"Your body is the church where Nature asks to be reverenced."
— Marquis de Sade
Juliette
"One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests."
— Thomas Paine
Green Tara
Tibet, 18th century
A Buddhist goddess, Tara is the female counterpoint of Avalokiteshvara, constituted by light rays of compassion which emanate from this god. Like him, she is said to protect the devotee from the eight great physical perils, including fire, floods and the attacks from predatory animals and bandits.
Seated in a graceful “royal ease” posture on a double lotus, she holds in each hand a lotus. According to popular legend, Tara was born out of a lotus germinated from the tears of Avalokitesvara as he lamented the world’s sufferings. Her right hand exhibits the gesture of charity (varada)
(Seen at the Museum of Fine Arts - St. Petersburg, FL)
"Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous."
— David Hume
"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.
I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist of doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
[However]…I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of.
My mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches - whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish - appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit.
I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise. They have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself."
I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist of doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
[However]…I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of.
My mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches - whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish - appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit.
I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise. They have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself."
— excerpt from Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason
Paul Heinrich Dietrich Baron d’Holbach - Alexander Roslin
“To learn the true principles of morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or gods: They have need only of reason. They have only to enter into themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, consult their sensible interests, consider the object of society, and of the individuals, who compose it; and they will easily perceive that virtue is the interest, and vice the unhappiness of beings of their kind. Let us persuade men to be just, beneficent, moderate, sociable; not because the gods demand it, but because they must please men. Let us advise them to abstain from vice and crime not because they will be punished in the other world, but because they will suffer for it in this.” - Baron d’Holbach
(via)
"When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion."
— Voltaire
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
— Thomas Paine
