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'christian' Used To Be A Throwaway Word. People Didn't Used To Use It Much. People Didn't Start Self-labeling Or Getting Labeled Christian Until The Last Part Of The 20th Century. Before That, You Might Identify As A Baptist, Or A Southern Baptist Or A Methodist. But There Wasn't One Identifier That Put You In A Fold With All The Other Believers.

-Penn Jillette

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'christian' Used To Be

Penn Jillette

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'christian' Used To Be A Throwaway Word. People Didn't Used To Use It Much. People Didn't Start Self-labeling Or Getting Labeled Christian Until The Last Part Of The 20th Century. Before That, You Might Identify As A Baptist, Or A Southern Baptist Or A Methodist. But There Wasn't One Identifier That Put You In A Fold With All The Other Believers.

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The First Amendment Says Nothing About Your Getting Paid For Saying Anything. It Just Says You Can Say It. I Don't Believe That If A Corporation Pulls All The Money Out Of You Or A Network Pulls Their Money Away Or You Get Fired, You're Being Censored.

I Will Forever Stick Up For Catholics And Christians In General. With A Small Number Of Very Horrible Exceptions, They Do Play By The Rules.

Juggling Is Very, Very Straightforward; Very, Very Black And White; You're Manipulating Objects, Not People. And That's Always Appealed To Me.

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If The Bible Were Published As Fiction, No Reviewer Would Give It A Passing Grade. There Are Some Vivid Scenes And Quotable Phrases But There's No Plot, No Structure, A Tremendous Amount Of Filler And The Characters Are Painfully One Dimensional. Whatever You Do, Don't Read The Bible For A Moral Code. It Advocates Prejudice, Cruelty, Superstition And Murder. Read It Because We Need More Atheists.

When 9/11 Hit, The Second Thing I Said To Myself Was, 'this Really Is What Religious People Do.' Those People Flying The Plane Were Very Good, Very Pious, Truly Faithful Believers. There's No Other Way To Paint Them. Of Course, They Are Extremists By Definition, But They Certainly Aren't Going Against Islam In Any Real Way.

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Everybody Wants Clean, Safe Energy. Some People Think Nuclear Is The Way To Go. Some People Think Coal Is The Way To Go. Some People Think Wind Is The Way To Go. And There's Always Balances On That.

A Famous Monk Once Said, I Don't Always Know What The Right Thing To Do Is, My Lord, But I Think The Fact That I Want To Please You Pleases You.

Every Day, Tv, Newspapers, And The Internet Bombard Us With A Message That We're Destroying The Earth. Ice Caps Are Melting, Rivers Are Dying, Polar Bears Are Drowning, And Trees Are Doing Something.

I Have More Contact With People Who Consume, For Lack Of A Better Word, My Product Than Any Other Performers.

I Don't Think Anything Gives Your Life Joy And Meaning. I Think Your Life Simply Has Joy And Meaning. The Love For My Children, The Love For My Parents And The Love For My Friends Is The End In Itself. The Meaning Is Life.

I Don't Speak For All Libertarians Any More Than Sean Penn Speaks For All Democrats.

I Mean, If I Believed, Beyond The Shadow Of A Doubt, That A Truck Was Coming At You, And You Didn’t Believe That Truck Was Bearing Down On You, There Is A Certain Point Where I Tackle You. And This Is More Important Than That.

The Only Difference Between Obama And Bush Is That Obama Is Killing More People. He’s About Double The Numbers Now. Can You Imagine If Mccain Had Won And Did Precisely What Obama Has Done, With Every Speech And Every Political Maneuver Overseas? There’d Be Riots In The Streets About The People We’re Killing. And Yet Because It’s Obama, And He’s Better Looking And Better At Reading The Teleprompter, We Let Him Get Away With It.

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If You Believe That There’s A Heaven And Hell And People Could Be Going To Hell—or Not Getting Eternal Life Or Whatever—and You Think That, Well, It’s Not Really Worth Telling Them This Because It Would Make It Socially Awkward. . . . How Much Do You Have To Hate Somebody To Not Proselytize? How Much Do You Have To Hate Somebody To Believe That Everlasting Life Is Possible And Not Tell Them That?

Only Atheists Have Morals, The Religious Have Reward And Punishment. That's Not Morality, That's Sucking Up.

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Everyday Is An Atheist Holiday.

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From 1985 To 1994, I Lived In Manhattan In A Big Old Loft Right Off Times Square. I Could Walk To Work, Which Was In A Couple Of Broadway Theaters, To Howard Stern's Studio, And To 30 Rock For 'letterman' And 'snl.' Even In New York, Walking To Work Is Homey And Folksy, Like Living In A Small Town.

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Comedy Is Taken Care Of By A Free Market.

