"Quando a vida humana, ante quem a olhava, jazia miseravelmente por terra, oprimida por uma pesada religião, cuja cabeça, mostrando-se do alto dos céus, ameaçava os mortais com seu horrível aspecto, quem primeiro ousou levantar contra ela os olhos e resistir-lhe foi um grego [Epicuro], um grego que nem a fama dos deuses, nem os raios, nem o céu com seu ruído ameaçador, puderam dominar; antes mais lhe excitaram a coragem de espírito e o levaram a desejar ser o primeiro que forçasse as bem fechadas portas da natureza. Mas triunfou para além das flamejantes muralhas do mundo, percorreu com o pensamento e o espírito, o todo imenso, para voltar vitorioso e ensinar-nos o que não pode nascer e, finalmente, o poder limitado que tem cada coisa, e as leis que existem e o termo que firme e alto se nos apresenta. E assim, a religião é por sua vez derrubada e calcada aos pés, e a nós a vitória nos eleva até os céus. Temo, porém, que por acaso julgues que penetras em elementos ímpios de doutrina e te metes pela senda do crime. Pelo contrário: na maior parte das vezes foi exatamente a religião que produziu feitos criminosos e ímpios" (Lucrécio, De Rerum Natura)

Duas, de borla, para hoje 

(e mais um porradão delas para o resto da semana)

 

"Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth, and the Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of ants. All these myths have in common that they depend upon the deliberate intentions of some kind of supernatural being" (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker)

ÍMPIAS CITAÇÕES (VIII)

"Deus não criou o mundo; aliás o mundo não foi criado; a alma é mortal; não existe nem inferno, nem paraíso, nem predestinação; ... o cristianismo é uma invenção; o decálogo [os Dez Mandamentos], tolice impraticável; o papa, personagem imoral e perigosa; o pagamento de missas, as indulgências, a excomunhão, as proibições alimentares, a virgindade de Maria, os reis magos, tudo quimeras; a ressurreição, conto despropositado, risível, escandaloso, um logro; os sacramentos, a confissão, tolices; ... o juízo final, um incrível delírio ... A religião? Uma invenção dos homens para se apoderarem do poder poder sobre seus semelhantes" (Cristóvão Ferreira, autor de A Fraude Revelada, 1636,  citado por Michel Onfray no Tratado de Ateologia)

"It’s perfectly apparent that god is monstrous. Utterly monstrous and deserves no respect whatsoever. The moment you banish him, life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living in my opinion"

"Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion’. Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect" (Salman Rushdie)

Dia da blasfémia 

(ou "we'll always have Paris") - III

Ímpias citações (VII)

"Não há nenhum deus. Sou ateu. A religião acredita em milagres, mas estes são incompatíveis com a ciência" (Stephen Hawking)

"Dieu est généralement inodore à la température ordinaire. Mais si l'on présente pendant quelques secondes une hostie au-dessus de la flamme d'un réchaud à gaz, on perçoit bientôt une délicieuse odeur de pain grillé"

"Le lundi 1er décembre 1898, le curé d'une paroisse de la banlieue parisienne particulièrement touchée par l'athéisme grimpa sur la pointe du clocher de son église et annonça à l'assistance qu'il allait se jeter dans le vide et qu'il toucherait terre sain et sauf, ce qui prouverait l'existence de Dieu. Il sauta et se tua, ce qui prouve que Dieu fait relâche le lundi"

"Quand Eve voulut un second enfant, Adam fut très embarrassé car il ne savait pas quel était le geste, parmi tous ceux qu'il avait faits, qui avait eu pour conséquence d'engendrer le premier bébé" (François Cavanna)

(daqui)

"It was originally going to be about prostitutes at the Vatican!" (David Bowie explica como evitou a redundância)
 

"I’ve no knowledge of the real existence either of Jesus of Nazareth or of St. Francis of Assisi, who may very well have been a great avian demagogue"

"O Papa e o Dalai Lama podem passar anos a discutir se é verdade que Jesus Cristo é o filho de Deus, mas (se estiverem bem informados acerca de literatura e de banda desenhada) ambos têm de admitir que Clark Kent é o Super Homem e vice-versa" (Umberto Eco, Confissões De Um Jovem Escritor)

 

LIKE BUNNIES IN THE STREET

There's a song on Love At The Bottom Of The Sea called "God Wants Us to Wait". Have you ever encountered anyone who told you that?

