St Odo of Cluny (10th century)
Roman Catholic saint

To embrace a woman is to embrace a sack of manure.
-- St Odo of Cluny, from Joan Smith, Misogynies, quoted from Ciaran Hanway, Omnipurpose Page

Marvin Olasky
Advisor to George W Bush; author of Compassionate Conservatism; inventor of the 'Jesus Monster Stories' bedtime tales

[The disestablishment of religion] may not have been such a good idea.
-- Marvin Olasky, quoted in AANEWS #864, January 2, 2001, distributed by American Atheists

Kalif Omar I [Caliph Umar] (581-644)
Early Islamic leader who conquered Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia

     • Load This Section With Frames Index

Kalif Omar Did Not Say This:

Complete Fabrication:
"If the books agree with the Koran, the Word of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree with it, they are pernicious. Let them be destroyed."
-- Fabrication: "that is, upon further investigation, actually a fabrication perpetrated by Christians to attack Islam" (citation quip by Hasham Abbas in a letter to Positive Atheism, December 10, 2001)

Catholic Encyclopedia: Story Greatly Discredited

"This story is now generally discredited, chiefly because it rests only on the authority of Abulpharagius, a writer six centuries later, while earlier writers, especially Eutychius and Elmacin, make no mention of it. Besides, the act is contrary to Mohammedan custom; John Philoponos lived about a century before the capture of the city, and the statement of the time the rolls lasted as fuel is preposterous. Finally, there is the evidence given above for the earlier destruction of the library."
-- Catholic Encyclopedia, "The Alexandrian Library"
 

Abbas: Could Not Have Been a Book Burner

"[A]ctually, even common sense might tell someone Caliph Umar I could not have been a book-burner given that the ancient knowledge of the Greeks and other cultures actually survived and kindled Europe's Renaissance because it was translated into and preserved in Arabic whereby it passed into Europe through the great learning centres, libraries and universities, of Muslim Spain ruled, incidentally, by the Umayyad dynasty."
-- Hasham Abbas, in a letter to Positive Atheism (December 10, 2001)
 

Lloyd-Jones: Testimony to Enduring Power of Myth

"To accept the story of the Arab destruction of the library of Alexandria, one must explain how it is that so dramatic an event was unmentioned and unnoticed not only in the rich historical literature of medieval Islam, but even in the literatures of the Coptic and other Christian churches, of the Byzantines, of the Jews, or anyone else who might have thought the destruction of a great library worthy of comment. That the story still survives, and is repeated, despite all these objections, is testimony to the enduring power of a myth."
-- Bernard Lewis, Letter, "The Vanished Library," The New York Review of Books (September 27, 1990), commenting on Hugh Lloyd-Jones, "Lost History of the Lost Library," The New York Review of Books (June 14, 1990)

Mullah Mohammed Omar
Leader of the Taliban movement

Death comes to everyone. We must stand proud as Afghans in the defense of Islam.
-- Mohammed Omar, cheapening life in the hope that others may more willingly sacrifice theirs so that he may more easily further his own agenda, in a radio address on Friday, September 14, 2001, quoted from CBS News, "Pakistan To Help US" September 16, 2001)

Believe in God, for with the grace of God the American rockets will go astray and we will be saved.
-- Mohammed Omar, magical thinking, in a radio address on Friday, September 14, 2001, quoted from CBS News, "Pakistan To Help US" September 16, 2001)

We have destroyed 80 percent of the statues. There is only small amount left and we will destroy that soon.
-- Mohammed Omar, regarding the destruction of huge (120 to 170 feet high) third- and fifth-century (?) statues carved into the mountains about 75 miles from Kabul, an act condemned even by Pakistan, the Taliban's closest ally, through spokesman Abdul Hai Muttmain in a telephone interview with the Associated Press, quoted from AP, "Taliban Destroys Buddha Statues" (March 11, 2001)

Reverend Jeffery L Osgood
Pastor, First Southern Baptist Church in Dover, Delaware

Back in 1962, when prayer was removed by the Supreme Court, something happened to America's soul and America's schools. Our nation became increasingly secular and less tolerant of moral standards and values. Since America became too proud to pray to the God of Heaven who created us, we have been reaping the rewards. Crime is way up. The family has broken up. The test scores of students have taken a submarine dive. It's time for a change!
-- Reverend Jeffery L Osgood, stretching the truth more than a little in defense of forced prayer in the public schools, writing in the Delaware State News (December 16, 1994), quoted from Tim Madigan, "Five Arguments in Favor of School Prayer" (October, 1995), Shreveport Humanist bulletin

Paul Ott
Mississippi Christian radio announcer

We don't think this is breaking the law, but if it is, I don't think they're going to take thousands of people to jail.
-- Paul Ott, regarding We Still Pray's organized "spontaneous prayer" events at high school football games and showing his patent disrespect for the law, quoted from MCJ News, "Prayer Guerrilla Movement Challenges Supreme Court Ban," August 26, 2000, posted on endtimeprophecy.net

