Penn Jillette: Quotes about God

“God works in mysterious, inefficient, and breathtakingly cruel ways.”

Penn Jillette

This statement is a rebuke to the famous assertion by William Cowper: "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm."
2000s
Context: It's fair to say that the Bible contains equal amounts of fact, history, and pizza. … God works in mysterious, inefficient, and breathtakingly cruel ways.

God , Way

“I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."”

Penn Jillette

2000s, There Is No God (2005)
Context: I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."
Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. 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. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

God

“I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy — you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do”

Penn Jillette

2000s, There Is No God (2005)

God

“Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.”

Penn Jillette

2000s, There Is No God (2005)

God , People , Memory , Time

“I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. 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," or another two words that the FCC likes less.”

Penn Jillette

2000s, There Is No God (2005)

God , People , Faith , Way

“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.”

Penn Jillette

"Bull Sessions with Penn Jillette" http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124420.html Reason (15 January 2008)
2000s

God , People , Way , Lying

“Atheists are also morally obligated to tell the truth as we see it. We should preach and proselytize too. We need to help believers. Someone who believes in god is wasting big parts of his or her life, holding back science and love, and giving "moral" support to dangerous extremists. If you believe something, you must share it; it's one of the ways we all learn about truth.”

Penn Jillette

p. 62 http://books.google.com/books?id=OqwtBujvOmgC&pg=PA62&dq=%22atheists+are+also+morally+obligated%22
2010s, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales (2011)

Love , Life , God , Truth