Landor was a theist with a strong disdain of Christianity. “Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour.” He said, “Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce.”

Paine wrote, “the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world” and that “religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.”

In “Of Human Bondage,” the author's surrogate, Philip Carey, "looked upon Christianity as a degrading bondage that must be cast away at any cost..." In "Summing Up," Maugham said, "I remain an agnostic."

To a correspondent in 1939, Woolf found herself “reflecting upon my lack of what you possess — faith;” and asking, “how much more pervious to preaching your faith makes you than my lack?”

"All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few," Stendhal said. "The only excuse for God is that there is no such person."

“Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation,” wrote Bacon, “but superstition dismounts all these.”

His novella “The Eward of Virtue” included a description of the Last Supper for which Strindberg was charged with blasphemy. He was acquitted in spite of some passages that were virulently anti-Christian.

“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.”