There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful.
-- Boyd K Packer, from his speech entitled “The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect,” quoted from, “My Personal Story: the Transition Out of Mormonism,” by Tom Gessel

All things equal, I would prefer to have a child in a school that has a strong appreciation for the values of the Christian community, where a child is taught to have a strong faith.
-- Rod Paige, showing his preference for private religious education (or his belief that public education ought to run counter to the Bill of Rights for the Constitution of the United States of America) in a 2003 interview with the Baptist Press; although the Baptist Press fired its reporter for misquotes, taped transcripts show that this quote is accurate, quoted from Freedom From Religion Foundation press release, "Secretary of Education Should Resign over Christian Bias" (April 15, 2003)

Anybody that believes in separation of church and state needs to leave right now.
-- Star Parker, opening her speech at the Christian Coalition's Road to Victory Conference during the 1996 presidential campaign season, quoted from "Christian Coalition Speakers Attack Church-State Separation," Church and State, October 1996, p. 7

Blaise Pascal (1623-62)
French scientist, philosopher

     • See Pascal's More Reasonable Sayings

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.
-- Blaise Pascal, pretending to speak for infidels in Pensées (1670; no. 12 ed. by Krailshemer, no. 187 ed. by Brunschvicg), quoted from The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations

Imam Izak-el Mu-eed Pasha
Leader of the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque in Harlem, New York

We are Muslims, but we are Americans. We Muslims, Americans, stand today with a heavy weight on our shoulder that those who would dare do such dastardly acts claim our faith. They are no believers in God at all.
-- Imam Izak-el Mu-eed Pasha, bringing the crowd to its feet at President Bush's National Prayer Service held on Sunday, October 28, 2001, in what the New York Times described as "a plea for tolerance," the Imam shows us his idea of tolerance by leaving no room for the possibility (likelihood, rather) that the terrorists were mistaken in their religious belief; instead, they were simply unbelievers, period -- atheists, in other words. Quoted in The New York Times coverage of the National Prayer Service for victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, quoted from David Wrenn in a personal letter to Cliff Walker (March 18, 2002).

Rev Tony Perkins
The Christian clergyman who, under the moniker of the tax-exempt Family Research Council, gives political marching orders to thousands of unquestioning Christian church congregations

This is the wake-up call for both the American public and our elected officials. If we do not amend the Massachusetts State Constitution so that it explicitly protects marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and if we do not amend the US Constitution with a federal marriage amendment that will protect marriage on the federal level, we will lose marriage in this nation.
-- Rev Tony Perkins, refusing to explain how it is possible that what homosexuals do in private could affect the private lives of heterosexuals, and refusing to explain how barring an individual from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry someone of the same sex could possibly destroy an institution as ubiquitous as the modern Christian rite of heterosexual marriage, in Kavan Peterson, "Gay Marriage Ruling Puts Lawmakers On the Spot" (Stateline: November 19, 2003)

Rick Perry
Texas governor (2001-)

I want people of faith on my side, not just voting on election day but by hoisting me up by getting down on your knees and lifting me up in prayer. Those who have a different view of things are already organizing...Will you stand in the gap with those of us who believe there's a God, and a God who is strong? We can stand in the gap together and speak about issues we believe in and we will be victorious.
-- Rick Perry, on the campaign trail in East Texas, quoted from an e-mail dispatch from the Texas Freedom Network (March 28, 2002)

Father Phelan
Roman Catholic priest

Tell us we are Catholics first and Americans or Englishmen afterwards; of course we are. Tell us in conflict between the Church and the civil government we side with the Church; of course we do. Why, if the government of the United States were at war with the Church, we would say tomorrow, to hell with the government of the United States; and if the Church and all the governments of the world were at war, we would say, to hell with the governments of the world.
-- Father Phelan, Western Watchman, June 27, 1913, from Joseph Lewis The Ten Commandments (p. 560).

Why is it that in this country, where we have only seven percent of the population, the Catholic Church is so much feared? She is loved by all her children and feared by everybody. Why is it that the Pope has such tremendous power? Why, the Pope is the ruler of the world. All the emperors, all the kings, all the princes, all the presidents of the world, are as these altar boys of mine. The Pope is the ruler of the world.
-- Father Phelan, Western Watchman, June 27, 1913, quoted from Upton Sinclaire The Profits Of Religion

Fred Phelps
Pastor, Westboro Baptist Church, founder of the "God Hates Fags" campaign

If you got to castrate your miser'ble self with a piece o' rusty barb wire, do it.
-- Fred Phelps, instructing homosexual men on becoming accepted by the Christian God of Infinite Love, quoted from Fred: The Movie

