“Religion is a species of mental disease. It has always had a pathological reaction on mankind.”

As quoted by Mussolini in 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt by James A. Haught (1966) p. 256. From a speech he made in Lausanne, July 1904.
1900s

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Benito Mussolini photo
Benito Mussolini 127
Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Le… 1883–1945

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“The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease”

as quoted in "Keynes and the Ethics of Capitalism" by Robert Skidelsy http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1256603608595872&url=www.geocities.com/monedem/keyn.html
Essays in Persuasion (1931), Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930)
Context: When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease … But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.

Aron Ra photo

“[Religion] is literally a delusion, but one caused by conditioning rather than pathology. There are a number of studies showing a negative correlation of faith as debilitating certain areas of the brain. So religion can lead to, conceal, or even encourage mental disorders without actually being one itself.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Anti-theist Answers to Christian Questions http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2015/11/22/anti-theist-answers-to-christian-questions/ (November 22, 2015)

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“Love is a serious mental disease. ”

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“Henri Poincaré thought the theory of infinite sets a grave malady and pathologic. "Later generations," he said in 1908, "will regard set theory as a disease from which one has recovered.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

[Morris Kline, Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, http://books.google.com/books?id=RNwnUL33epsC&pg=PA203, 1982, Oxford University Press, 978-0-19-503085-3, 203]

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“The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Modes of Thought (1938).
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Context: The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other. If we like to assume the rise of language as a given fact, then it is not going too far to say that the souls of men are the gift from language to mankind. The account of the sixth day should be written: He gave them speech, and they became souls.

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“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”

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When asked by Viereck if he considered himself to be a German or a Jew. A version with slightly different wording is quoted in Einstein: His Life and Universe http://books.google.com/books?id=dJMpQagbz_gC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA386#v=onepage&q&f=false by Walter Isaacson (2007), p. 386
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Variant: Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
Context: It is quite possible to be both. I look upon myself as a man. Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

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“Religion is a psychic disease of the brain.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

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“Religion…is a man's total reaction upon life.”

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