The first thing for people to do is to get rid of the silly notion that there is anything holy in the name of Jesus any more than in the name of Hercules, Bacchus or Adonis. All the gods of the past are myths to the present. Jesus stands in the way of the world's advancement. The path of civilization is over his grave. The mind has been fettered by worship of this myth. We want to get rid of the Christian superstition.
Isn't it astonishing that many children should be taught about the "resurrection" before they can spell cat?
Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants the worst is a slave in power.
When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to insure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. He divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers and unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people who will be glorified and people who will be damned.
—Robert Ingersoll.