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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.

-Penn Jillette

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If The Bible Were

Penn Jillette

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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.

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Behaving Morally Because Of A Hope Of Reward Or A Fear Of Punishment Is Not Morality.

I Like Movies That Are Scary, But I Don't Want Them To Be Dirt Dumb. I Want A Movie That Gets My Blood Racing, Makes Me Laugh, But Also Gives Me Something To Think About, With Maybe A Little Sexy Thrown In. Hollywood Doesn't Make Movies Like That.

We Are Only Here For A Little While, And Our Bodies Belong To Ourselves And No One Else.

I Am A Huge Fan Of Proselytizing. I Am A Huge Fan Of Speaking Your Mind. The Only Way We Can Share The Universe... Is By Talking Very Strongly About What We Believe.

Trey Parker Did 'book Of Mormon.' It's The Best Broadway Show I've Ever Seen. He Does 'south Park.' It's Wonderful.

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?

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

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We Celebrities Are Desperate Pigs.

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.

The Secret Truth Of 'celebrity Apprentice' Is That It Isn't Very Hard... 'celebrity Apprentice' Is Easy Like Junior High Is Easy. All The Arithmetic, The Creative Writing And The History Are Super Simple, But Like Junior High, You Do That Easy Work Surrounded By People Who Are Full-tilt, Hormone-raging Bug Nutty.

Every Time Something Really Bad Happens, People Cry Out For Safety, And The Government Answers By Taking Rights Away From Good People

I Like Things Matching. I Have An Upright Bass, A Drum Kit And A Grand Piano That's The Same Color. I Tend To Overthink Things.

Better To Be Uneducated Than Educated By Your Government.

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 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.

That's The Beauty Of The Web: You Can Roll Around In A Stranger's Obsession Without Having To Smell His Or Her House. You Can Amscray Whenever You Want Without Being Rude. The Site Gets Its "hit" And You Know More About Our Species' Diversity.

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.

I Love When Violent, Dangerous Art Is Done By People Who Are Not Violent And Dangerous. I Love That When George Romero Was Making 'dawn Of The Dead,' He Was Coaching His Son's Little League Team.

Believing There Is No God Gives Me More Room For Belief In Family, People, Love, Truth, Beauty, Sex, Jell-o, And All The Other Things I Can Prove And That Make This Life The Best Life I Will Ever Have.

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.

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.

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.

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It's Only The Losers Named Dave That Think Having An Unusual Name Is Bad, And Who Cares What They Think. They're Named Dave.

I'm A Hardcore Libertarian - I Want Everything Legal - But I Also Believe That You Have The Right To Free Association.

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

The Purpose Of Art Is To Collide The Intellectual And Visceral Together At The Highest Speed Possible.

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

It Seems Just Rude To Beg The Invisible For More.

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

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Self Destructive

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The Whole World Is Pretending The Breakthrough Is In Technology. The Bottleneck Is Really In Art.

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Read Everything And Be Kind.

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

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If You Want To Turn Out An Atheist Child, Unconditional Love Constantly Is A Good Way To Do It.

Unconditional Love

Magic Is The Special Olympics Of Entertainment.

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Make Deals With People, Not Paper.

All David Blaine Is Is A Good-looking Magician.

There Never Was A God. 'god Is Dead' Is A Halfway Measure I Won't Go With.

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I've Never Had A Drink Of Alcohol Or Any Drug In My Life.

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Building A Professional Relationship On Respect As Opposed To Affection Is A Very Good Idea. Running Your Art Projects The Way You'd Run A Dry-cleaning Business Is Also A Really Good Idea. You Shouldn't Go Into Work Like You're Going On A Date, Like You're Hanging Out With Friends.

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

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If You Like The Stuff I Do, My Chances Of Liking You Go Up.

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

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

I Intend To Do The Penn & Teller Show Until They Pry My Cheesy Magic Wand From My Cold Dead Fingers.

Charities Are Really Good. To A Certain Extent, The Ones You Pick Are Arbitrary.

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

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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.

Luck Is Statistics Taken Personally.

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We Need A President Who Realizes That There's No Government Business In Show Business.

The Fact Is That Violence Gives You A Rush.

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

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Buying Something

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

I Believe Very Much That The Most Damning Thing You Can Say About Muslims Is That You're Afraid To Say Anything Because They'll Hurt You.

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

Freedom Means The Right To Be Stupid.

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.

Everyday Is An Atheist Holiday.

Atheism Is A Religion Like Not Collecting Stamps Is A Hobby.

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

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 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.

I Don't Believe In Vengeance. Really, When All Is Said And Done, I Probably Don't Believe In Punishment.

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?

Fear Is The Politicians Dance Partner.

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.

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

If I Go Out To Dinner With You And You Order Wine, I Leave. I Won't Be Around Drugs And Alcohol At All.

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

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

For The Most Part, Any Serious Magic Show Is Not Using Very Much Technology Newer Than Theatrical Lights.

Penn & Teller Stopped Doing Practical Jokes, And The Reason Is We Got Much Too Good At It.

A Joke Is A Way To Say, 'i'm Going To Do Something Funny Now. If I Don't Get A Laugh At The End, I'm A Failure.'

