Quotable Quotes
on
November 24, 1998
A collection of Notable Quotes
- “Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer that died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.”
G. Richard Bozarth, “The Meaning of Evolution”, American Atheist, February 1978, p. 30
- “I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God’s word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now. Nobody is to blame for this except the pope, the bishops, and the prelates, who are all charged with training young people. The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scriptures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell.”
Martin Luther, “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate, 1520,” trans. Charles M. Jacobs, rev. James Atkinson, The Christian in Society, I (Luther’s Works, ed. James Atkinson, vol. 44), p. 207 (1966)
- “Now that the tide has turned, I hope you will be with us once again as we seize the opportunity in Washington, D.C., while Battling the reemergence of the grassroots forces of darkness.”
Ira Glasser, executive director of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), “Internal memorandum”
- “I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level-preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new-the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism.”
John Dunphy, A Religion for a New Age, Humanist, Jan.-Feb. 1983, p. 26
- “The atheist realizes that there must not only be an acceptance of his right to hold his opinion, but that ultimately his is the job to turn his culture from religion, to eliminate those irrational ideas which have held the human race in intellectual slavery.”
“The atheist must abandon his defensive positions, take up the cudgels and go forward, rather than into the retreat of apathy.”
Madalyn Murray O’Hair, founder of the American Atheists Organization. Quotes from her speech at their annual convention in Sacramento, California, on April 10, 1993 (from C-SPAN)
- “Despite many claims to the contrary, life does not begin at conception: It is an unbroken chain that stretches back nearly to the origin of the Earth, 4.6 billion years ago. Nor does human life begin at conception: it is an unbroken chain dating back to the origin of our species, tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago. Every human sperm and egg is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, alive. They are not human beings of course. However it could be argued that neither is a fertilized egg.”
Carl Sagan, “Is It Possible To Be Pro-Life and Pro-Choice”. Parade Magazine, 22 April 1990, p. 5
- “Every one of us began from a dot. A fertilized egg is roughly the size of the period at the end of this sentence . The momentous meeting of sperm and egg generally occurs in one of the two fallopian tubes. One cell becomes two, two become four, and by the sixth day the fertilized egg has become a kind of hollow sphere wandering off to another realm: the womb. It destroys tissue in its path. It sucks blood from the capillaries. It establishes itself as a kind of parasite on the walls of the uterus.”
Carl Sagan, “Is It Possible To Be Pro-Life and Pro-Choice”. Parade Magazine, 22 April 1990, p. 6
- “* By the third week, around the time of the first missed menstrual period, the forming embryo is about 2 millimeters long and is developing various body parts. But it looks a little like a segmented worm.”
“* By the end of the fourth week, it’s approximately 5 millimeters (about 1/5 inch) long. It’s recognizable as a vertebrate, its tube-shaped heart is beginning to beat, something like the gill-arches of a fish or an amphibian have become conspicuous, and there is a pronounced tail. It looks something like a newt or a tadpole. This is the end of the first month after conception.”
“* By the fifth week, the gross divisions of the brain can be distinguished. What will later develop into eyes is apparent, and little buds appear-on their way to becoming arms and legs.”
“* By the sixth week, the embryo is 13 millimeters (about 1/2 inch) long. The eyes are still on the side of the head, as in most animals and the reptilian face has connected slits where the mouth and nose eventually will be.”
“* By the end of the seventh week, the tail is almost gone, and sexual characteristics can be discerned (although both sexes look female). The face is mammalian, but somewhat pig-like.”
“* By the end of the eighth week, the face resembles a primate, but is still not quite human.”
Carl Sagan, “Is It Possible To Be Pro-Life and Pro-Choice”. Parade Magazine, 22 April 1990, p. 6
- “At any rate, almost everything in Hawking’s book is based on his fertile imagination and logical speculation, with almost no visible evidence or proof. This appears to differentiate his work from fiction, which is almost always based on obvious, demonstrable fact. In another way, however, physics is a lot like fiction or income tax calculating, in that when there is a conflict between the world and an intellectual construct, the author adjusts the world to fit an imagined plot.”
Roger L. Welsch, “Astrophys Ed”, Natural History, February 1994, pp. 24, 25
- “Take black matter, for example. As fate would have it, the most recent and popular theories in physics just don’t work. It’s not as if there are some loose threads around the edges; the theories don’t work at all. If they did, the universe would instantaneously fall in on itself or fly apart. Now those of us who are not astrophysicists would probably do something like discard the theories. Not astrophysicists. They readjust the uncooperative universe to fit their theories, postulating a gigantic quantity of invisible gravity-producing stuff they call black matter, even though it’s not black and maybe not even matter. And there you are. Just like that, the modern, popular theories are back in business.
I can imagine that readers new to physics and its way of doing things might be skeptical, but those of us who are higher up in the world of science feel nothing but anticipation in all this theorizing. It could, after all, be a step toward a newer and even sillier putty.”
Roger L. Welsch, “Astrophys Ed”, Natural History, February 1994, p. 25
- “The secrets of evolution are time and death. Time for the slow accumulations of favorable mutations, and death to make room for new species.”
Carl Sagan, “Cosmos”, program entitled “One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue.”
- “Atheism is the philosophy, both moral and ethical, most perfectly suited for a scientific civilization. If we work for the American Atheists today, Atheism will be ready to fill the void of Christianity’s demise when science and evolution triumph.
Without a doubt, humans and civilization are in sore need of the intellectual cleanness and mental health of Atheism.”
G. Richard Bozarth, “The Meaning of Evolution”, American Atheist, 20 Sept. 1979, p. 30
- “These “creation-science” textbooks, if allowed in our schools, can only serve to increase that mental anguish by teaching that the Genesis gibberish is a legitimate scientific theory.”
G. Richard Bozarth, “The Meaning of Evolution”, American Atheist, 20 Sept. 1979, p. 19
- “Christianity is - must be! totally committed to the special creation as described in Genesis, and Christianity must fight with its full might, fair or foul against the theory of evolution.”