Every Poker Player Is Smarter Than Me.

I Think People Under Age 55 Come To Vegas With A Certain Sense Of Irony.

How Much Do You Have To Hate Somebody To Not Proselytize?

Everlasting Life

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World War Ii Proves There's No God.

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'christian' Used To Be A Throwaway Word. People Didn't Used To Use It Much. People Didn't Start Self-labeling Or Getting Labeled Christian Until The Last Part Of The 20th Century. Before That, You Might Identify As A Baptist, Or A Southern Baptist Or A Methodist. But There Wasn't One Identifier That Put You In A Fold With All The Other Believers.

Modern American Magic, Late 20th Century Magic, Is Tremendously Disrespectful Of The Audience.

We Have To Fight For The Freedom To Be Stupid, And Smoking Is One Of The Best Ways To Fight For Your Freedom, To Be Just As Stupid As You Can Be.

I Started Out As A Juggler, So I Know What It Means To Spend Eight Hours A Day, Seven Days A Week Practicing Something That People Just Dismiss With A Wave Of Hand.

That Whole 99% Thing, They Are All In The 1% Of The World. Every One Of Them Pays A Cellphone Bill That Is The Yearly Income For A Family In Much Of The Rest Of The World.

My Whole Family Is Missing That Sports Gene. I Hope I Didn't Screw That Up By Marrying A Great Golfer.

I Have A Very Specific Definition Of Censorship. Censorship Must Be Done By The Government Or It's Not Censorship.

Reading The Bible Is The Fast Track To Atheism. Reading The Bible Means Starting At "in The Beginning..." And Throwing It Down With Disgust At "...the Grace Of The Lord Jesus Be With All. Amen." I'm Sure There Are Lots Of Religious People Who've Read The Bible From Start To Finish And Kept Their Faith, But In My Self-selected Sample, All The People I Know Who Have Done That Are Atheists.

Don't Waste Too Much Time Wishing, Hoping, And Being Envious; It'll Make You Bugnutty.

The Highest Ideals Are Human Intelligence, Creativity And Love. Respect These Above All.

Technology Adds Nothing To Art.

If You Are Doing Something For Reward Or Punishment, You Do Not Have Morality.

Asking Someone Else To Do Something Immoral Is Immoral.

Everyone's Goals Are The Same With Very Small Differences. I Mean, The Goal Of A Socialist And The Goal Of A Libertarian Are Exactly The Same. The Goals Are Happiness And Security And Freedom, And You Balance Those.

Security And Freedom

I Was About 12 When I Heard My First Lenny Bruce Record. He Was Already Dead. But It Changed My Life And Really Did Change The World.

Make Deals With People, Not Paper.

We Knew That We Were Kind Of Odd And Creeps, And We Wanted To Do Odd, Creepy Stuff For People Who Wanted To See That.

Computers Absolutely Changed My Life. Before I Had A Computer, I Had Never Written One Thing. Not One Thing. I'm A Very Bad Speller And I Was Embarrassed By That. When I Would Type, The Little Mistakes Would Make Me Nutty, And I Would Never Edit Anything.

Technology Adds Nothing To Art. Two Thousand Years Ago, I Could Tell You A Story, And At Any Point During The Story I Could Stop, And Ask, 'now Do You Want The Hero To Be Kidnapped, Or Not?' But That Would, Of Course, Have Ruined The Story. Part Of The Experience Of Being Entertained Is Sitting Back And Plugging Into Someone Else's Vision.

The Most Important Part Of Life Is Work, It's The Flow, It's Getting Stuff Done, Feeling Like You're Doing Something.

I Believe That The Best Way To Become An Atheist Is To Read The Bible

A Lot Of Older Parents Worry About Being Older Parents. I Hear People Say, 'i Don't Want To Be Too Old To Play Baseball With My Son.' They Worry That Their Kids Will Be Embarrassed By Their Parents' Age.

I'm Really Happy With All The Art That Was Inspired By Religion, And I Think I'd Be Tickled To Little Tiny Pieces If Art In The Future Was Inspired By Other Things.

If You Believe That There’s A Heaven And Hell . . . How Much Do You Have To Hate Somebody To Believe That Everlasting Life Is Possible And Not Tell Them That?

'zolten' Is A Common Hungarian Name, It's My Wife's Maiden Name And Most Importantly, It's The Name Of Dracula's Dog.

In Reality, Many People Let Go Of Religion Later In Life.

Technology Is Run By Sex, Because It's Very Important To People, Both Technology And Sex.

Democracy Without Respect For Individual Rights Sucks. It's Just Ganging Up Against The Weird Kid, And I'm Always The Weird Kid.