To Drive A Car In Rural America Is Freedom. Before I Had A Car, I'd Never Seen A Rock And Roll Show, I'd Never Seen A Comic Or A Show.

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.

People Need To Be Fed, Medicated, Educated, Clothed, And Sheltered, And If We're Compassionate We'll Help Them, But You Get No Moral Credit For Forcing Other People To Do What You Think Is Right. There Is Great Joy In Helping People, But No Joy In Doing It At Gunpoint.

In My Run-ins With Christians... I Find That They Really Are Good Moral People. And We Overlap On Everything, And They Don't Seem To Be The Kind Of People That Are Waiting To Hear Voices To Tell Them What To Do.

Before You Can Read, You Know The Difference Between A Story And Reality. And, Of Course, By The Time You're Old Enough To Do Any Real Damage With An Uzi, You've Learned That Difference.

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.

When I Was A Kid, Politicians Wanted To Avoid Talking About Religion If They Could. John F. Kennedy Couldn't Duck The Issue, Being Catholic And All. So How Did He Address It? By Reminding Americans That Religion Shouldn't Be An Issue, That He Was Concentrating On Big Things Like Poverty And Hunger And Leading The Space Race.

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.

I Think One Of The Things About Donald Trump That's Interesting Is He Lives In A Rarified Atmosphere Where It's Possible That He Doesn't Get Enough Feedback, Enough People Rolling Their Eyes At Him. It's A Danger More In Show Business Than It Is With Wealth.

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.

Whereas You Have Someone Like Houdini, Who Works Really, Really Hard To Get Really, Really Famous, And Then Has Actual Intellectual Ideas That He Puts Into The Culture That Stay There.

I Think That I Am Willing To Risk My Life In Order To Have More Freedom.

I Believe The Fast Track To Atheism Is Reading The Bible. I've Read It Three Times All The Way Through. It's A Big Part Of Our Culture, A Big Part Of Our History. I Don't Just Read Things I Agree With.

Believing There Is No God Means The Suffering I've Seen In My Family And Indeed All The Suffering In The World Isn't Caused By Any Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent Force That Isn't Bothered To Help Or Is Just Testing Us, But Rather Something We All May Be Able To Help Others With In The Future. No God Means The Possibility Of Less Suffering In The Future.

Someone Who Is A Good Person Should Have No Fear Of The Government Whatsoever.

God Works In Mysterious, Inefficient, And Breathtakingly Cruel Ways

Mysterious Ways

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.

Every Nut Who Kills People Has A Bible Lying Around. If You're Looking For Violent Rape Imagery, The Bible's Right There In Your Hotel Room. If You Just Want To Look Up Ways To Screw People Up, There It Is, And You're Justified Because God Told You To.

As Much As I Disagreed With Every Second Of 'fahrenheit 9/11,' The Fact That It Is Out Made Me Jump For Joy.

The Only Difference Between Obama And Bush Is That Obama Is Killing More People.

'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.

I Don't Travel In Circles Where People Say, 'i Have Faith, I Believe This In My Heart And Nothing You Can Say Or Do Can Shake My Faith.' That's Just A Long-winded Religious Way To Say 'shut Up.'

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

I'm Not Bothered By The Idea Of Getting Old, Or I Guess You Could Say By Having Arrived At Old. I Was 10 When My Mom Turned 55. For 1955, She Was A Very Old Mom.

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

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

There Are Performers Who Have Built Their Whole Career Doing Magic On Tv And Can't Really Perform Live At All - Don't Really Have Jobs And Skills.

When I Was 15, 16, 17 Years Old, I Spent Five Hours A Day Juggling, And I Probably Spent Six Hours A Day Seriously Listening To Music. And If I Were 16 Now, I Would Put That Time Into Playing Video Games.

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

'celebrity Apprentice' Has More Integrity And Is The Most Straightforward Show I've Ever Seen.

Straightforward

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

Health And Life

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

Counterintuitive Action Makes A Fellow Feel Smart.

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

Imaginary Friend

World War Ii Proves There's No God.

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

The Cliche Of The Nerdy Kid Who Doesn't Go Outside And Just Plays Games Is Completely Untrue. And It's Also True For The Nerdy Kid Who Studies Comic Books And Turns Into This Genius, And It Is Also True For The Nerdy Kid Who Listens To Every Nerdy Thing That Led Zeppelin Put Out. That Kind Of Obsession In A 16-year-old Is Not Ugly. It's Beautiful.

A Lot Of People, To Attack An Outspoken Atheist, One Of The Things They'll Do Is Say, 'you Are As Bad As The Fundamentalist Christians.' And My Answer Is Always, 'i Hope So.'

There Are Two Things That Have Been True Throughout History In Big Hunks. You Can Find Differences In Ten Years, But In 50 Year Hunks, 100 Years Hunks, You'll Find Two Things To Be True. One, The World Is Always Getting Better. Two, People Always Think It's Getting Worse.

This Is Going To Sound Horrible, But I Don't Even Know How Much I Make In A Year. It Must Be, You Know, A Couple Of Million Dollars, A Few Million. I Know It's More Money Than My Dad, A Jail Guard, Made In His Lifetime; More Money Than I'll Ever Need.

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