The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine - Part 2, Chapter 1

"It has often been said that any thing may be proved from the Bible."

"It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on the world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God; they have disputed and wrangled, and have anathematized each other about the supposable meaning of particular parts and passages therein; one has said and insisted that such a passage meant such a thing, another that it meant directly the contrary, and a third, that it meant neither one nor the other, but something different from both; and this they have called understanding the Bible." [On the interpretors and commentators of holy books]

"As to the ancient historians, from Herodotus to Tacitus, we credit them as far as they relate things probable and credible, and no further: for if we do, we must believe the two miracles which Tacitus relates were performed by Vespasian, that of curing a lame man, and a blind man, in just the same manner as the same things are told of Jesus Christ by his historians. We must also believe the miracles cited by Josephus, that of the sea of Pamphilia opening to let Alexander and his army pass, as is related of the Red Sea in Exodus. These miracles are quite as well authenticated as the Bible miracles, and yet we do not believe them." [On claims of miracles]

"Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies. The story of Eve and the serpent, and of Noah and his ark, drops to a level with the Arabian Tales, without the merit of being entertaining, and the account of men living to eight and nine hundred years becomes as fabulous as the immortality of the giants of the Mythology." [Comparing the mythology of Arabian Nights with the Bible]

"Those who knew Benjamin Franklin will recollect, that his mind was ever young; his temper ever serene; science, that never grows grey, was always his mistress. He was never without an object; for when we cease to have an object we become like an invalid in an hospital waiting for death." [Always have a purpose in life]

The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine - Part 1, Chapter 13

Thomas Paine explaining the root of his displeasure with the core doctrine of Christianity and how repulsed he was at the story of God torturing and murdering his son as an excuse to save a minuscule portion of humanity who have little or no understanding of the message of Christ or what is written in the bible.

"From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea, and acting upon it by reflection, I either doubted the truth of the christian system, or thought it to be a strange affair; I scarcely knew which it was: but I well remember, when about seven or eight years of age, hearing a sermon read by a relation of mine, who was a great devotee of the church, upon the subject of what is called Redemption by the death of the Son of God. After the sermon was ended, I went into the garden, and as I was going down the garden steps (for I perfectly recollect the spot) I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard, and thought to myself that it was making God Almighty act like a passionate man, that killed his son, when he could not revenge himself any other way; and as I was sure a man would be hanged that did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose they preached such sermons. This was not one of those kind of thoughts that had any thing in it of childish levity; it was to me a serious reflection, arising from the idea I had that God was too good to do such an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it. I believe in the same manner to this moment; and I moreover believe, that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system.
"It seems as if parents of the christian profession were ashamed to tell their children any thing about the principles of their religion. They sometimes instruct them in morals, and talk to them of the goodness of what they call Providence; for the Christian mythology has five deities: there is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the God Providence, and the Goddess Nature. But the christian story of God the Father putting his son to death, or employing people to do it, (for that is the plain language of the story,) cannot be told by a parent to a child; and to tell him that it was done to make mankind happier and better, is making the story still worse; as if mankind could be improved by the example of murder; and to tell him that all this is a mystery, is only making an excuse for the incredibility of it."

And a little aside on the magnitude of the universe and how little and limited the universe looks if we are to believe the scriptures:

"Though it is not a direct article of the christian system that this world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable creation, yet it is so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic account of the creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the counterpart of that story, the death of the Son of God, that to believe otherwise, that is, to believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous; and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air. The two beliefs can not be held together in the same mind; and he who thinks that he believes both, has thought but little of either."

Ghandi Naked Ambition by Jad Adams - Chapter Partition and Death

"... drew up a plan for restoring harmony in a place where some three hundred homes had been plundered and burnt down. His mind filled with the example of Jesus, 'a man who was completely innocent [, who] offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies'. Answering a rhetorical question as to the truth of Jesus' story he said: "To me it is truer than history because I hold it to be possible and enshrines an eternal law - the law of vicarious and innocent suffering taken in its true sense". [p253-4 How Ghandi interpreted and was influenced by Jesus' sacrifice] 

Ghandi always took the pursuit of extreme brahmachari (pacifism) as the only valid response to conflict. Even with genocide occurring between Muslims and Hindus on the eve of the partition of Pakistan and India when more than 5000 had been killed, 20000 injured and hundreds of homes burnt, he stood by his principles! And even when there was a possibility Japan would invade India during the second world war! To Ghandi, to sway away from his values was to him a personal failure and an admission of the failure of his principles, even if it cost thousands of lives.