Stephin Merritt - If you Google "God wants us to wait" there are whole websites about so-called abstinence education – as if one has to be taught how to not have sex. I went to elementary school partly in Boston, which is a very Catholic town, and there was a lot of talk about abstinence and guilt.

Obviously it didn't have much effect on you.

Stephin Merritt - It's actually a complicated issue for me because while I detest Christianity and think ethics are bunk, I also realise Aids more or less destroyed the argument that we should all fuck like bunnies in the street and that anyone who says otherwise is a moron. While it is true, obviously, that we should fuck like bunnies in the street, we need to be wearing the proper clothing while doing so. Anyway, it's a complex situation easily satirised with stupid but fun little songs such as "God Wants Us to Wait". (aqui)

(2012)

UMA DAS MAIS GENUÍNAS E INSPIRADORAS TRADIÇÕES CRISTÃS

"As pessoas nunca são tão completa e entusiasticamente más como quando agem por convicção religiosa" (O Cemitério de Praga, Umberto Eco)

Material de apoio adicional:

The Borgias - real. Neil Jordan (2011) + aqui

(2011)

MYSTERY AND BEAUTY AND PAIN

"The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more" (Christopher Hitchens - The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer)

(2011)

ÍMPIAS CITAÇÕES (VI)

The Humanist: You weren’t raised in a religious home, but one full of values. For the religious, values and religion are synonymous. Could you explain the difference?

Nina Hartley: We were taught social justice at home. My maternal grandparents were early supporters of civil rights in Alabama, where my mother is from. As secular Jews (my grandfather refused Bar Mitzvah) they were already a minority, but when my grandfather turned to socialism for its sense of social justice it put the family in jeopardy and they were subject to harassment by the Ku Klux Klan. My grandfather almost lost his life to goons.

This sense of social justice carried over into my parents’ marriage, and I grew up participating in civil rights marches and anti-war demonstrations. There was never any mention of God as a reason to do right. It was just the right thing to do. I feel strongly to this day that right and religion don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

As a believer in evolution, we can “take the best” from religion and “leave the rest.” We no longer need the story of “God” to explain why the rain falls, or the wind blows, or spring comes again each year. I’m comfortable with there being things about people or the world that I can’t know, or that we don’t know yet. I’m fine with life as we know it being random or an “accidental” result of chemical and physical processes".

(Marie Hartman graduated with honors from San Francisco State University and is the author or coauthor of several books published by major publishing houses under her stage name, Nina Hartley. She is also the star of more than 600 adult films spanning three decades. In addition, Hartley is a humanist, a proud atheist, and a vocal feminist - aqui; Nina Hartley já referida também aqui no link para o "Village Voice")

(2011)

(O ANO A SEGUIR AO) ANO DO TIGRE (XLII)

Tigres de Mark Twain

"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company" (Mark Twain)

(2011)

ÍMPIAS CITAÇÕES (V)

"I still find some things about religion interesting: how eating fish on Friday to stimulate the fish trade became part of belief - that is to say, how culture can turn into religion - how the music of Palestrina or Thomas Tallis always moves me. (...) But religions essentially stop people thinking and encourage poverty. Whichever way I look at them, I think they're bad things". (Neil Tennant/Pet Shop Boys, no "The Word" de Janeiro de 2011)

(2010)

ÍMPIAS CITAÇÕES (IV)

"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world". (Bertrand Russell)

(2010)