Scientists on Religion

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Martin Gardner, Science Writer

“If God creates a world of particles and waves, dancing in obedience to mathematical and physical laws, who are we to say that he cannot make use of those laws to cover the surface of a small planet with living creatures?”
 
Marston Morse, Mathematician

“Mathematics are the result of mysterious powers which no one understands, and which the unconscious recognition of beauty must play an important part. Out of an infinity of designs a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty’s sake and pulls it down to earth.”
 
Neils Bohr, Physicist Nobel Laureate

“Not only has the deterministic description of physical events, once regarded as suggestive support of the idea of predestination, lost its unrestricted applicability by the elucidation of the conditions for the rational account of atomic phenomena, but it must even be realized that mechanistic and finalistic augmentation, each within its proper limits, present inherently complementary approaches to the objective description of the phenomenon of organic life. Moreover, the problem of free will, so pertinent in the philosophy of religions, has received a new background by the recognition, in modern psychology, of the frustration of attempts to order experience regarding our own consciousness as a causal chain of events, originally suggested by the mechanical conception of nature.”
 
Alfred North Whitehead, Mathematician, Philosopher

“In the Sermon on the Mount and in the parables there is no reasoning about the facts. They are seen with immeasurable innocence. Christ represents rationalism derived from direct intuition and divorced from dialectics… The life of Christ is not an exhibition of over-ruling power. It’s glory is for those who can discern it, and not for the world. Its power lies in its absence of force. It has the decisiveness of a supreme ideal, and that is why the history of the world divides at this point in time.”
 
Alfred North Whitehead, Mathematician, Philosopher

“You use arithmetic, but you are religious. Arithmetic of course enters into your nature, so far as that nature involves a multiplicity of things. But it is there as a necessary condition, not as a transforming agency. No one is invariably “justified” by his faith in the multiplication table. But in some sense or other, justification is the basis of all religion. Your character is developed according to your faith. This is the primary religious truth from which no one can escape. Religion is force of belief cleansing the inward parts. For this reason the primary religious virtue is sincerity, a penetrating sincerity.”
 
Albert Einstein, Physicist

“Quantum mechanics is very worthy of regard, but an inner voice tells me that it is not the true Jacob. The theory yields much, but it hardly brings us close to the secrets of the Old One. In any case, I am convinced He does not pay dice.”
 
Malcolm X, Political Activist

“I’m sorry to say that the subject I most disliked was mathematics. I have thought about it. I think the reason was that mathematics leaves no room for argument.”
 
H.P. Blavatsky, Theosophist

“The Universe is worked and guided from within outwards.”

“The chief difficulty which prevents men of science from believing in divine as well as in nature Spirits is their materialism.”

“The whole order of nature evinces a progressive march towards a higher life.”
 
Frederik Josef Belifante, Physicist

“If I get the impression that nature itself makes the decisive choice what possibility to realize, where quantum theory says that more than one outcome is possible, then I am ascribing personality to nature, that is, to something that is always everywhere. Omnipresent eternal personality which is omnipotent in taking the decisions that are left undetermined by physical law is exactly what in the language of religion is called God.”
 
F.H. Bradley, Philosopher

“The man who is ready to prove that metaphysical knowledge is wholly impossible has no right here to any answer. He must be referred for conviction to the body of this treatise. And he can hardly refuse to go there, since he himself has, perhaps unknowingly, entered the arena. He is a brother metaphysician with a rival theory of first principles.”
 
Peter Higgs, Theoretical Physicist

“Fundamentalism is another problem. I mean, Dawkins in a way is almost a fundamentalist himself, of another kind.”
 
Albert Einstein, Physicist

“…the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
 
Nathan Aviezer, Physicist

“It’s the Big Bang – the explosion of a highly concentrated chunk of energy that appeared out of nowhere to create the universe – that is being described when God says ‘let there be light.’ For 3,000 years no one really understood what ‘the light’ of Genesis was, with different interpretations talking about a ‘spiritual light.’ Now, thanks to the Big Bang theory, we can understand exactly what it means, on a physical level.”
 
Albert Einstein, Physicist

“It is a … question whether belief in a personal God should be contested. Freud endorsed this view his latest publication. I myself would never engage in such a task. For such a belief seems to me preferable to the lack of any transcendental outlook on life, and I wonder whether one can ever successfully render to the majority of mankind a more sublime means in order to satisfy its metaphysical needs.”
 
Rabbi Herbert Goldstein

“Einstein’s theory, if carried out to its logical conclusion would bring mankind a scientific formula for monotheism. He does away with all thought of dualism or pluralism. There can be no room for any aspect of polytheism.”
 
Stephen Hawking, Physicist

“I thought I had left the question of the existence of a Supreme Being completely open … It would be perfectly consistent with all we know to say that there was a Being who was responsible for the laws of physics. However, I think it would be misleading to call such a Being ‘God,’ because this term is normally understood to have personal connotations which are not present in the laws of physics.”
 
Carl Sundell, Author

“Why would an impersonal Being who created the universe go to the bother of creating laws that are personally intelligible; then go on to the bother of creating intelligent personal beings who find these laws intelligible; and finally leave these personal beings with a yearning to believe the creator Being is something a good deal more than an omniscient and omnipotent prig who cares not a fig for their yearning?”
 
Archbishop William Temple

“Science has its being in a perpetual mental restlessness.”
 
Friedrich Durrenmatt, Novelist, Playwright

“Einstein used to speak so often of God that I tend to believe he has been a disguised theologian.”
 
Albert Einstein, Physicist

“I am of the opinion that all finer speculations in the realm of science spring from a deep religious feeling.”
 
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