American comedian (1921-2000)
If you pray for rain long enough, it does eventually fall. If you pray for flood-waters to abate, they eventually do. The same happens in the absence of prayers.
STEVE ALLEN
Reflections
The Bible is unfortunately unclear on a long list of moral and social questions and sex is one of them. On the one hand, there are expressions of admiration for the reportedly virgin mother of Jesus, but other portions of scripture speak quite accommodatingly of polygamy.
STEVE ALLEN
Vulgarians at the Gate
There is not the slightest question but that the God of the Old Testament is a jealous, vengeful God, inflicting not only on the sinful pagans but even on his Chosen People fire, lighting, hideous plagues and diseases, brimstone, and other curses.
STEVE ALLEN
Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality
I'm all for sex. Seven nights a week. Days, too.
STEVE ALLEN
How to Be Funny: Discovering the Comic in You
God is by definition the holder of all possible knowledge, it would be impossible for him to have faith in anything. Faith, then, is built upon ignorance and hope.
STEVE ALLEN
More Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, & Morality
The Bible has been interpreted to justify such evil practices as, for example, slavery, the slaughter of prisoners of war, the sadistic murders of women believed to be witches, capital punishment for hundreds of offenses, polygamy, and cruelty to animals. It has been used to encourage belief in the grossest superstition and to discourage the free teaching of scientific truths. We must never forget that both good and evil flow from the Bible. It is therefore not above criticism.
STEVE ALLEN
Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality
Without laughter life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us that humanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions on earth, those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. This is very strange if you stop to think of it: that otherwise sane and responsible citizens should devote their professional energies to causing others to make sharp, explosive barking-like exhalations.
STEVE ALLEN
Funny People
The Nazis are regarded as animals in human form because they gassed, shot, or burned perhaps as many as six million Jews. Today the people of the United States are quite prepared, if provoked, to actually burn alive hundreds of millions of innocent men and women, young and old. I deliberately put the matter in such blunt terms because it is long past time to do so and because there is apparently no other way to start people thinking of the moral questions raised by nuclear weapons.
STEVE ALLEN
But Seriously: Steve Allen Speaks His Mind
It's a long show.... We specially selected this particular theater, this is the New York theater called the Hudson, and we specially selected it for this very late show because this theater, oh, I think it sleeps about 800 people.
STEVE ALLEN
first broadcast, The Tonight Show, 1953
To those who wish to punish others -- or at least to see them punished, if the avengers are too cowardly to take matters in to their own hands -- the belief in a fiery, hideous hell appears to be a great source of comfort.
STEVE ALLEN
Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality
Religious believers of the world, you are free to continue to debate the simple, narrow question that divides you from atheists, but you have no right, in so doing, to treat the Humanists of the world with contempt. You owe them a deep debt of gratitude, for not only have they shed much light on a naturally dark world but they have very probably helped civilize your own specific religion.
STEVE ALLEN
Vulgarians at the Gate
Humor is a social lubricant that helps us get over some of the bad spots.
STEVE ALLEN
How to Be Funny: Discovering the Comic in You
It is not hardness of heart or evil passions that drive certain individuals to atheism, but rather a scrupulous intellectual honesty. The average believer rarely examines his beliefs and, indeed, would not know how to subject them to proper critical analysis. The average atheist has usually arrived at his intellectual position through a tough-minded consideration of deep philosophical questions. Indeed, the typical atheist is more interested in religion than is the average believer. Only the atheist has a logical explanation of the existence of evil. Unfortunately he has a somewhat unsatisfactory explanation of the existence of good.
STEVE ALLEN
Reflections
If there is a God, the phrase that must disgust him is "holy war".
STEVE ALLEN
Reflections
I do not understand those who take little or no interest in the subject of religion. If religion embodies a truth, it is certainly the most important truth of human existence. If it is largely error, then it is one of monumentally tragic proportions--and should be vigorously opposed.
STEVE ALLEN
Reflections
Thousands of years ago only Christ could walk on the water. Today anybody can do it; you just step on the garbage.
STEVE ALLEN
Reflections
This is The Tonight Show. I can't tell you too much about it, other than the fact that this program is going to go on forever.
STEVE ALLEN
first broadcast, The Tonight Show, 1953
Totalitarianism is patriotism institutionalized.
STEVE ALLEN
Reflections
Ideas have consequences, and totally erroneous ideas are likely to have destructive consequences.
STEVE ALLEN
More Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, & Morality
No actual tyrant known to history has ever been guilty of one-hundredth of the crimes, massacres, and other atrocities attributed to the Deity in the Bible.
STEVE ALLEN
More Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, & Morality