“He considers [it's] insulting and false to say that gods are magical anthropomorphic immortals. But however insensitive that may seem, we cannot fairly dismiss all the hundreds of gods who were worshiped by millions of people for thousands of years. However we define what a god is, that definition must include every entity already universally accepted as a deity by those who worship it. My research in this area would have me submit that all gods are magical anthropomorphic immortals, because that description does seem to apply to all of them. They all have miraculous powers and human characteristics, and even if you can kill the body, they still exist and can still return in some other form, or the same form, or be literally born again as it was with Dionysus II. Even on the rare occasion that gods can be killed, none of them die from cancer or old age, and all of them survive for centuries. Even the immortals in movie, the Highlander could be killed–one particular way only. Otherwise, they’re immortal with human characteristics. Give them magic powers and they’d be gods.”

— Aron Ra

Patheos, Philosophistry http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2017/04/12/philosophistry/ (April 12, 2017)

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Aron Ra 190

Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men P… 1962

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“They are just ghosts, immortal gods of the modern mythos which appear to us to be real because we are in that mythos. But in reality they are just as much an artistic creation as the anthropomorphic Gods they replaced.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29
Context: What is essential to understand at this point is that until now there was no such thing as mind and matter, subject and object, form and substance. Those divisions are just dialectical inventions that came later. The modern mind sometimes tends to balk at the thought of these dichotomies being inventions and says, "Well, the divisions were there for the Greeks to discover," and you have to say, "Where were they? Point to them!" And the modern mind gets a little confused and wonders what this is all about anyway, and still believes the divisions were there.
But they weren't, as Phædrus said. They are just ghosts, immortal gods of the modern mythos which appear to us to be real because we are in that mythos. But in reality they are just as much an artistic creation as the anthropomorphic Gods they replaced.

“I don't believe in the anthropomorphic God. … I have four daughters and eight grandchildren. My soul lives on in them. That's immortality. That's the only immortality I care about.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Playboy interview (1996)

“I don't believe in the anthropomorphic God. … I have four daughters and eight grandchildren. My soul lives on in them. That's immortality. That's the only immortality I care about.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Playboy interview (1996)

“We must believe in one God that we may love & fear him. We must believe that he is the father Almighty, or first author of all things by the almighty power of his will, that we may thank & worship him & him alone for our being and for all the blessings of this life < insertion from f 43v > We must believe that this is the God of moses & the Jews who created heaven & earth & the sea & all things therein as is expressed in the ten commandments, that we may not take his name in vain nor worship images or visible resemblances nor have (in our worship) any other God then him. For he is without similitude he is the invisible God whom no eye hath seen nor can see, & therefore is not to be worshipped in any visible shape. He is the only invisible God & the only God whom we are to worship & therefore we are not to worship any visible image picture likeness or form. We are not forbidden to give the name of Gods to Angels & Kings but we are forbidden to worship them as Gods. For tho there be that are called Gods whether in heaven or in earth (as there are Gods many & Lords many) yet to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things & we in him & our Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things & we in him, that is, but one God & one Lord in our worship: One God & one mediator between God & man the man Christ Jesus. We are forbidden to worship two Gods but we are not forbidden to worship one God, & one Lord: one God for creating all things & one Lord for redeeming us with his blood. We must not pray to two Gods, but we may pray to one God in the name of one Lord. We must believe therefore in one Lord Jesus Christ that we may behave our selves obediently towards him as subjects & keep his laws, & give him that honour & glory & worship which is due to him as our Lord & King or else we are not his people. We must believe that this Lord Jesus is the Christ, or Messiah the Prince predicted by Daniel, & we must worship him as the Messiah or else we are no Christians. The Jews who were taught to have but one God were also taught to expect a king, & the Christians are taught in their Creed to have the same God & to believe that Jesus is that King.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Drafts on the history of the Church (Section 3). Yahuda Ms. 15.3, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel. 2006 Online Version at Newton Project http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/THEM00220

“Magic consists of, and is acquired by the worship of the gods.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher

Quoted by H.P. Blavatsky, in The Theosophical Glossary, http://theosophy.org/Blavatsky/Theosophical%20Glossary/Thegloss.htm (1892)
Other

“Those who worship God for the hope of gaining, they’re not real worshippers, they’re merchants. Those who worship God out of fear (of punishment), they’re slaves. And those who worship God to be grateful towards their creator, they are the free people, and their worship is a real one.”

Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 117
Religious-based Quotes

“It is not unlikely, too, that the rejection of God is a kind of punishment: we may well believe that those who knew the Gods and neglected them in one life may in another life be deprived of the knowledge of them altogether. Also those who have worshipped their own kings as gods have deserved as their punishment to lose all knowledge of God.”

Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer

XVIII. Why there are rejections of God, and that God is not injured.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

“He is present in every being! These are all in manifold forms of him. There is no other God to seek for! He alone is worshipping God, who serves all beings!”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

As quoted in Vivekananda : The Yogas and Other Works (1953), p. 173; also at "The Story Of Swami Vivekananda: Mission Impossible" at MyLifeYoga (10 December 2011) http://mylifeyoga.com/2011/12/10/the-story-of-swami-vivekananda-mission-impossibl/
Context: After so much austerity I have known that the highest truth is this: He is present in every being! These are all in manifold forms of him. There is no other God to seek for! He alone is worshipping God, who serves all beings!

“They also say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the universe and of all that is in the universe; however, that he has not the figure of a man; and that he is the creator of the universe, and as it were the Father of all things in common, and that a portion of him pervades everything.”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Zeno, 72.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 7: The Stoics

“If they be dead, as I can no longer doubt, we must submit to the will of God and trust in His divine Providence, that He who has given the blood of His only Son to maintain His Church will do nothing but what will redound to the advancement of His glory and the preservation of His Church—however impossible it may appear. And though we all were to die, and all this poor people were massacred and driven out, we still must trust that God will not abandon his own.”

William the Silent (1533–1584) stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, leader of the Dutch Revolt

On the loss of some of his brothers, in a letter to his brother John, as quoted in William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison, p. 76

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Aron Ra 190

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