Scientists on Religion

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David Hilbert Mathematician

“If one were to bring ten of the wisest men in the world together and ask them what was the most stupid thing in existence, they would not be able to discover anything so stupid as astrology.”
 
Euclid Mathematician

“The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.”
 
Norbert Wiener Mathematician

“I have said that science is impossible without faith. … Inductive logic, the logic of Bacon, is rather something on which we can act than something which we can prove, and to act on it is a supreme assertion of faith … Science is a way of life which can only flourish when men are free to have faith.”
 
**Charles Hermite **Mathematician

“There exists, if I am not mistaken, an entire world which is the totality of mathematical truths, to which we have access only with our mind, just as a world of physical reality exists, the one like the other independent of ourselves, both of divine creation.”
 
Heinrich Hertz Mathematician

“One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulas have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers.”
 
Annie Jump Cannon Astronomer

“Teaching man his relatively small sphere in the creation, it also encourages him by its lessons of the unity of Nature and shows him that his power of comprehension allies him with the great intelligence over-reaching all.”
 
Murray Gell-Mann Physicist Nobel Prize

“I would recommend that skeptics devote even more effort than they do now to understanding the reasons why so many people want or need to believe.”
 
Carl Jung Psychiatrist

“The unconscious psyche believes in life after death.”
 
Benjamin Peirce Mathematician

“Gentlemen, as we study the universe we see everywhere the most tremendous manifestations of force. In our own experience we know of but one source of force, namely will. How then can we help regarding the forces we see in nature as due to the will of some omnipresent, omnipotent being? Gentlemen, there must be a GOD.”
 
Werner Heisenberg Physicist

“Where no guiding ideals are left to point the way, the scale of values disappears and with it the meaning of our deeds and sufferings, and at the end can lie only negation and despair. Religion is therefore the foundation of ethics, and ethics the presupposition of life.”
 
Victor Frederick Weisskopf Physicist

"In a Jewish theological seminar there was an hours-long discussion about proofs of the existence of God. After some hours, one rabbi got up and said, “God is so great, he does not even need to exist.”
 
Charles Darwin Biologist

“I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.”
 
Abdus Salam Physicist

“This sense of wonder leads most scientists to a Superior Being - der Alte, the Old One, as Einstein affectionately called the Deity - a Superior Intelligence, the Lord of all Creation and Natural Law.”
Except, of course, Einstein pretty explicitly rejected a personal god.
 
Donald Cram Chemist Nobel Prize

“Few scientists acquainted with the chemistry of biological systems at the molecular level can avoid being inspired.”
 
Except, of course, Einstein pretty explicitly rejected a personal god.
Yes, I have never understood this paradox of Einstein. The nearest explanation that makes any sense to me is that Einstein valued intelligence above all else. While his God was allowed to be supremely intelligent, he was not allowed to be supremely loving and compassionate, the personal traits of the Christian God. In other words, Einstein preferred a God imagined in his own image and likeness. I do not know how loving and compassionate Einstein could be, but I know he was married to supreme intelligence.

Einstein’s wife Elsa made these comments about him.

“You cannot analyze him, otherwise you will misjudge him. Such a genius should be irreproachable in every respect. But no, nature doesn’t behave like this. Where she gives extravagantly, she takes away extravagantly.”
 
Einstein’s wife Elsa made these comments about him.

“You cannot analyze him, otherwise you will misjudge him. Such a genius should be irreproachable in every respect. But no, nature doesn’t behave like this. Where she gives extravagantly, she takes away extravagantly.”
What did nature extravagantly take away from Einstein?
 
**Max Planck **Physicist Nobel Prize

“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”
 
Gottfried Leibniz Mathematician, Philosopher

“If we were magically shrunk and put into someone’s brain while he was thinking, we would see all the pumps, pistons, gears and levers working away and we would be able to describe the workings completely, in mechanical terms, thereby completely describing the thought processes of the brain. But that description would not contain any mention of thought! It would contain nothing but descriptions of pumps, pistons, levers!”
 
Alfred Russel Wallace Biologist

“To say that mind is a product or function of protoplasm, or of its molecular changes, is to use words to which we can attach no clear conception.”
 
“The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole, in that the universe appears to have order and purpose.”
Arno Penzias (b. 1933), American physicist and Nobel Laureate for the discovery of the cosmic background radiation which substantiated Big Bang theory.
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