading, some kind of secondary deity who seemed to be a son of the primary deity. But he did it himself, when cussing or expressing shock or anger, often using words that had no meaning for him whatsoever, although that of course was a legacy from his father who'd done exactly the same, and probably his father before him, and so on back to pre-Nuke.
— Deathlands, "Pilgrimage to Hell"
