This being Sunday when Christian preachers preach, here are some antidotal words of Voltaire, one of the stars of the Enlightenment:

Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.

Christian: A good-natured, simple fellow; a true lamb of the fold, who, in the innocence of his heart, persuades himself that he firmly believes unbelievable things that his priests have told him to believe, especially those he cannot even imagine. Consequently, he is convinced that three x’s make fifteen, that God was made man, that he was hanged and rose to life again, that priests cannot lie, and that all who do not believe in priests will be damned without remission.

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning.

Every sensible man, every honest man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.

Which is more dangerous: fanaticism or atheism? Fanaticism is certainly a thousand times more deadly; for atheism inspires no bloody passion whereas fanaticism does; atheism is opposed to crime and fanaticism causes crimes to be committed.

(For source references go here.)