Scientists on Religion

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Isaac Newton Physicist

“How came the bodies of animals to be contrived with so much art, and for what ends were their several parts? Was the eye contrived without skill in Opticks, and the ear without knowledge of sounds?..and these things being rightly dispatch’d, does it not appear from phænomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent…?”

“Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being, necessarily existing.”
 
**Henry Eyring **Chemist

“There isn’t anything to worry about between science and religion, because the contradictions are just in your own mind. Of course they are there, but they are not in the Lord’s mind because He made the whole thing, so there is a way, if we are smart enough, to understand them so that we will not have any contradictions.”
 
Albert Einstein Physicist

“You are right in speaking of the moral foundations of science, but you cannot turn around and speak of the scientific foundations of morality.”
 
Edwin Hubble Astronomer

“All nature is a vast symbolism: Every material fact has sheathed within it a spiritual truth.”
 
Roger Joseph Boscovich Astronomer

“Regarding the nature of the Divine Creator, my theory is extraordinarily illuminating, and the result from it is a necessity to recognize Him … therefore vain dreams of those who believe that the world was created by accident, or that it could be built as a fatal necessity, or that it was there for eternity lining itself along his own necessary laws are completely eliminated.”
 
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Pavel Florensky** Electrical Engineer

“In creating a work of art, the psyche or soul of the artist ascends from the earthly realm into the heavenly. There, free of all images, the soul is fed in contemplation by the essences of the highest realm, knowing the permanent noumena of things. Then, satiated with this knowing, it descends again to the earthly realm. And precisely at the boundary between the two worlds, the soul’s spiritual knowledge assumes the shapes of symbolic imagery: and it is these images that make permanent the work of art. Art is thus materialized dream, separated from the ordinary consciousness of waking life.”
 
Richard Bube Physicist

“There are few greater challenges than for a Christian faculty member to stand gently firm for Christ in the midst of a secular campus. Among colleagues whose academic achievements are an almost impenetrable insulation against the message of the gospel, he [or she] lives daily to be heard and known as a person of integrity and intellectual responsibility, who can be trusted in professional and personal matters, but who calls colleagues and students alike to a higher relationship and a more encompassing good. There are few greater challenges - but there are few greater opportunities.”
 
Francisco Ayala Biologist

“Science and religion concern nonoverlapping realms of knowledge. It is only when assertions are made beyond their legitimate boundaries that evolutionary theory and religious belief appear to be antithetical.”
 
Karl Popper Philosopher of Science

“The fact that science cannot make any pronouncement about ethical principles has been misinterpreted as indicating that there are no such principles; while in fact the search of truth presupposes ethics”
 
**Nicholas of Cusa **Mathematician, Experimental Biologist

“For our intellectual spirit has the power of fire in itself. For no other purpose is it sent by God to the earth than that it glow and grow into a flame. When it is excited by admiration, then it grows, just as if the wind entering into a fire excited its potential to actuality. If we apprehend the works of God, we marvel at eternal wisdom.”
 
John Lennox Mathematician

“In China we can criticize Darwin, but not the government; in America you can criticize the government, but not Darwin.”
 
**David Berlinski **Philosopher, Mathematician

“Has anyone provided proof of God’s inexistence? Not even close. Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close. Have our sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close. Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough. Has rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough. Has secularism in the terrible 20th century been a force for good? Not even close, to being close. Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy in the sciences? Close enough. Does anything in the sciences or their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even in the ball park. Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on.”
 
Alexis Carrel Physician, Nobel Prize Medicine

“Religion brings to man an inner strength, spiritual light, and ineffable peace.”
 
Oliver Joseph Lodge Physicist, Inventor

“Genuine religion has its root deep down in the heart of humanity and in the reality of things. It is not surprising that by our methods we fail to grasp it: the actions of the Deity make no appeal to any special sense, only a universal appeal; and our methods are, as we know, incompetent to detect complete uniformity. There is a principle of Relativity here, and unless we encounter flaw or jar or change, nothing in us responds; we are deaf and blind therefore to the Immanent Grandeur, unless we have insight enough to recognise in the woven fabric of existence, flowing steadily from the loom in an infinite progress towards perfection, the ever-growing garment of a transcendent God.”
 
Charles Darwin *Origin of the Species *(Last Edition before his death)

“As my conclusions have lately been much misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position—namely at the close of the Introduction—the following words: ‘I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.’ This has been of no avail. Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.”
 
William Dembski Mathematician, Philosopher

“Why create? Why does God create? Why do we create? Although creation is always an intelligent act, it is much more than an intelligent act. The impulse behind creation is always to offer oneself as a gift. Creation is a gift. What’s more, it is a gift of the most important thing we possess - ourselves. Indeed, creation is the means by which a creator - divine, human, or otherwise - gives oneself in self-revelation.”
 
James Tour Chemist

“I build molecules for a living, I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that job is. I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God.”
 
**Michał Heller **Cosmologist

“If we ask about the cause of the universe we should ask about the cause of mathematical laws. By doing so we are back in the great blueprint of God’s thinking about the universe; the question on ultimate causality: why is there something rather than nothing? When asking this question, we are not asking about a cause like all other causes. We are asking about the root of all possible causes.”
 
Steven Weinberg Physicist

“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.”
 
**Freeman Dyson **Physicist, Mathematician

“Weinberg’s statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add an additional clause: ‘And for bad people to do good things—that [also] takes religion.’ The main point of Christianity is that it is a religion for sinners. Jesus made that very clear. When the Pharisees asked his disciples, ‘Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?’ he said, “I come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Only a small fraction of sinners repent and do good things but only a small fraction of good people are led by their religion to do bad things.”
 
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