Scientists on Religion

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Leo Tolstoy, Novelist

“The highest wisdom has but one science - the science of the whole - the science explaining the whole creation and man’s place in it.”
 
Agatha Christie, Novelist

“An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have: the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.”
 
Bertrand Russell, Philosopher, Mathematician Nobel Laureate

“I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing in particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza’s God, it won’t love us in return.”
 
William James, Psychologist, Philosopher

“The unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the non-existence of the world is just as possible as its existence.”
 
Carl Jung, Psychologist

“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”
 
G.K. Chesterton, Author

“It seems such a pity that psychology should have destroyed all our knowledge of human nature.”
 
Lord Robert Webb-Johnstone

“A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A pyschotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent.”
 
Albert Einstein, Physicist Nobel Laureate

“God is subtle, but he is not malicious.”
 
Francis Darwin, Botanist (son of Charles Darwin)

“But in science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurred.”
 
D.H. Lawrence, Novelist

“When Eve ate this particular apple, she became a ware of her own womanhood, mentally. And mentally she began to experiment with it. She has been experimenting ever since. So has man. To the rage and horror of both of them.”
 
Florence Nightingale, Nurse

“To understand God’s thoughts we must study statistics, for these are the measure of his purpose.”

Rex Stout, Writer

“There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up.”
 
Arthur C. Clarke, Science Writer

“I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical.”
 
Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher

“Do you really believe that the sciences would ever have originated and grown if the way had not been prepared by magicians, alchemists, astrologers and witches whose promises and pretensions first had to create a thirst, a hunger, a taste for hidden and forbidden powers? Indeed, infinitely more had to be promised than could ever be fulfilled in order that anything at all might be fulfilled in the realms of knowledge.”

“I teach you the Superman. Man is something that is to be surpassed.”
 
Karl Popper, Philosopher

“Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.”
 
Plato, Philosopher

“This is what the physician has to do, and in this the art of medicine consists: for medicine may be regarded generally as the knowledge of the loves and desires of the body, and how to satisfy them or not; and the best physician is he who is able to separate fair love from foul, or to convert one into the other; and he who knows how to eradicate and how to implant love, whichever is required, and can reconcile the most hostile elements in the constitution and make them loving friends, is a skillful practitioner.”
 
Antony Flew, Philosopher (former atheist)

“Three domains of scientific inquiry have been especially important for me … The first is the question that puzzled and continues to puzzle most reflective scientists: How did the laws of nature come to be? The second is evident to all: How did life as a phenomenon originate from nonlife? And the third is the problem that philosophers handed over to cosmologists: How did the universe, by which we mean all that is physical, come into existence?”

“Although I was once sharply critical of the argument to design, I have since come to see that, when correctly formulated, this argument constitutes a persuasive case for the existence of God.”
 
David Shatz, Philosopher

“Atheists argue: ‘Since there is unjustified evil, there is no perfect God.’ Theists can retort: ‘You put the argument backward: since there is a perfect God, all apparent evil is justified evil.’ Who can prove which starting point is better?”
 
Peter van Inwagen, Philosopher

“I would suggest that the Christian world view of the High Middle Ages produced a mental climate that made the birth of science possible. The suggestion has sometimes been made by representatives of the enlightenment that a belief in miracles is inimical to science. Well, those who actually were responsible for the birth of science, Galileo and Newton for examples, believed in all the miracles of the New Testament. It really is very hard to see how those who believe that, in the normal course of events, nature works by mechanical causes are going to be less effective scientists If they believe that miracles occur at special junctures in what Christians call salvation history - or even that they happen frequently at Lourdes. The real conceptual enemies of science are astrology and magic. There was a very dangerous outbreak of serious interest in astrology and magic during the Renaissance, which the Church worked very hard to suppress.”
 
C. Stephen Layman, Philosopher

“… materialism confronts a problem of evil analogous to the traditional problem of evil for theists. The traditional problem concerns whether theists can explain the presence or moral and natural evil in the world. It presents the theist with this question: ‘Isn’t it unlikely that a perfectly good and all-powerful Deity would allow certain kinds of moral wrongdoing (e.g. torturing babies) or extreme suffering due to nonhuman causes (e.g. earthquakes, diseases, or hurricanes)?’ But if materialism rules out free will, it rules out moral responsibility, and hence it rules out what is traditionally meant by moral evil. This seems to me at least as serious a problem of evil as any the theist faces.”
 
David Shatz, Philosopher

“Without question, the essay that has stayed with me the longest is William James’s ‘The Will to Believe.’ James’s argument was that our ‘passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds.’ Notoriously, James has been accused of giving license to wishful thinking and fanaticism, and I’ve taken pains to admit both that I don’t want to license just any view and that I do not have a principled way of licensing some things and outlawing others. But in choosing between living with this uncertainty about how to draw lines and discarding passional attractions altogether, the former seems the more human and appealing course.”
 
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