G. Richard Bozarth, “The Meaning of Evolution”, American Atheist, 20 Sept. 1979, p. 19
- “The day will come when the evidence constantly accumulating around the evolutionary theory becomes so massively persuasive that even the last and most fundamental Christian warriors will have to lay down their arms and surrender unconditionally. I believe that day will be the end of Christianity.”
G. Richard Bozarth, “The Meaning of Evolution”, American Atheist, 20 Sept. 1979, p. 30
- “It becomes clear now that the whole justification of Jesus’ life and death is predicated on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam’s fall into a life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None.”
G. Richard Bozarth, “The Meaning of Evolution”, American Atheist, 20 Sept. 1979, p. 30
- “That’s why the present ‘religious war’ isn’t between any forces of ‘Good’ and ‘Evil.’ It is being waged between Media (the State) vs. Churches (Catholic and otherwise) who are tying up millions of dollars of valuable property and assets. As Satanists, we have the advantage of realizing this early in the game. It has never been enough for us to be atheistic-we have learned how to smash religious ignorance by beating them at their own game, using the Christian’s own manufactured fears to destroy them.”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Devil’s Notebook”, p. 85
- “We can use TV as a potent propaganda machine. The stage is set for the infusion of true Satanic philosophy and potent (emotionally inspiring) music to accompany the inverted crosses and pentagrams. Instead of holding our rituals in chambers designed for a few dozen people, we are moving into auditoriums crowded with ecstatic Satanists thrusting their fists forward in the sign of the horns.”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Devil’s Notebook”, p. 85
- “As much “bad press” as the Church of Satan has received from the media over the past few years-Satanic child abuse, sacrifices, etc.-mention of The Satanic Bible only points people in our direction. Perhaps that’s the plan, after all.”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Devil’s Notebook”, p. 85
- “THE NINE SATANIC STATEMENTS”
“4. Are we not all predatory animals by instinct? If humans ceased wholly from preying upon each other, could they continue to exist?”
“7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual development,” has become the most vicious animal of all!”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Satanic Bible”, p. 25, 33
- “If many religions are denying their own scriptures because they are out of date, and are preaching the philosophies of Satanism, why not call it by its rightful name-Satanism? Certainly it would be far less hypocritical.” pp. 47, 48
“Many churches with some of the largest congregations have the most hand-clapping, sensual music-also Satanically inspired. After all, the Devil has always had the best tunes.” p. 49
“Satanism represents a form of controlled selfishness.” p. 51
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Satanic Bible”
- “If you do not believe in what your religion teaches, why continue to support a belief which is contradictory with your feelings.” p. 50
“It has become necessary for a NEW religion, based on man’s natural instincts, to come forth. THEY have named it. It is called Satanism.” p. 48
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Satanic Bible”
- “Satanism is based on a very sound philosophy” say the emancipated. “But why call it Satanism? Why not call it something like ‘Humanism’ or a name that would have the connotation of a witchcraft group, something a little more esoteric-something less blatant.” There is more than one reason for this. Humanism is not a religion. It is simply a way of life with no ceremony or dogma. Satanism has both ceremony and dogma.”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Satanic Bible”, p. 50
- “LaVey’s spreading out from organized church activities to writing books for worldwide distribution has, of course, greatly expanded Church of Satan membership. Satanism’s growing popularity has naturally been accompanied by scare stories from religious groups complaining that The Satanic Bible now outsells the Christian Bible on college campuses and is a leading causative factor in youngsters’ turning away from God.”
Burton H. Wolfe, Author and priest in the Church of Satan. Introduction of “The Satanic Bible”, San Francisco, December 25, 1976
- “Satanism is a blatantly selfish, brutal philosophy. It is based on the belief that human beings are inherently selfish, violent creatures, that life is a Darwinian struggle for survival of the fittest, that only the strong survive and the earth will be ruled by those who fight to win the ceaseless competition that exists in all jungles-including those of urbanized society.”
Burton H. Wolfe, Author and priest in the Church of Satan. Introduction of “The Satanic Bible”, San Francisco, December 25, 1976
- “There is a ceaseless universal quest for entertainment, gourmet foods and wines, adventure, enjoyment of the here and now. Humanity is no longer willing to wait for any afterlife that promises to reward the clean, pure-translate: ascetic, drab-spirit. There is a mood of neopaganism and hedonism, and from it there have emerged a wide variety of brilliant individuals-doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, writers, stockbrokers, real estate developers, actors and actresses, mass communications media people (to cite a few categories of Satanists)-who are interested in formalizing and perpetuating this all-pervading religion and way of life.”
Burton H. Wolfe, Author and priest in the Church of Satan. Introduction of “The Satanic Bible”, San Francisco, December 25, 1976
- “With all of the contradictions in the Christian scriptures, many people currently cannot rationally accept Christianity the way it has been practiced in the past. Great numbers of people are beginning to doubt the existence of God, in the established Christian sense of the word. So, they have taken to calling themselves ‘Christian Atheist’?
If prominent leaders of the Christian faith are rejecting the past interpretation of God, how then can their followers be expected to adhere to previous religious tradition?”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Satanic Bible”, p. 43
- “In previous centuries, the Church was the great controller, dictating morality, stifling free expression and posing as conservator of all great art and music. Today we have television dictating fashions, thoughts, attitudes, objectives as once did the Church, using many of the same techniques but doing it so palatably that no one notices. Instead of ‘sins’ to keep people in line, we have fear of being judged unacceptable by our peers (by not wearing the right running shoes, not drinking the right kind of beer or wearing the wrong kind of deodorant), and fear of imposed insecurity concerning our own identities. Borrowing the Christian sole salvation concept, television tells people that only through exposure to TV can the sins of alienation and ostracism be absolved.”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Satanic Bible”, p. 84
- “There are television sets in every home, every restaurant, every hotel room, every shopping mall-now they’re even small enough to carry in your pocket like electronic rosaries. It is an unquestioned part of everyday life. Kneeling before the cathode ray God, with our TV Guide concordance in hand, we maintain the illusion of choice by flipping channels (chapters and verses). It doesn’t matter what is flashing on the screen-all that’s important is that the TV stays on.”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Satanic Bible”, p. 84
- “Many of you have already read my writings identifying TV as the new God. There is a little thing I neglected to mention up until now-television is the major mainstream infiltration of the New Satanic religion.”