You gotta worship at the Shrine Of the Almighty Anal Copulation God ... the Great God Rectum, that's what we call it.
-- Fred Phelps, explaining how to be accepted by today's media, quoted from Fred: The Movie

You tellin' these miser'ble, Hell-bound, bath house-wallowing, anal-copulating fags that God loves them!? You have bats in the belfry!
-- Fred Phelps, preaching the Gospel of the Christian God of Infinite Love, quoted from Fred: The Movie

There is no substantive, rational defense; I mean, the other side doesn't have a case.
-- Fred Phelps, beginning and winding up the debate regarding what the Christian God of Infinite Love thinks about homosexuals, quoted from Fred: The Movie

Pope Pius IX
Roman Catholic Pope, recently beatified and on the road to sainthood

[Dr. Constain James] refuted so well the aberrations of Darwinism.... [A system] which is repugnant at once to history, to the tradition of all people, to exact science, to observed facts, and even to reason itself, would seem to need no refutation. But the corruption of this age, the machinations of the perverse, the danger of the simple, demand that such fancies, altogether absurd though they are, should -- since they borrow the mask of science -- be refuted by true science.
-- Pope Pius IX, commenting on the French physician's 1877 book, On Darwinism, or the Man-Ape, and using scientific terminology to boot, from Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science and Theology in Christendom (1896), quoted from Victor J Stenger, Has Science Found God? (2001)

Bill Pryor
Alabama Alabama attorney general appointed by Governor Fob James; supporter of Judge Roy Moore's use of the courtroom and courthouse to advertise the Christian religion and proclaim its supremacy over other religions, later appointed to the Federal Bench by G W Bush while Congress was in recess (skirting our system of checks and balances in order to avoid the almost certain rejection of Pryor because of his long history destructive revisionist agenda and practices)

     • See Bill Pryor's More Reasonable Sayings

God has chosen, through his son Jesus Christ, this time, this place for all Christians -- Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox -- to save our country and save our courts.
-- Bill Pryor, at an April 12, 1997, rally in support of the criminal judge Roy Moore, whom it was Pryor's job to be prosecuting, quoted from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, "Americans United Criticizes Bush 'Recess' Appointment of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor To Federal Bench" (February 20, 2004)

The American experiment is not a theocracy and does not establish an official religion, but the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are rooted in a Christian perspective of the nature of government and the nature of man. The challenge of the next millennium will be to preserve the American experiment by restoring its Christian perspective.
-- Bill Pryor, in a 1997 speech at McGill-Toolen Catholic High School in Mobile, Alabama, quoted from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, Action Alert, "The Senate Judiciray Committee is scheduled to act on the nomination of Bill Pryor [To the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals] Wednesday!" (June 9, 2003)

Journal-Constitution: Contemptuous of Justices

"[Pryor has] vigorously championed the causes of the religious and political right, at times even disparaging sitting Supreme Court justices."
-- Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in an article about Pryor's nomination to the 11th Circuit (May 25, 2003), quoted from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, Action Alert, "The Senate Judiciray Committee is scheduled to act on the nomination of Bill Pryor Wednesday!" (June 9, 2003)

Ernie Pyle
Indiana journalist and commentator

There are no atheists in foxholes.
-- Ernie Pyle, originating The Big Lie that our fellow atheists in uniform have since endured, quoted from Robert E Nordlander, "Elmer Hochkammer: Foxhole Atheist," Freethought Today (April, 1984)

Abdul Wahid Qasmi
Secretary general of the Finality of the Prophet, a group well known for pursuing blasphemers in Pakistan

     • See also: Syed Bilal
     • See also: Asghar Ali Afridi

For Dr Shaikh's own protection, we sought his arrest. Otherwise, he might have been killed in the streets.
-- Abdul Wahid Qasmi, endorsing the capital charges against Dr. Younus Shaikh, who was convicted of blasphemy in Pakistan in August, 2001, for teaching that Mohammed did not practice Islam until after he had received his revelation, quoted from Barry Bearak’s Pulitzer Prize-winning, "Death to Blasphemers: Islam's Grip on Pakistan," New York Times, May 12, 2001

Even if someone is only half-conscious when speaking against the Prophet, he must die. In Dr Shaikh's case, his relatives have come to see us, saying the man is sorry and that he repents. But to be sorry now is not enough. Even if a man is sorry, he must die.
-- Abdul Wahid Qasmi, managing to sound amiable in endorsing the capital charges against Dr Younus Shaikh, who was convicted of blasphemy in Pakistan in August, 2001, for teaching that Mohammed did not practice Islam until after he had received his revelation, quoted from Barry Bearak’s Pulitzer Prize-winning, "Death to Blasphemers: Islam's Grip on Pakistan," New York Times, May 12, 2001

The Subtle Fulmination of the Encircled Sea

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