Twelve Magicians And Two Carnies Have Been Shot Dead Doing The Bullet Catch. That's Cool Enough, But Every Night When We Close Our Show With That Trick And The Loaded Gun Gets Pointed In My Face, It Goes So Far Beyond Cool. All I Can Think Is 12 Magicians, Two Carnies.

My Favorite Thing About The Internet Is That You Get To Go Into The Private World Of Real Creeps Without Having To Smell Them.

I Never Wanted To Be A Magician. I Never Wanted To Be A Comedian. I Never Wanted To Be Onstage.

It Is Really Funny To See People That You Know Acting Unpleasantly Just Because There Are Tv Cameras On.

I've Always Wanted To Make The World A More Rational Place. I'm Still Working On It.

I Think The Media Spends A Lot Of Time Fooling Itself.

Thou Shalt Not Take Anything On Faith

Religion Cannot And Should Not Be Replaced By Atheism. Religion Needs To Go Away And Not Be Replaced By Anything. Atheism Is Not A Religion. It's The Absence Of Religion, And That's A Wonderful Thing.

I Will Not Counter The Insanity Of The Patriot Act With An Overblown Fear Of My Rights Being Taken Away.

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The Medium Is Not The Message - The Message Is The Message.

I Like To Read In The Dark. I Like To Go Into The Bathtub, Turn Out All The Lights, And In The Dark, Read My Books.

One Thing You Learn Doing Magic Tricks For A Living Is How Close Every Performance Of Every Magic Trick Is To Disaster. There Are No Robust Magic Tricks. They're All Hanging From A Thread - Sometimes Literally.

Counterintuitive Actions Prove We Can Trust Real Knowledge And Do The Opposite Of What We Feel Makes Sense.

Exploration Of Space Is Worth It Because Humans Need To Explore. Knowledge Is Always Good, And It's A Really Cool Thing To See.

Love And Respect All People. Hate And Destroy All Faith.

Love And Respect

There's No Job In Show Business That's Harder Than Any Other Job Outside Show Business.

You Have To Be Careful As A Libertarian Because You Can Sound Very Republican.

Two Things Have Always Been True About Human Beings. One, The World Is Always Getting Better. Two, The People Living At That Time Think It's Getting Worse.

'psycho' Is Fascinating Philosophically, Because The Point Of 'psycho' Is That Everything That's Bad Happens Because Of Love.

Barack Obama Is Way Smarter Than Bush - So Way, Way Smarter Than Me. Obama Is Way More Charismatic Than Me.

I've Never Revved My Car At A Light For An Attractive Woman Or An Auto-rival, Not Even As A Joke.

We Aren't People Who Believe That Just Because We're Performers Our Opinions On Everything Need To Be Known.

Tolerance Is You Saying Something Crazy And Me Smiling And Saying, 'that's Nice.'

I Didn't Learn Fire-eating To Conquer My Fears. I Learned Fire-eating Because I Desperately Wanted To Be In Show Business.

If I Had To Imagine Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent Power In The Universe That Chose To Make My Mother Suffer, I Don't Know How I Would Make That Make Sense In The Universe.

It Seems Just Rude To Beg The Invisible For More.

I, My Own Damn Self, Am Not A Tea Party Supporter. I Disagree With Them On Social Liberties, Our Overseas Wars, Obama's Birthplace, Sarah Palin, And The Conspicuous Absence Of Tea At Their Rallies.

You Get No Moral Credit For Forcing Other People To Do What You Think Is Right.

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I Don't Think I'm Made Of The Right Stuff To Be A Politician. I Think I'm Made To Be A Loose Cannon.

The Only Place We Were Really Told To Tone It Down - Where Other People Would Use The Word Censorship, But I Wouldn't - Was When We Did Mtv Right After The Beavis And Butt-head Thing.

I Love The Idea That Horror And Fear Is A Celebration Of Health And Life.

Health And Life

I'm A Big Fan Of Huge Populations Of People, So You'd Think With 300 Million People In The Country, You Don't Even Have To Please 1% To Be Phenomenally Successful.

God Works In Mysterious, Inefficient, And Breathtakingly Cruel Ways

Mysterious Ways

Cars Mean Nothing To Me. I'm Not A Car Guy.

Luck Is Statistics Taken Personally.

Never Ascribe To Conspiracy That Which Can Be Attributed To Ignorance.

All David Blaine Is Is A Good-looking Magician.

Channeling Is Just Bad Ventriloquism. You Use Another Voice, But People Can See Your Lips Moving.

It's Not Arrogant To Say That You Can't Figure Out The Answers To The Universe With Your Internal Faith. It's Not Arrogant To Know That There's No Omniscient, Omnipotent Prime Mover In The Universe Who Loves You Personally. It's Not Sad To Feel That Life And The Love Of Your Real Friends And Family Is More Than Enough To Make Life Worth Living. Isn't It Much Sadder To Feel That There Is A More Important Love Required Than The Love Of The People Who Have Chosen To Spend Their Limited Time With You?

