var Statements = new Array(
'"There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: `Let us be friends.´ It reminds me of the bargain the cock wished to make with the horse: `Let us agree not to step on each other´s feet.´" --Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899) ',
'"The Church once wore upon her hollow breast false gems, supposing them to be real. They have been shown to be false, but she wears them still." --Robert Ingersoll, preface, The Ghosts ',
'"Is there an intelligent man or woman in the world who now believes the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent." --Robert Ingersoll ',
'"Belief is not a voluntary thing. A man believes or disbelieves in spite of himself. They tell us that to believe is the safe way; but I say, the safe way is to be honest." -Robert Ingersoll, Some Reasons Why ',
'"No miracle has ever taken place under conditions which science can accept. Experience shows, without exception, that miracles occur only in times and in countries in which miracles are believed in, and in the presence of persons who are disposed to believe them." --Ernest Renan, The Life of Jesus ',
'"...faith and knowledge are related as the two scales of a balance; when the one goes up, the other goes down." --Arthur Schopenauer ',
'[God explaining the doctrine of free will:] "In order not to impair human liberty, I will be ignorant of what I know, I will thicken upon my eyes the veils I have pierced, and in my blind clear-sightedness I will let myself be surprised by what I have foreseen." --Anatole France ',
'"When we find out that an assertion is a falsehood, a shining truth takes its place, and we need not fear the destruction of the false. The more false we destroy the more room there will be for the true." --Ingersoll´s 44 Complete Lectures (pg. 371) ',
'"Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver with cold after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own." --Bertrand Russell, "What I Believe," in Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects ',
'"There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably, some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he does not dare face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not real, he becomes furious when they are disputed." --Bertrand Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics ',
'"The most fortunate of men is he who combines a measure of prosperity with scholarship, research or contemplation. Such a man comes closest to the life of the gods." --Aristotle ',
'"Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion -- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn´t straight." --Mark Twain ',
'"There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if only you begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity." --Arthur Schopenauer ',
'"Believe not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not because you have been made to believe from you childhood, but reason truth out, and after you have analyzed it, then if you find it will do good to one and all, believe it, live up to it and help others to live up to it." --Buddha ',
'"Opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion to what men fear, and talking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seeds of religion." --Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher (1588-1679) ',
'"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them." --Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) ',
'"Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles, and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods. For these men know that once ignorance is put aside that wonderment would be taken away which is the only means by which their authority is preserved." --Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) ',
'"If a triangle could speak, it would say, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular." --Baruch Spinoza, philosopher (1632-1677) ',
'Know Evidence, Know Belief. NO EVIDENCE, NO BELIEF!!! --Mark Smith, Skeptical Review, pg. 11, vol. 5, #3. ',
'"For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said `Think´ The many have said `Believe!´" --Robert Ingersoll, Gods pg. 52 ',
'"If all the achievements of scientist were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witchdoctors, no transport faster than a horse, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference?" --Richard Dawkins, quoted in the Jan 95 Rationalist, pg. 66 ',
'"What the populace learned to believe without reasons, who could refute it then by means of reasons?" --Nietzsche ',
'"Holy Scripture: A book sent down from heaven.... Holy Scriptures contain all that a Christian should know and believe, provided he adds to it a million or so commentaries." --Voltaire (1694-1778) ',
'"A man who eats another man, we call insane. A man who eats his god, we call a Christian." --Adapted from a quote of Claude A. Helvetius, 1715-1771, French philosopher and encyclopedist ',
'"Religion is still parasitic in the interstices of our knowledge which have not yet been filled. Like bed-bugs in the cracks of walls and furniture, miracles lurk in the lacunae of science. The scientist plasters up these cracks in our knowledge; the more militant Rationalist swats the bugs in the open. Both have their proper sphere and they should realize that they are allies." --John Haldane in Science and Life: Essays of a Rationalist. ',
'"It does not pay a prophet to be too specific." --L. Sprague de Camp. ',
'"Blind faith can justify anything. If a man believes in a different god, or even if he uses a different ritual for worshipping the same god, blind faith can decree that he should die-- on the crosses, at the stake, skewered on a Crusaders sword, shot in a Beirut street, or blown up in a bar in Belfast. Memes for blind faith have their own ruthless ways of propagating themselves. This is true of patriotic and political as well as religious blind faith." --Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene ',
'"...when in the mass, the priest breathes over the people `Hoc est corpus meum´. Latin for `This is my body´. The wicked Reformers later shortened this to Hocus-pocus." --Joseph McCabe, The Holy Faith of Romanists ',
'"How long. O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? How long, O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death?" --Robert Ingersoll, Heretics and Heresy ',
'"Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls must dive below." --John Dryden (1631-1700) ',
'"A trinitarian is one who believes that a virgin is the mother of a son who is her maker." --Francis Bacon ',
'"When I see throughout this book, called the Bible, a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales and stories, I could not so dishonor my Creator by calling it by His name." --Thomas Paine ',
'"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error. But nature has not given to everyone a talent for the purpose; and among those to whom such a talent is given there is often a want of disposition or of courage to do it." --Thomas Paine, preface to Age of Reason, part 3 ',
'"The most formidable weapon against error of every kind is reason. I have never used an other, and I trust I never shall." --Thomas Paine, Paris, 1794 ',
'"The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion." --Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason ',
'"The world is my country, to do good my religion." --Thomas Paine ',
'"...is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course; but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time; it is, therefore, at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie." --Thomas Paine, Age of Reason, pg. 95 ',
'"I rarely waste time in reading on theological subjects ... Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. If it could be understood it would not answer their purpose. Their security is in their faculty of shedding darkness, like the scuttle-fish, thro´ the element in which they move, and making it impenetrable to the eye of a pursuing enemy, and there they will skulk." --Thomas Jefferson ',
'"He is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong." --Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) ',
'"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies." --Thomas Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible ',
'"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors." --Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, 1787. ',
'"All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable." -- Thomas Jefferson´s original wording in the Declaration of Independence
"They are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights." -- Wording as revised by the Second Continental Congress ',
'"At the time of its Founding, the United States seemed to be an infertile ground for religion. Many of the nations leaders - include George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin - were not Christians, did not accept the authority of the Bible, and were hostile to organized religion. The attitude of the general public was one of apathy: in 1776, only 5 percent of the population were participating members of churches." --Ian Robertson, Sociology, 3rd ed., Worth Publishing Inc.: New York, 1987, p410 ',
'"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men." --Francis Bacon ',
'"Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens." --Montaigne',
'If atheism is a religion, then bald is a hair color.',
'When we talk to god, it´s called prayer. When god talks back, it´s called schizophrenia.',
'Morality is doing right regardless of what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told regardless of what is right.',
'They think, therefore I am. --God',
'"There once was a time when everyone feared God and the church reigned supreme; it was called the Dark Ages.',
'"One of the greatest tragedies in human history was the hijacking of morality by religion." --Arthur C. Clarke',
'If triangles had a god, he´d have three sides. --Yiddish proverb',
'"Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all." --Herbert Spencer, 1820-1903'
);
/*
GetStatement( ) is the primary function. It assumes the following:
1. The HTML file contains a form named "statementform".
2. Within the statement form, there is a textarea or textbox named "statement".
*/
function GetStatement(outputtype) //modified by javascriptkit.com to either write out result or set innerHTML prop
{
if(++Number > Statements.length - 1) Number = 0;
if (outputtype==0)
document.write(Statements[Number])
else if (document.getElementById)
document.getElementById("ponder").innerHTML=Statements[Number];
}
// The GetRandomNumber( ) function extracts a random number within a given range.
function GetRandomNumber(lbound, ubound)
{
return (Math.floor(Math.random() * (ubound - lbound)) + lbound);
}
// The Number variable keeps track of which statement to display. It will start at a random point.
var Number = GetRandomNumber(0, Statements.length - 1);