“The TV set, or Satanic family altar, has grown more elaborate since the early 50s, from the tiny, fuzzy screen to huge ‘entertainment centers’ covering entire walls with several TV monitors. What started as an innocent respite from everyday life has become in itself a replacement for real life for millions, a major religion of the masses.”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Devil’s Notebook”, p. 86
- “Instead of obeying the holy bible, right or wrong, TV advertising now instructs what to buy and what not to buy. Atheism wasn’t tolerated when scriptural dictates were in fashion and accepted as the Word. Now, thanks to Satanic infiltration, it’s safe to say, ‘I don’t believe in God.’ But modern heresy-not conforming to a television lifestyle, not accepting television truths-is liable to be punished with as much righteous enthusiasm as ever.”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Devil’s Notebook”, p. 86
- “As the Satanic stratification increases (aided by the diabolical machine). one of our tasks is to develop a graduated system to type people according to their TV lifestyle. Various levels, from spectators to stimulators, can be identified by the level of TV saturation and influence. At the bottom is the Compleat Spectator-the vegetable-the ultimate provider of stimulation. Contrary to prevailing Christian values, a person who does something to hone and perfect a skill should be regarded as the most highly evolved.”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Devil’s Notebook”, p. 87
- “Vandals, those who DESTROY AND DEFACE OBJECTS AND PROPERTY OTHER than their own, should, when apprehended, be destroyed, or at least punished in a fitting manner. If a painting hanging in a museum is slashed, the perpetrator of that act should be eviscerated. If paint is used to deface, the defacer’s countenance should be permanently dyed in an irregular and repellent manner. If a carefully tended shrub or plant is wantonly ripped up by the roots, the culprit’s arm should be ripped out of its socket.”
Anton Szandor LaVey, “The Devil’s Notebook”, p. 97
- “All Abortions 25% Off:
In January, a Denver General Hospital clinic began a program to attract reluctant inner-city pregnant women to get prenatal care by offering them free lottery tickets. And in May, a fee-charging family planning clinic in Wilmington, Del., began offering abortions at a 25 percent discount to women under age 18.”Chuck Shepherd, News of the Weird, The Salt Lake Tribune, July 25, 1993, p. A-17
- “In seeking to understand why the Haeckelian view persisted so long, we have also to consider the alternatives. We often are highly conservative and will hold to a viewpoint longer than is justified when there is no alternative or, worse, when the logical alternative upsets the rest of our world view.”
Keith Stewart Thomson, “Marginalia Ontogeny and phylogeny recapitulated”, American Scientist Vol. 76, May-June 1988, p. 274
- “From historic Newberry, Michigan, comes more evidence in support of the Big Bang theory of creation. On July 12, an abandoned ranger headquarters at Tahquamenon Falls State Park blew sky-high, sending debris a hundred feet into the atmosphere and alarming campers fourteen miles away. The explosion now has been traced to bat manure that for decades had been generating methane gas until in mid-July it became highly volatile and-kaboom!
Scientists believe that a similar cataclysm eight million years ago gave us the beginnings of the universe, though even scientists cannot account for those early bats, and for those of a religious disposition a world created by bat dung is too depressing to contemplate.”“The American Spectator”, Sept. 1993, pp. 8,9
- “The weeks used to fly by 850 million years ago. In fact, to be more precise, a week used to whiz past in just a little under six days. Instead of the usual 52 weeks in a year, at this rate it is possible to cram in an extra ten bringing the total to 62 weeks in a year.”
“The difference lay with the length of the day itself: instead of 24 hours, a day and a night then passed in just over 20 hours.”
Discovery with Graham Phillips, Sunday Telegraph, February 7, 1993
- “In May, biology professor George Hunt of the University of California-Irvine led a field trip to the Channel Islands near Oxnard, Calif., where he had originally spotted what he called ‘lesbian sea gulls’ in the 1970’s. Hunt had reported then that 14 percent of the 1,200 gull pairs he studied were lesbian. He admitted that he cannot tell males and females apart, but inferred because of the larger number of eggs in some nests that the hatching pair of gulls on those nests were both female.”
Chuck Shepherd, News of the Weird, The Salt Lake Tribune, October 24, 1993
- “It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.”
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), p. 205
- “Forget bubbles, comets or ocean vents. Scientists should be looking at pizza for the answer. I can remember when my college roommates and I routinely created life every week in our refrigerator. My theory is that around 4.5 billion years ago, the earth was bombarded by intergalactic pizzas. These then provided the ideal breeding ground in which early organisms could thrive and later evolve.”
Mark D. Greene, “How Life Began,” Time, 142:8, November 1, 1993
- “It cannot be accidental, one is tempted to conclude, that the percentage of salt in our bloodstreams is roughly the same as the percentage of salt in the oceans of the world. The long and intricate process by which evolution helped to shape the complex interrelationship of all living and nonliving things may be explicable in purely scientific terms, but the simple fact of the living world and our place on it evokes awe, wonder, a sense of mystery-a spiritual response when one reflects on its deeper meaning.”
Al Gore, “Earth in the Balance”, p. 264
- “Human beings are made up mostly of water, in roughly the same percentage as water is to the surface of the earth. Our tissues and membranes, our brains and hearts, our sweat and tears-all reflect the same recipe for life, in which efficient use is made of those ingredients available on the surface of the earth…”
“But above all we are oxygen (61 percent) and hydrogen (10 percent), fused together in the unique molecular combination known as water, which makes up 71 percent of the human body.
So when environmentalists assert that we are, after all, part of the earth, it is no mere rhetorical flourish. Our blood even contains roughly the same percentage of salt as the ocean, where the first life forms evolved. They eventually brought onto the land a self-contained store of the sea water to which we are still connected chemically and biologically. Little wonder, then, that water carries such great spiritual significance in most religions, from the water of Christian baptism to Hinduism’s sacred water of life.”Al Gore, “Earth in the Balance”, pp. 99-100
- “The major global cooling period that gradually took place more than 5 million years ago corresponds with the appearance of the first hominids, called australopithecines. It happened because-in the view of many scientists-at least one species of tree-dwelling ape was able to adapt to the disappearance of its forest habitat by learning to forage on the ground and walk on two legs, leaving hands-which had evolved to grasp tree limbs-free to hold and carry food and objects, some of which later became tools.”
“The new discoveries relating the emergence of Homo sapiens to global climate changes have solved one of the mysteries in the human story by providing, at least in ecological terms, the missing link in the history of evolution.”
Al Gore, “Earth in the Balance”, p. 63
- “Human evolution, of course, is responsible for our very long period of childhood, during much of which we are almost completely dependent on our parents. As Ashley Montagu first pointed out decades ago, evolution encouraged the development of larger and larger human brains, but our origins in the primate family placed a limit on the ability of the birth canal to accommodate babies with ever-larger heads. Nature’s solution was to encourage an extremely long period of dependence on the nurturing parent during infancy and childhood, allowing both mind and body to continue developing in an almost gestational way long after birth.”
Al Gore, “Earth in the Balance”, p. 229
- “I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.”
Isaac Asimov, “Free Inquiry”, Spring 1982, vol. 2 no. 2, p. 9
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“Everybody knows fossils are fickle; bones will sing any song you want to hear.”
J. Shreeve, “Argument over a woman”, 1990, Discover, Vol. 11 (8), p. 58
- “Imaginations run riot in conjuring up an image of our most ancient ancestor-the creature that gave rise to both apes and humans. This ancestor is not apparent in ape or human anatomy nor in the fossil record.”
“…anatomy and the fossil record cannot be relied upon for evolutionary lineages. Yet palaeontologists persist in doing just this.”
J. Lowenstein and A. Zihlman, “The invisible ape”, New Scientist, Vol. 120 (1641), pp. 56, 57, 1988
- “Hind limbs of Basilosaurus appear to have been too small relative to body size…to have assisted in swimming, and they could not possibly have supported the body on land. However, maintenance of some function is likely…The pelvis of modern whales serves to anchor reproductive organs, even though functional hind limbs are lacking. Thus hind limbs of Basilosaurus are most plausibly interpreted as accessories facilitating reproduction.”
Philip D. Gingerich, B. Holly Smith, Elwyn L. Simons, “Hind limbs of Eocene Basilosaurus: evidence of feet in whales”, Science, Vol. 249, 13 July 1990, p. 156
- The Nature of the Fossil Record.
- 95% of the fossils (by number) consist of shallow marine organisms (e.g. corals, shellfish)
- Of the remaining 5%, 95% are all the algae and plant/tree fossils (including the coal) and all the other invertebrate fossils (e.g. insects)
- 5% of the 5% (or 0.25% of the entire fossil record) are the vertebrate fossils (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals)
- only 1% of this 0.25% (or 0.0025% of the entire fossil record) are vertebrate fossils that consist of more than a single bone! (e.g. there are only about 2,100 dinosaur skeletons in all the world’s museums.)
- “Some speculate that alien intelligence might beam vast streams of coded information, a virtual encyclopedia galactica, with insights into the origin of the universe or immortality.”
San Diego Union-Tribune, November 5, 1993
- “The New Testament is not infallible, but it is the Church’s guide and ‘norm’. Of course it needs reinterpretation in every age, and especially today.” (p. 18)
“While there is a valid religious point underlying biblical teaching, these truths would often be expressed today in different teaching.” (p. 18)
“The resurrection does not add to the victory of the cross, but it does publicly placard it for all who are willing to see.” (p. 22)
“These resurrection appearances are not unlike paranormal experiences sometimes called ‘veridical hallucinations’ which can take place shortly after the death of a loved one.” (p. 24)
Hugh Montefiore, “Confirmation Notebook”
- “9. How did sin arise?
(a) The Garden of Eden is a ‘myth’, i.e. a historical tale embodying spiritual truth. From the viewpoint of anthropology it is exceedingly unlikely that there was a First Man and Woman. Yet the ‘myth’ contains great truths (e.g. trying to pass the blame to others, wanting to do just what we are told not to do). It shows the universality of sin and sets it within human history.(b) Human beings are the result of evolution, and shaped by natural selection. Self-centredness and aggression were essential at every stage of evolution.
(c) Human beings naturally inherit this self-centredness (’original sin’) and without it babies could not survive.”
Hugh Montefiore, “Confirmation Notebook” p. 20
- “What the Cross is not
(b) The Son standing in my place to take the punishment that I ought to have. Such a view is immoral. In any case no one person could suffer the whole world’s punishments. And even if he could, this would mean that everyone could go on sinning without any fear of punishment.”Hugh Montefiore, “Confirmation Notebook” p. 22
- “Heaven describes the state of eternal and full response to God’s love; hell describes a state of eternal inability to respond to love.” (p. 41)
“Thus heaven is not a reward to the good, or hell a punishment for the bad. God always acts lovingly and gives us that state of being for which our character has fitted us.” (p. 41)
“This does not exclude the possibility of other less-than-personal disclosures in other faiths. The Divine Word, embodied in Jesus, can speak elsewhere. Divine grace is not to be constricted to that proportion of the human race which is Christian.” (p. 42)
“Adherents of other faiths do not automatically go to hell. Such an idea is not compatible with a loving God, nor with Scriptures.” (p. 42)
Hugh Montefiore, “Confirmation Notebook”
- “One of these days, both Joyce and Szostak believe, when someone fills a test tube with just the right stuff, a self-replicating molecule will pop up.
Some people will always hold to the belief that it is a divine spark, not clever chemistry, that brings matter to life, and for all their fancy equipment, scientists have yet to produce anything in a test tube that would shake a Fundamentalist’s faith.”“How Life Began”, J. Madeleine Nash, Time, October 11, 1993, p. 74
- “Still unanswered is the riddle of how these molecules came to reproduce. Chemist A. G. Cairns-Smith of the University of Glasgow thinks the answer may lie not in glittery fool’s gold but in ordinary clay.”
“…a number take very seriously the idea that clay or mineral crystals could have served as molecular molds that incorporated life’s building “blocks” and organized them in precise arrays.”
J. Madeleine Nash, “How Life Began”, Time, October 11, 1993, p. 74
- “Stanley Miller’s glass-jar experiment 40 years ago suggested that the components of life were easily manufactured from gases in the atmosphere. The conditions he re-created in his laboratory faithfully reflected the prevailing wisdom of the time,”
“It was, says Chyba, ‘a beautiful picture.’ Unfortunately, he adds, it is probably wrong.”
J. Madeleine Nash, “How Life Began”, Time, October 11, 1993, p. 73
- “As for the claim that evolution is an unproved theory, that’s nonsense, Evolution is a fact, established with the same degree of confidence as our ‘theory’ of disease, and the atomic ‘theory’ of matter. Yes, there is lively debate about the particular evolutionary mechanisms that caused particular changes, but the existence of evolutionary change is not in doubt. Our own bodies provide walking evidence.”
Jared Diamond, “Who Are the Jews?”, Natural History Vol. 102, No. 11, November 1993, p. 19
- “Actually, there is superabundant evidence for animals evolving under our eyes: British moths becoming darker since the Industrial Revolution (industrial melanization), insects evolving DDT resistance since World War II, malaria parasites evolving chloroquine resistance in the last two decades, and new strains of flu virus evolving every few years to infect us.”
Jared Diamond, “Who Are the Jews?”, Natural History Vol. 102, No. 11, November 1993. p. 19,
- “According to one recent estimate, nearly 80 percent of all four-legged land animals disappeared at the end of the Permian.”
“Fading slowly, the amphibians were then almost knocked out of the evolutionary race: Only one out of the four existing orders of these animals survived through the end of the Permian to see the dawn of the next geologic period, the Triassic.”
“…the mammal-like reptiles, fared no better. Of the 50 genera of these creatures that lived during the Permian period, only one, the genus, Dicynodon made it into the Triassic.”
Joseph Alper, “Earth’s Near-Death Experience”, Earth Vol. 3, No. 1, January 1994, p. 44
- “…it was even worse for life in the sea.”
“An estimated 96 percent of all marine species disappeared forever.”
“The Permian crisis was so overwhelming it struck down entire groups of sea creatures. For example, all of the many species of tabulate and rugose corals went extinct. Also gone for good were the three existing orders of crinoids, or sea lilies- flowerlike invertebrate animals that attached themselves to the seafloor with slender stalks and gathered food with outstretched tentacles. The ammonoids, elegant spiral-shelled creatures whose bodies resembled those of modern-day squid, nearly disappeared forever. And the brachiopods, a phylum of marine invertebrates comprising numerous species of creatures with clamlike shells, similarly came within a hair’s breadth of oblivion.”
Joseph Alper, “Earth’s Near-Death Experience”, Earth Vol. 3, No. 1, January 1994, p. 44
- “ ‘When paleontologists see Archaeopteryx, they see an earth-bound dinosaur that somehow mysteriously sprouted feathers for swatting insects or some other purpose, and they say flight originated from the ground up.’ Feduccia says. ‘However, when most ornithologists see Archaeopteryx, they see a flying bird because everything about feathers says flight to them. The conclusion we have drawn is that flight originated from trees down, which makes a lot more sense.’ ”
Alan Feduccia, Professor of biology at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “News Notes”. Geotimes. April 1993: p. 6
- “Many animals which are well-known and accepted were once controversial-or at least ‘unexpected.’ Some of the more interesting of these cryptozoological precedents are:
* The gorilla, largest of all the primates, discovered in Central Africa in 1847;
* Baird’s tapir, discovered in Central America in 1863;
* The giant panda, discovered in China in 1869, but not collected alive until 1936;
* Przewalski’s horse, discovered in Mongolia in 1881;
* The mountain gorilla, a subspecies, discovered in East Africa in 1902;
* The okapi, a fossil giraffid, discovered in Zaire in 1901;
* The pygmy chimpanzee, described in 1929, but not brought back to Europe from Zaire
until the late 1930’s;
* The coelacanth, a 6-foot Mesozoic fish (a true “living fossil”), discovered in South Africa
in 1938;
* The Chacoan peccary, a Pleistocene fossil form, discovered alive in Paraguay in 1975;
* Megamouth, a 15-foot shark, representing a completely new species, genus, and family,
discovered in 1976.”International Society of Cryptozoology Invitation For Membership
- “Today we are confronted with a wide variety of reports of such ‘unexpected’ animals-often appearing under the popular label of ‘monster.’ Some of those which the Society is concerned with are:
* Reports of unusual felids, such as ‘big cats’ in Britain, continental Europe, and Australia,
and large, unknown cats reported in Africa and South America:
* Reports of living thylacines in Tasmania (’Tasmanian tigers’) and mainland Australian,
and possibly other thought-extinct marsupials, such as Thylacoleo ;
* Reports of giant individuals of known species, such as giant great white sharks and giant
anaconda snakes in South America;
* Reports of giant octopuses spanning 50-100 feet or more;
* Reports of ‘sea serpents’ in many global marine environments, which may represent
unknown species of large seals or supposedly extinct primitive whales known as archaeocetes;
* Reports of northern latitude ‘lake monsters’ in Loch Ness, and several other Scottish lochs,
and in Irish, Swedish, Soviet, Canadian and U.S.A. lakes;
*Reports of large, long-necked animals in the swamps of Central Africa (Mokele-Mbembe)
said to resemble Mesozoic sauropod dinosaurs , and flying animals resembling Mesozoic pterosaurs;
* Reports of surviving Pleistocene megafauna, such as mammoths in Siberia and giant ground
sloths in South America;
* Reports of large hominoids in the Himalayan region (Yeti), Soviet Union and Mongolia
(Almas), China (Wildman), and North America (Sasquatch).”
