Matt Dillahunty Quotes

The police [enforcement institution] is a necessary organization and [in the cases where it is corrupt and/or abusive] it’s worth reforming. The Catholic Church is not a necessary organization. It is a nonsensical organization; a bunch of fat lazy do-nothings who have been living off the public dole for centuries. The fact that they can do good, is a testament to the fact that there are good people who will do good. But the organization is corrupt, it is poison to its core and it serves no essential good purpose – no true purpose. It’s lie after lie, promoting harm to real people and you can sit there and engage in histrionics and yelling at yourself [while] on-hold all you want, but the Catholic Church is not a force for good and fuck you for saying so.

Existence is a temporal condition.

Your god isn't real. He's not moral. The Bible isn't moral. Islam isn't moral. None of these religious systems— anything that deteriorates the value of human beings, anything that hangs on to Bronze Age ideals about genocide and slavery and murder and deference to higher powers. None of those things are moral. We've graduated beyond that, and I'm sorry that we've had to drag religions kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but some of you gotta let this stuff go. You're not gonna get anywhere until you realize that it's OK not to be afraid. It's OK to say, "you know, I think slavery is wrong. I think slavery was probably always wrong. I think that you're a good person, and yeah it does sound like a crappy system."

So basically what you're saying is you believe this to be true despite the fact that you have no evidence to support that [statement]

A god that rewards credulity, a god that sanctions slavery, is unworthy of any kind of reverence or respect or devotion.

I made a list of things that I might consider sin if the concept of sin were valid:</br>Number 1: Credulity, gullibility. I'd say that's a sin.</br>Voluntary willful ignorance. I'd say that's a sin.</br>Letting fear prevent you from understanding reality. I'd call that a sin.</br>Limiting the rights and freedoms of others in order to make them abide by your standards. That's a sin.</br>Sacrificing the mental, emotional and physical well-being of a child in deference to your religion. That's a sin.</br>Wasting the one and only life that you know you're going to have, worrying about and working for an afterlife that somebody told you might be there. That's a sin.

A god that does not manifest in reality is indistinguishable from a god that does not exist.

You are better than your god. You are better than your religion. So am I, so is damn near everybody on the planet. I wish you people would wake up and see this. Stop apologizing for this! [holds up The Bible] It's not the Good Book, there's nothing good about it. All it does is poison minds. All it does is make you sacrifice your humanity— the only thing that you have that is of any value— in order to sit around in deference to your gods.

Is there anything that one couldn't believe based on faith?

No no no no no! No! You're done!

You could kill me right now and I will be permanently dead, and I would willing do that if would end world hunger and poverty. That's a sacrifice! Saying I'm gonna let some people beat me and torture me and kill me, and a day and a half I'm gonna rise up and become what I was before, (...) That's not a sacrifice, that's a bad weekend!

Evidently god stupidly created a system where the devil wins by default. Okay, I'm gonna set up this game with you and I'm gonna give you all the chips and the chips have to voluntarily choose to come over to my side of the table. Who sets up a game like that?!

I want to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible.

And yet people ask what's the harm of religion - and we cite all these different problems with religion: the global gag-rules and things like that , the oppression of different people - but there's a bigger harm with religion, and it's the reason why I'm outspoken about it, and that's because the average feel-good Johnny-in-the-pew person who is decent and kind and loving and good to their family and generally a good person to be around has polluted their mind to the point where they are unable to take credit for their accomplishments and responsibility for their actions. They are unable to interact on an interpersonal level with the people around them, to build a community in this cooperative society where that is absolutely essential. They have got this mentality that they are worthless without God.

Despite people's claims to the contrary, I think that a proper application of skepticism when viewing religious claims does necessarily lead to atheism.