Atheist Hall of Fame

[Fake Messiah]

And also Frank Sinatra. I mean just imagine what balls it took to criticize religion for such a popular singer like he did back in 1963 for Playboy magazine:

There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion and I'll show you a hundred retrogressions. Remember, they were men of God who destroyed the educational treasures at Alexandria, who perpetrated the Inquisition in Spain, who burned the witches at Salem. Over 25,000 organized religions flourish on this planet, but the followers of each think all the others are miserably misguided and probably evil as well. In India they worship white cows, monkeys and a dip in the Ganges. The Moslems accept slavery and prepare for Allah, who promises wine and revirginated women. And witch doctors aren't just in Africa. If you look in the L.A. papers of a Sunday morning, you'll see the local variety advertising their wares like suits with two pairs of pants.

[Cephus]

The whole idea of celebrating people and not ideas is absurd.  Who cares about the people?  I care about what they did.

[KUSA]

I like the scientists. These men hit a home run.

[Alex K]

The fact that NdGT is a thing, that's just awesome. Nobody else can do quite what he does. All that has little to nothing to do with Atheism though.

[vorlon13]

Fred Phelps

Shirley Phelps

Pat Robertson

Apostle Paul

Donald Trump

Jim Jones

Tammy Bakker


honorable mentions:

Nancy Reagan

Anita Bryant

Kim Davis

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Jimmy Swaggart

Jim Bakker


special category for best group effort:

The Mormons

[Minimalist]

Robert Green Ingersoll:

We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins -- they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day -- of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.

     These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars -- neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience -- and for them all, man is indebted to man.

And, of course, H. L. Mencken:

[Cyberman]

No, Elvis is not dead. He just went home.

[Cyberman]

The fact that NdGT is a thing, that's just awesome. Nobody else can do quite what he does. All that has little to nothing to do with Atheism though.

[Cyberman]

Robert Green Ingersoll:

Ingersoll is my favourite. An eminently quotable man.

"The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know."

"The doctrine of eternal punishment is the infamy of infamies. As I have often said, the man who believes in eternal torment, in the justice of endless pain, is suffering from at least two diseases petrifaction of the heart and putrefaction of the brain."

And I want this read at my funeral:

"Suppose after all that death does end all. Next to eternal joy, next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that, is to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace. Next to eternal life is eternal sleep.

    Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering fear.

    I had rather think of those I have loved, and lost, as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world – I would rather think of them as unconscious dust, I would rather dream of them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds, I would rather think of them as the lost visions of a forgotten night, than to have even the faintest fear that their naked souls have been clutched by an orthodox god.

    I will leave my dead where nature leaves them. Whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart I will cherish, I will give it breath of sighs and rain of tears. But I cannot believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. I would rather that every god would destroy himself; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony.

    I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful.
    Upon that rock I stand. –

    That he will not torture the forgiving. –
    Upon that rock I stand. –

    That every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime.
    Upon that rock I stand.

    The honest man, the good woman, the happy child, have nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come.
    Upon that rock I stand.

. . .

 They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest ... The dead do not suffer."

[Thumpalumpacus]

No, Elvis is not dead. He just went home.

Oh, he's dead, all right. Dead as a goddamned clay jar.