#Gods

"If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are concerned mostly about trees."

"Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens."

"I know, too, that death is the only god who comes when you call."

"Lakewalker legends say the gods abandoned the world when the first malice came. And that they will return when the earth is entirely cleansed of its spawn. If you believe in gods.""Do you?""I believe they are not here, yes. It's a faith of sorts."

"To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods."

"I tried to convince myself once, when I was a teenager, that I felt God. Alone in the sanctuary, accompanying my mom on an evening errand to the church. I stared at the ceiling and drew deep breath as quickly as I could. I told our youth minister in his ball cap that I had felt Him. That I was blessed. But in the end, it was only the wind and the rain, making noise in the darkness."

"I'm telling you, you really should stick to mating within your species, whatever that is.''I would,' I said, 'but unfortunately, there are no gorgeous, all-powerful, all-knowing gods around here. I'd even settle for a demigod. It's a step down, I know. But alas, there are nothing but low-brained mortals here. And half-brains, like you."

"But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’dTo dwell in presence of immortal youth,Immortal age beside immortal youth,And all I was, in ashes. - Tithonus"

"I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them."

"No it's not!"said Constable Visit. "Atheism is a denial of a god.""Therefore It Is A Religious Position,"said Dorfl. "Indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny."

"It’s an already inside outside,The philosophers say it’s the soulBut it’s not the soul: it’s the animal or the man itselfIn its way of existing."

"If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them."

"But neither infinite power nor infinite wisdom could bestow godhood upon men. For that there would have to be infinite love as well."

"Wow,"Thalia muttered. "Apollo is hot.""He's the sun god,"I said."That's not what I meant."

"There’s no such thing as `one, true way’; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good — they’re the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren’t willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race."

"My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests."

"I need no master to punish me in order to behave as I ought. If I did, I would be no more than a child who obeys his father's rules only because he fears the whip, and not because he actually means good."

"We need not take refuge in supernatural gods to explain our saints and sages and heroes and statesmen, as if to explain our disbelief that mere unaided human beings could be that good or wise."

"The gods of the realms are many and varied -- or they are the many and varied names and identities tagged onto the same being. I know not -- and care not -- which."

"Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. . . ."