International Society of Cryptozoology Invitation For Membership - “Insect resistance to a pesticide was first reported in 1947 for the Housefly (Musca domestica) with respect to DDT. Since then resistance to one or more pesticides has been reported in at least 225 species of insects and other arthropods. The genetic variants required for resistance to the most diverse kinds of pesticides were apparently present in every one of the populations exposed to these man-made compounds.”
Francisco J. Ayala. “The Mechanisms of Evolution”, Scientific American, Sept. 1978, p. 65
- “Scientists at the University of Alberta have revived bacteria from members of the historic Franklin expedition who mysteriously perished in the Arctic nearly 150 years ago. Not only are the six strains of bacteria almost certainly the oldest ever revived, says medical microbiologist Dr. Kinga Kowalewska-Grochowska, Three of them also happen to be resistant to antibiotics,” …
- “In this case, the antibiotics clindamycin and cefoxitin, both of which developed more than a century after the men died, were among those used.”
Ed Struzik, Dr. Kinga Kowalewska-Grochowska, “Ancient bacteria revived”, Sunday Herald, 16 Sept. 1990
- “Darwin calculated that at the rate of one baby elephant per breeding couple every 10 years, starting with a single pair, there would be 15 million elephants in only 500 years.”
Niles Eldredge, “Speculations: Is Evolution Progress?”, Science Digest, Sept. 1983, p. 40
- “But the reports of Eve’s death may have been greatly exaggerated. Indeed, no one argues with the idea that all modern humans inherited their mitochondrial DNA from one common female ancestor. But what is in dispute is the hypothesis first put forth in 1987 by molecular anthropologist Allan Wilson of University of California, Berkeley who claimed to know Eve’s age and whereabouts-that she lived about 200,000 years ago in Africa.”
Ann Gibbons, “Mitochondrial Eve: Wounded, But Not Dead Yet”, Science, Vol. 257, 14 August 1992, p. 873
- American Atheists, today, has demanded that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission modify its newly issued regulations and guidelines to include protection for Atheists against religious harassment in the workplace.
These demands include the following:
(1) The physical work place, itself, should be religion-free, that is without religious radio programs, signs, framed mottos, pictures, poems, calendars, ornaments, jewelry, brochures, crucifixes, Bibles or religious literature, and religious notices (on shared communications boards).
(2) The milieu of the work place should be free of “god-talk,” that is singing, humming, or whistling of religious songs or hymns, religious conversations, prayers, and overt meditations.
(3) “Holiday” celebrations should not be religion centered. Religious decorations, religious “caroling,” and prayers should be eliminated during the Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, Passover and Ramadan seasons. At most grouped “Winter” and “Spring” events should be recognized.
(4) Employees should not adorn themselves with religious paraphernalia (yarmulkes, crucifixes, earrings, head scarfs).
(5) Any or all oral or written proselytizing for religion should be forbidden at interpersonal, supervisory, or executive relationship levels.
(6) Pay increments and promotions should be based strictly on job performance and not on association or affiliation with religious person or groups.”“The attention of the EEOC is called to a recent (April 8) 20/20 special on ABC television featuring Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs. In reviewing the safety of mail carriers, the ABC cameras captured a scene in a Los Angeles post office where a supervisor called all employees to a central location there to “hold hands and pray to Jesus Christ” for the safety of the carriers. Neither Ms. Walters nor Mr. Downs found such offensive behavior unusual. This speaks to the current religious domination in federal work places which Atheists should not need to endure.
Religious persons and groups are now addressing the EEOC with the claim that discrimination is practiced against religious persons who desire to evidence, display, or proselytize their religious convictions. Jon Murray, President of American Atheists noted, “This is a joke; the basic discrimination in the work place is against those persons who are not religious.”
“Religion is, or ought to be, a private matter. Even with eight hours of employment per day, religious persons still have sixteen hours of time, each day, to perform religious obligations and are, therefore, under no real restriction. Activities related to the religion of any employee should be anathema in any places of employment, government or private.”
“It is now recognized that smoking can be injurious to the physical health of non-smokers and consequently it is being eliminated in work areas. Religion should also be eliminated as it is injurious to the emotional and psychological health of persons who are not religious as well as to adherents of minority religions. The problem can be solved by the application of the strict standard of No Religion in the work place.”
“Now that all polling reveals that 10 percent of the population is not religious, the right to their freedom from religion must be guarded by this regulatory agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”“American Atheists” Press Release, For release: May 2, 1994
- “In the early 1980’s, teeth were found that gave better evidence of its (Pakicetus) being intermediate between land-dwelling and marine,” Thewissen said. “Those teeth, as well as the ear bones we found, were located in fossil deposits in beds of rivers too shallow for an animal of that size to have lived in the water. Also, the other bones found with them were certainly from land mammals.” No Pakicetus leg or foot fossils have been reported.”
Hans Thewissen, Duke University Paleontologist, “News Notes”, Geotimes, April 1993, p. 9
- “Now comes the important question. What caused all these extinctions at one particular point in time, approximately 65 million years ago? Dozens of reasons have been suggested, some serious and sensible, others quite crazy, and yet others merely as a joke. Every year people come up with new theories on this thorny problem. The trouble is that if we are to find just one reason to account for them all, it would have to explain the deaths, all at the same time, of animals living on land and of animals living in the sea: but, in both cases, of only some of those animals, for many of the land-dwellers and many of the sea-dwellers went on living quite happily into the following period. Alas, no such one explanation exists.”
