Almost half of Americans believe in some form of Creationism. ibid.
How wearing they are around unbelievers. ibid.
Theory 3) Humans and dinosaurs lived side by side. ibid.
Theory 4) We all come from Adam and Eve. ibid.
Theory 5) God created life. ibid.
A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker. David Hume
Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life. In the absence of an absurdly improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan. Arno Penzias, cited Margenau & Varghese, Cosmos, Bios and Theos
In the meantime, the educated public continues to believe that Darwin has provided all the relevant answers by the magic formula of random mutation plus natural selection – quite unaware of the fact that random mutations turned out to be irrelevant and natural selection a tautology. Arthur Koestler, Janus: A Summing Up
It is absurd for the evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything. G K Chesterton, St Thomas Aquinas
Several thousand years ago, a small tribe of ignorant near-savages wrote various collections of myths, wild tales, lies, and gibberish. Over the centuries, these stories were embroidered, garbled, mutilated, and torn into small pieces that were then repeatedly shuffled. Finally, this material was badly translated into several languages successively. The resultant text, creationists feel, is the best guide to this complex and technical subject. Tom Weller, Science Made Stupid
According to Genesis, God created our universe in six days. But there is a rival story of how it all began: Science’s strange tale of the Creation. Peter William Atkins, Everyman: Science v Religion, 1985
Science is fundamentally a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behaviour of the physical and material universe in terms of purely physical and material causes, without invoking the supernatural. Richard Dickerson, Journal of Molecular Evolution 34:277
The late discoveries in anatomy and physic – the circulation of the blood and the exact structure of the heart and brain – bare insensible marks of conscious contrivance. Samuel Clarke
I have found absolute truth … It cannot make itself. Ray Comfort, interview The Atheist Experience March 2011
Darwin theorized that mankind (both male and female) evolved alongside each other over millions of years, both reproducing after their own kind before the ability to physically have sex evolved. They did this through asexuality (‘without sexual desire or activity or lacking any apparent sex or sex organs’). Each of them split in half: ‘Asexual organisms reproduce by fission (splitting in half)’. Ray Comfort, Nothing Created Everything
Answers in Genesis (AIG) is an independent non-profit ministry which has recently opened the Creation Museum in Kentucky. Adam Fish, Bible Science (VC2 short), cited Religion Uncovered
There are things that would cap the age of the earth at thousands of years. Nick Cowan, interview Professor Richard Dawkins
The supernatural has no longer a standing in science; it has vanished like a dream, and the halls consecrated to its thraldom of the intellect are becoming radiant with a more cheerful faith. Charles Otis Whitman, 1919
Both sides [Evolution v Creationism] ought to be properly taught. George W Bush, cited Science online
The statistical probability that organic structures and the most precisely harmonized reactions that typify living organisms would be generated by accident is zero. Ilya Prigogine
People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah's ark carried dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it’s about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers. Neil deGrasse Tyson
How can we find spiritual meaning in a scientific worldview? Spirituality is a way of being in the world, a sense of one’s place in the cosmos, a relationship to that which extends beyond oneself ... Does scientific explanation of the world diminish its spiritual beauty? I think not. Science and spirituality are complementary, not conflicting; additive, not detractive. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades. Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design
Evolution provides a scientific foundation for the core values shared by most Christians and conservatives, and by accepting – and embracing – the theory of evolution, Christians and conservatives strengthen their religion, their politics, and science itself. The conflict between science and religion is senseless. It is based on fears and misunderstandings rather than on facts and moral wisdom. ibid.
Don’t creationists ever wonder about the fact that the paleontologists found ape-like skulls with the ‘human leg and foot bones’ rather than the other way around i.e human skulls with ‘ape leg and foot bones?’ ... Come on, creationists, think about it! Did God hide the human skulls, only leaving behind leg and foot bones belonging to human midgets with misshapen feet, and mix such bones only with the skulls of ape-like creatures with larger cranial capacities than living apes? What a ‘kidder’ the creationists’ God must be. Edward Babinski
Inveterate creationists, then or now, never allow their faith to fall victim to facts. Robert T Bakker, The Dinosaur Heresies: New Theories Unlocking the Mystery of the Dinosaurs and Their Extinction
Do you, good people, believe that Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden and that they were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge? I do. The church has always been afraid of that tree. It still is afraid of knowledge. Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey. I believe in the brain of man. Clarence Darrow
New Rule: You don’t have to teach both sides of a debate if one side is a load of crap. President Bush recently suggested that public schools should teach intelligent design alongside the theory of evolution, because after all, evolution is ‘just a theory’. Then the president renewed his vow to, ‘drive the terrorists straight over the edge of the earth’.
Here’s what I don’t get: President Bush is a brilliant scientist. He’s the man who proved you could mix two parts booze with one part cocaine and still fly a jet fighter. And yet he just can’t seem to accept that we descended from apes. It seems pathetic to be so insecure about your biological superiority to a group of feces-flinging, rouge-buttocked monkeys that you have to make up fairy tales like, ‘We came from Adam and Eve,’ and then cover stories for Adam and Eve, like intelligent design! Yeah, leaving the earth in the hands of two naked teenagers, that’s a real intelligent design.
I'm sorry, folks, but it may very well be that life is just a series of random events, and that there is no master plan – but enough about Iraq.
There aren't necessarily two sides to every issue. If there were, the Republicans would have an opposition party. And an opposition party would point out that even though there’s a debate in schools and government about this, there is no debate among scientists. Evolution is supported by the entire scientific community. Intelligent design is supported by the guys on line to see The Dukes of Hazzard.
And the reason there is no real debate is that intelligent design isn’t real science. It’s the equivalent of saying that the Thermos keeps hot things hot and cold things cold because it’s a god. It’s so wilfully ignorant you might as well worship the US mail. ‘It came again! Praise Jesus!’
Stupidity isn't a form of knowing things. Thunder is high-pressure air meeting low-pressure air – it’s not God bowling. ‘Babies come from storks’ is not a competing school of thought in medical school.
We shouldn’t teach both. The media shouldn’t equate both. If Thomas Jefferson knew we were blurring the line this much between Church and State, he would turn over in his slave.
As for me, I believe in evolution and intelligent design. I think God designed us in his image, but I also think God is a monkey. Bill Maher, The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony, to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in man. John Dryden, 1631–1700, ‘A Song for St Cecilia’s Day’, cited Hoyt’s New Cyclopaedia of Practical Quotations
I am a cuddly atheist ... I am against creationism being taught in schools because there is empirical evidence that it is a silly notion ... I am passionately concerned about the rise in pseudo-science; in beliefs in alternative medicine; in creationism. The idea that somehow it is based on logic, on rational arguments, but it’s not. It doesn’t stand up to empirical evidence. Jim Al-Khalili