I Love The Feeling Of Shredded Wheat. I Love Healthy Bird Food With A Fun-to-eat Feel. Then You Spray Them With Sugar, And I'm There.

I Came To Magic Absolutely Hating Magic On A Very, Very Deep Level.

I Do Believe That A Belief In God Is Crazy, But That Doesn't Mean That The People Who Believe In It Are Crazy. Those Are Two Different Things. Ideas Can Be Stupid And Crazy, And The People Who Hold Those Ideas Are Not Necessarily Stupid And Crazy.

Bacon Is So Good By Itself That To Put It In Any Other Food Is An Admission Of Failure. You're Basically Saying, 'i Can't Make This Other Food Taste Good, So I'll Throw In Bacon.'

It's Amazing To Me How Many People Think That Voting To Have The Government Give Poor People Money Is Compassion. Helping Poor And Suffering People Yourself Is Compassion. Voting For Our Government To Use Guns To Give Money To Help Poor And Suffering People Is Immoral, Self-righteous, Bullying Laziness.

Even If I Disagree With Obama On Many, Many Things, He Is Certainly Qualified To Be President. He Is Certainly Competent To Be President.

If You Want To Talk About Magic, The Stuff That Blows Me Away Is The Stuff That's Done Close Up.

People Like Bill Maher, Who Brags About Being A Cynic, It Sickens Me. I Am The Least Cynical Person I Know, And I Am Very, Very Skeptical.

For Better Or Worse, In The 21st Century, Reality Shows Are The Variety Show.

Everybody Prefers To See A Nut - They're More Fascinating.

Bob Saget Is The Dirtiest Comic Who's Ever Lived. Nobody Touches Him.

It Wasn't Success, Because Teller And I, By The Time Asparagus Valley Got Together - Within A Year, We Had Achieved All Our Goals. I Mean, Our Goal Was To Earn Our Living Doing Exactly What We Wanted. Which Is Many People's Goal.

Congratulations

Hypocrisy Is Annoying But Not Evil. Someone Who Says One Thing And Does Another Has Doubled Their Chances Of Being Half Right.

If Every Trace Of Any Single Religion Were Wiped Out And Nothing Were Passed On, It Would Never Be Created Exactly That Way Again. There Might Be Some Other Nonsense In Its Place, But Not That Exact Nonsense. If All Of Science Were Wiped Out, It Would Still Be True And Someone Would Find A Way To Figure It All Out Again.

When You're Watching Psycho, There' S That Moment When You Have A Visceral Reaction To Watching Someone Being Stabbed. And Then You Have The Intellectual Revelation That You're Not, And That's Where The Celebration Comes In.

Cheerios Bring Back Memories. I Actually Don't Think I Ate Them Much As A Kid, Though; Maybe It's Some Sort Of Jungian Memory, I Don't Know. But They Have So Much Sugar, It's Great.

My Love Of Computers, Besides Being Practical, Is Very Direct And Visceral. I Love The Way Things Look On The Screen.

I'm Not Greedy. I Have Love, Blue Skies, Rainbows And Hallmark Cards And That Has To Be Enough. It Has To Be Enough, But It's Everything In The World And Everything In The World Is Plenty For Me. It Seems Just Rude To Beg The Invisible For More.

If You Spend A Lot Of Time Lying To People, You Think A Lot About What The Truth Means.

Having A Hummer Is Stupid. It's Stupid To Waste That Much Gas. It's Stupid To Waste That Much Money On Gas. It's Stupid To Parade Your Insecurities On Public Roads. Hummers Are Stupid-looking.

When Someone Is Trying To Interpret Something For You, They Always Have An Agenda.

You Have In Vegas The Most Heterogeneous Audience You're Gonna Get Anywhere In The Country. In Boston, Chicago, Miami, You Know Who Goes To The Theater. In Vegas, You Have People Who Only See One Theater Show A Year, And It's In Vegas.

The End Never Justifies The Means Because There Is No End; There Are Only Means.

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I Was Always A Little Embarrassed When There Was An Act On Television That Requires A Great Deal Of Skill But Is A Little Goofy, And The Host Comes Over And Acts Like The Person Doing This Skill Is Some Sort Of Fool For Having Learned To Do Something That's Very, Very Difficult.

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How I Was Brought Up And My Imaginary Friend Means More To Me Than Anything You Can Ever Say Or Do.

Imaginary Friend

Jay-z, He Knows Precisely Who He's Going For - 14-year-old White Suburban Girls.

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