Alan Charig, “A New Look At The Dinosaurs”, p. 150
- “One interesting idea put forward in 1962 supposes that the evolution of those flowering plants was followed by the first appearance of the butterflies and moths… The caterpillars of butterflies and moths feed almost entirely on plants: today their numbers are kept down by natural enemies, notably birds, but when the caterpillars first appeared on the scene the birds had not yet realized how good they were to eat. For some time, therefore, the caterpillar population increased without check. They ate so much plant food that none remained for the plant-eating dinosaurs; the plant-eating dinosaurs died of starvation, and so the meat-eating dinosaurs which preyed on them also without food.”
Alan Charig, “A New Look At The Dinosaurs”, pp. 150-151
- “On the other hand, they may have eaten too much and died of overeating! A further possibility is that there were too many meat-eating dinosaurs; they ate all the plant-eaters and then themselves died of hunger. One popular idea is that the little mammals of the Cretaceous were very fond of dinosaur eggs and ate so many of them that the dinosaurs died out.
It has sometimes been suggested that the dinosaurs were poisoned…”“Other causes put forward include parasites, diseases, slipped discs, shrinking brain and greater stupidity, over-specialization and inability to change…”
“The latest idea in 1982 is that the gradual warming of the earth led to premature cataract in the eyes of the dinosaurs; they eventually became blind and perished before they were old enough to reproduce.”
Alan Charig, “A New Look At The Dinosaurs”, p. 151
- “Among the even less likely causes suggested for the death of the dinosaurs are poison gases, volcanic dust, meteorites, comets, sunspots, God’s will, mass suicide (like lemmings!) and wars.
Utterly ridiculous is the idea that all the dinosaurs were killed off by cavemen…”
“The last three causes that we shall mention are raids by little green hunters in flying saucers, lack of even standing room for the dinosaurs in Noah’s Ark, and sheer boredom with their prehistoric world.”
Alan Charig, “A New Look At The Dinosaurs”, p. 151
- “Everybody knows that organisms get better as they evolve. They get more advanced, more modern, and less primitive. And everybody knows,” according to Dan McShea (who has written a paper called “Complexity and Evolution: What Everybody Knows”), “that organisms get more complex as they evolve.”…
“The only trouble with what everyone knows, says McShea, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Michigan, is that there is no evidence it’s true.”
Dan McShea, “Onward and Upward?” by Lori Oliwenstein, Discover, June 1993, p. 22
- “At one level, of course, it must be: we really are more complex than that first cell, and we’re not alone.”
“Did natural selection drive organisms onward and steadily upward, toward ever greater complexity, because being more complex improved their chances of survival? Researchers have always assumed the answer was yes.
But lately McShea and a few other researchers have been trying to test that unshakable assumption with real data.”Dan McShea, “Onward and Upward?” by Lori Oliwenstein, Discover, June 1993, p. 22
- “Each child as he develops is retracing the whole history of mankind, physically and spiritually, step by step. A baby starts off in the womb as a single tiny cell, just the way the first living thing appeared in the ocean. Weeks later, as he lies in the amniotic fluid of the womb, he has gills like a fish…”
Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care. (Cardinal Giant Addition, 1957, p. 223.) Quoted by Walter J. Bock, “Evolution by Orderly Law”, Science, Vol. 164, 9 May 1969, pp. 684, 685
- “Until last year Hallucigenia was one of the strangest animals that ever lived. This sausage-shaped sea creature, which died out half a billion years ago, early in the Cambrian Period, was said to have walked on seven pairs of spikes and to have sported a row of wavy tentacles along its back. But last year, in the Yunan province of China, paleontologists dug up some new specimens closely related to Hallucigenia. Those fossils made clear the Hallucigenia researchers had known was a figment of their imagination: they had been looking at it upside down.”
Roger Lewin, “Whose View of Life?”, Discover May 1993: p. 18
- ” ‘Yes, a bit embarrassing,’ concedes Simon Conway Morris, the British paleontologist who described and named Hallucigenia back in 1977. ‘I always suspected we might be looking at it the wrong way, but until the Chinese fossils came along we couldn’t be sure.’
If that were all there was to the Hallucigenia story, it would be worth a scholarly paper or two and no more. But the confusion surrounding Hallucigenia is emblematic of a much larger debate now going on in paleontological circles, one that opposes two radically different-indeed, inverted-views of the history of life on Earth.”Simon Morris, “Whose View of Life?”, Discover, May 1992, p. 18
- “Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur,” Feduccia says. “But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that.”
Allan Feduccia, Professor of biology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Archaeopteryx: Early Bird Catches a Can of Worms”, Science, Vol. 259, 5 February 1993, p. 764
- “Darwin’s distinction was not only logically correct but also politically sound. The intellectual world had been ready for evolution’s factuality, and had eagerly embraced Darwin’s evidence, but his radical theory of natural selection found few takers during his lifetime and did not become a majority view until the 1930s. Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey, literally at the feet of Isaac Newton, but he lies in hallowed ground for establishing the fact of evolution, not for proposing a theory about causes.”
Stephen Jay Gould, “The Power of This View of Life”, Natural History, June 1994, p. 6
- “In order to be convinced of this important result, it is above all things necessary to study and compare the mental life of wild savages and of children. At the lowest stage of human mental development are the Australians, some tribes of the Polynesians, and the Bushmen, Hottentots, and some of the Negro tribes.”
“In many of these languages there are numerals only for one, two, and three: no Australian language counts beyond four. Very many wild tribes can count no further than ten or twenty, whereas some very clever dogs have been made to count up to forty and even beyond sixty.”
Ernst Haeckel, “The History of Creation”, pp. 362, 363
- “They have barely risen above the lowest stage of transition from man-like apes to ape-like man, a stage which the progenitors of the higher human species had already passed through thousands of years ago.”
