Even the “Catholic Encyclopedia” admits, "His attitude of mind towards religious truth was that of a rationalist." To Bruno it would have been easier for him to change his sex than to change his mind.

The conflict of the Roman Catholic Church against Galileo is an apt illustration of the inescapable irreconcilability of theological doctrine and science. It also shows how bullies destroy benefactors.

“I'm an Atheist,” says Angier. “I don't believe in God, Gods, Godlets or any sort of higher power beyond the universe itself.... I'm convinced that the world as we see it was shaped by … evolution through natural selection.”

"The spirit of dogmatic theology poisons everything it touches," said Bentham. "There is no pestilence in a state like a zeal for religion, independent of morality."

"I was born a heretic," Anthony said. "I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows."

"It vexes me when they [clerics] would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures," wrote Galileo, "and yet do not consider themselves bound to answer reason and experiment."

In a note to Donny and Marie Osmond, Penn wrote, 'There is no god,' and Teller wrote, 'He's right.'"

The bishops fiercely resisted for thirty years the grant of any national subsidy for education, and for forty further years obstructed the demand for a national system.

"I knew Lincoln was an Infidel. I never heard that Lincoln changed his views. Sometimes Lincoln bordered on Atheism," said friend and political manager Colonel James H. Matheny.

In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think that generally ... an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.