Comte denies metaphysics in favor of a reliance on sense experience as the source of human knowledge and denies the existence of a personal God.

Poe did not believe in life after death and, in his prose-poem "Eureka," published the year before he died, says "... 'God,' ... stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception."

“No kingdom has ever suffered as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ,” wrote Montesquieu. “I call piety a malady of the heart.”

“Dissent is the mark of freedom,” wrote Bronowski, “These freedoms of tolerance have never been notable..., even when the dogma was Christian. Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetimes.”

“When a religion is good,” wrote Franklin, “I conceive it will support itself; and when ... its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”

“When a religion is good,” wrote Franklin, “I conceive it will support itself; and when ... its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”

Lets just say for the moment that in some, not completely impossible, stroke of luck that the American right wingers get EVERYTHING on their platform legislated as law in America. Lets go down the list of some of the main things on their platform first, just so that we are on the same page: - […]

"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions."

Don Juan was described by a contemporary as "a school of Atheism." Tartuffe so stirred up the clergy that some clerics wanted the playwright burned as a heretic! Instead, he was excommunicated.

This Reflection was broadcast as part of an ongoing series called "Reflections With John Mill" on the "American Heathen" broadcast, Friday, January 14, on ShocknetRadio.com.