Ernst Haeckel, “The History of Creation”, pp. 364, 365
- “Now, if instituting comparisons in both directions, we place the lowest and most ape-like men (the Austral Negroes, Bushmen, and Andamans, etc.), on the one hand, together with the most highly developed animals, for instance, with apes, dogs, and the elephants, and on the other hand, with the most highly developed men-Aristotle, Newton, Spinoza, Kant, Lamarck, or Goethe-we can then no longer consider the assertion, that the mental life of the higher mammals has gradually developed up to that of man, as in any way exaggerated.”
Ernst Haeckel, “The History of Creation”, pp. 364, 365
- “If one must draw a sharp boundary between them, it has to be drawn between the most highly developed and civilized man on the one hand, and the rudest savages on the other, and the latter have to be classed with the animals.”
Ernst Haeckel, “The History of Creation”, p. 365
- “Thus, for example, a great English traveller, who lived for a considerable time on the west coast of Africa, says: ‘I consider the negro to be a lower species of man, and cannot make up my mind to look upon him as “a man and a brother,” for the gorilla would then also have to be admitted into the family.’ ”
Ernst Haeckel, “The History of Creation”, p. 365
- “Nothing, however, is perhaps more remarkable in this respect, than that some of the wildest tribes in southern Asia and Eastern Africa have no trace whatever of the first foundations of all human civilization, of family life, and marriage. They live together in herds, like apes, generally climbing on trees and eating fruits; they do not know of fire, and use stones and clubs as weapons, just like the higher apes.”
Ernst Haeckel, “The History of Creation”, pp. 362, 363
- “…between the most highly developed animal souls, and the lowest developed human souls, there exists only a small quantitative, but no qualitative difference, and that this difference is much less than the difference between the lowest and the highest human souls, or than the difference between the highest and the lowest animal souls.”
Ernst Haeckel, “The History of Creation”, p. 362
- “But it was the chief object of the lecturer to the congregation gathered in St. Mary’s, Oxford, thirty-one years ago, to prove to them, by evidence gathered with no little labour and marshalled with much skill, that one group of historical works was exempt from the general rule; and that the narratives contained in the canonical Scriptures are free from any admixture of error. With justice and candour, the lecturer impresses upon his hearers that the special distinction of Christianity, among the religions of the world, lies in its claim to be historical; to be surely founded upon events which have happened, exactly as they are declared to have happened in its sacred books; which are true, that is, in the sense that the statement about the execution of Charles the First is true.”
Thomas H. Huxley , “Science And Hebrew Tradition Essays”, 1897, p. 206
- “Further, it is affirmed that the New Testament presupposes the historical exactness of the Old Testament; that the points of contact of ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ history are innumerable; and that the demonstrations of the falsity of the Hebrew records, especially in regard to those narratives which are assumed to be true in the New Testament, would be fatal to Christian theology.”
Thomas H. Huxley , “Science And Hebrew Tradition Essays”, 1897, pp. 206, 207
- “My utmost ingenuity does not enable me to discover a flaw in the argument thus briefly summarised. I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history; the identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them.”
Thomas H. Huxley , “Science And Hebrew Tradition Essays”, 1897, pp. 207, 208
- “Thus, in view, not, I repeat, of the recondite speculations of infidel philosophers, but in the face of the plainest and most commonplace of ascertained physical facts, the story of the Noachian Deluge has no more claim to credit than has that of Deucalion; and whether it was, or was not, suggested by the familiar acquaintance of its originators with the effects of unusually great overflows of the Tigris and Euphrates, it is utterly devoid of historical truth.”
Thomas H. Huxley , “Science And Hebrew Tradition Essays”, 1897, p. 226
- “The only way of escape, if it be a way of escape, from the conclusions which I have just indicated, is the supposition that all these different equine forms have been created separately at separate epochs of time; and, I repeat, that of such an hypothesis as this there neither is, for can be, any scientific evidence; and, assuredly, so far as I know, there is none which is supported, or pretends to be supported, by evidence or authority of any other kind.”
Thomas H. Huxley , “Science And Hebrew Tradition Essays”, 1897, p. 133 - “I can but think that the time will come when such suggestions as these, such obvious attempts to escape the force of demonstration, will be put upon the same footing as the supposition made by some writers, who are I believe not completely extinct at present, that fossils are mere simulacra, are not indications of the former existence of the animals to which they seem to belong; but that they are either sports of Nature, or special creations, intended-as I heard suggested the other day-to test our faith.”
Thomas H. Huxley , “Science And Hebrew Tradition Essays”, 1897
- “If the Gospels truly report that which an incarnation of the God of Truth communicated to the world, then it surely is absurd to attend to any other evidence touching matters about which he made any clear statement, or the truth of which is distinctly implied by his words. If the exact historical truth of the Gospels is an axiom of Christianity, it is as just and right for a Christian to say, Let us ‘close our ears against suggestions’ of scientific critics, as it is for the man of science to refuse to waste his time upon circle-squarers and flat-earth fanatics.”
Thomas H. Huxley , “Science And Hebrew Tradition Essays”, 1897, p. 230
- “Now, whatever imperfections may yet obscure the full value of the Mesopotamian records, everything that has been clearly ascertained tends to the conclusion that the assignment of no more than 4000 years to the period between the time of the origin of mankind and that of Augustus Caesar, is wholly inadmissible. Therefore the Biblical chronology, which Canon Rawlinson trusted so implicitly in 1859, is relegated by all serious critics to the domain of fable.”
Thomas H. Huxley , “Science And Hebrew Tradition Essays”, 1897, pp. 211, 212
- “…I can but admire the courage and clear foresight of the Anglican divine who tells us that we must be prepared to choose between the trustworthiness of scientific method and the trustworthiness of that which the Church declares to be Divine authority. For, to my mind, this declaration of war to the knife against secular science, even in its most elementary form this rejection, without a moment’s hesitation, of any and all evidence which conflicts with theological dogma-is the only position which is logically reconcilable with the axioms of orthodoxy.”
Thomas H. Huxley , “Science And Hebrew Tradition Essays”, pp. 229, 230
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