Christopher

“Colonization of the world, more often than not by robbery and warfare, spread Christianity into the Americas and other corners of the earth, just as Islam was spread throughout Asia and Africa. lt is not a coincidence that the two most widespread religions in the world today are the most warlike and intolerant religions in history. Before the rise of Christianity, religious tolerance, including a large degree of religious freedom, was not only custom but in many ways law under the Roman and Persian empires. They conquered for greed and power, rarely for any declared religious reasons, and actually sought to integrate foreign religions into their civilization, rather than seeking to destroy them. People were generally not killed because they practiced a different religion. Indeed, the Christians were persecuted for denying that the popular gods existed — not for following a different religion. In other words, Christians were persecuted for being intolerant.”
― Richard Carrier, Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism

“Chemists all agree on the fundamental facts of chemistry.”
― Richard Carrier, Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith

“Modern biblical scholars have established that the Bible is a wiki. It was compiled over half a millennium from writers with different styles, dialects, character names, and conceptions of God, and it was subjected to haphazard editing that left it with many contradictions, duplications, and non sequiturs.”
― Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

“We start with the evidence, and then figure out what the best explanation of it all really is, regardless of where this quest for truth takes us.”
― Richard Carrier, Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith