The Cross and Christianity
We Christians neither want nor worship crosses as the pagans do.
- Minucius Felix (Christian author, circa 200 A.D.)
It was only in the third century (after 400 A.D.) that Christian communities increasingly used "covert" crosses, which have survived in the murals of the catacombs and on tombstones. They might be an anchor with a crosspiece, a ship with a mast and yard, a human figure with outstretched arms, or a juxtaposition of the initials of the name Jesus or Christ (in Greek or Latin) to produce a cross-like shape. It was in the fourth century that the cross became an openly Christian symbol. By that time crucifixion as a method of state execution had been abolished and the cross ceased to have its former cruel and negative associations. Several hundred years later it was deemed a terrific symbol to use to ward off vampires, demons, etc.
- E.T.B.
A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back, he's gonna wanna see a cross? Maybe that's why he hasn't shown up yet. "Shit! They're still wearing crosses. When they start wearing fishes I'll go back, this is ridiculous. They've entirely missed the meaning of this thing." It's like going up to one of the Kennedy clan with a rifle pendant on. "Just thinking of President Kennedy. We love him."
- Bill Hicks, Rant in E-minor, CD
If Christ was executed today I bet Christians would wear little electric chairs round their necks.
- Dick Gregory
After the missionary explained the Bible's superior civilized plan of salvation to several natives, one of them replied, "Like you, we love our gods and seek to love one another. What we do not understand is why your god tried to pin down sin by using His son as a voodoo doll."
- E.T.B.
Christianity is merely paganism with a more successful advertising campaign.
- E.T.B.
To paraphrase John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he temporarily died to save it from himself. But none of that really matters because most people will be tortured for eternity anyways."
- Matt Miller
Christianity teaches that Jesus had to die, or God couldn't forgive the world. So why isn't Judas a "Saint?"
- E.T.B.
Whenever I forgive someone it's relatively easy. But for God it takes a bloody miracle.
- E.T.B.
CONVERSATION, A.D. 33
A: Have you heard the latest?
B: No, what's happened?
A: The world has been redeemed!
B: You don't say!
A: Yes, the Dear Lord took on human form and had himself executed in Jerusalem; and with that the world has been redeemed and the devil hoodwinked.
B: Gosh, that's simply lovely.
- Arthur Shopenhauer
I stubbed my toe for your sins. Worship me.
- Robert Jackson (featured at http://holysmoke.org/quotes.htm)
Christianity has a built-in defense system; anything that questions a belief, no matter how logical the argument, is the work of Satan by the very fact that it makes you question a belief. It is a very interesting defense mechanism and the only way to get by it, and believe me I was raised Southern Baptist, is to take heroic doses of mushrooms, sit in a field, and just go, "Show me."
- Bill Hicks
Read the following verse from the Gospel of Luke:
Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them told these things [their discovery that Jesus had risen] unto the apostles. But their words seemed to the apostles as idle tales [or "nonsense" in other translations], and they believed them not.
- Luke 24:10-11
This raises the question: If Jesus's own apostles reacted so negatively to the story of his resurrection as told to them by people they knew and trusted, how can God blame people much further removed from the events for not believing?
- Cecil Wyche
It seems to me that the most spurious of all the great religions is Christianity. Its biblical miracles are childish, pre-scientific myths. Its theology has been taken right out of the caldrons of blood sacrifice and appeasement. For God so loved the world that he allowed the crucifixion of his only son to appease his own wrath, and then he denied eternal life to billions of human souls who refused to accept the gory myth.
- Paul Blanshard (former minister), Personal and Confidential
Let me see if I have this straight...
...Gawd sent His boy to His people, so that His people could kill
His boy to save them from Gawd?
- NoGodHere (in "God is a Myth" AOL chatroom)
Isn't it ironic that Christians keep repeating, "Civilization will fail without Christianity" on computers built by agnostics and Buddhists?
- E.T.B.
Having seen the results of Christianity over the past 2,000 years, I've concluded that the world would have been better off if it had ingested more fiber.
- Bernard Katz, "An Open Letter to Christians," The American Rationalist, Nov./Dec. 1998
Christians are generally creepy people as a direct result of the dysfunctional dynamic of worshipping a dead nekked hippie.
- Die Warzau, Engine Tour Shirt, 1995
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