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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| d2c5a0d | Religions exist primarily for people to achieve together what they cannot achieve alone. --David Sloan Wilson, Darwin's Cathedral | Daniel C. Dennett | ||
| a799e76 | IN ORDER TO BE A PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL COMPUTING MACHINE, IT IS NOT REQUISITE TO KNOW WHAT ARITHMETIC IS. | Daniel C. Dennett | ||
| 3f42ce9 | Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. --Napoleon Bonaparte | Daniel C. Dennett | ||
| e38b3b9 | People who want to study religion usually have an ax to grind. They either want to defend their favorite religion from its critics or want to demonstrate the irrationality and futility of religion, and this tends to infect their methods with bias. | Daniel C. Dennett | ||
| 829ea22 | determinism, the idea that the facts at one moment in time--the location, mass, direction, and velocity of every particle--determine what happens in the next moment, and so on, forever. | Daniel C. Dennett | ||
| d389d04 | But as Descartes observed, even an infinitely powerful evil demon couldn't trick him into thinking he himself existed if he didn't exist: cogito ergo sum, "I think, therefore I am." -- | Daniel C. Dennett | ||
| 800e7e5 | It's just that it would be nice to hear someone accidentally whistle something of mine, somewhere, just once. | Daniel C. Dennett | ||
| 01dfb75 | blind faith' turns out, therefore, to be the exact opposite of the biblical one. | John C. Lennox | ||
| cceb772 | Former Director of Kew Gardens, Sir Ghillean Prance FRS, gives equally clear expression to his faith: 'For many years I have believed that God is the great designer behind all nature... All my studies in science since then have confirmed my faith. I regard the Bible as my principal source of authority. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 31a83c6 | Furthermore, if Dawkins's question is valid, it can be turned back on him. He believes that the universe created him. Therefore, we are justified in asking him: who created your creator? | John C. Lennox | ||
| eb67618 | Hawking's inadequate view of God could well be linked with his attitude to philosophy in general. He writes: "Philosophy is dead."9 But this itself is a philosophical statement. It is manifestly not a statement of science. Therefore, because it says that philosophy is dead, it contradicts itself. It is a classic example of logical incoherence. Not only that: Hawking's book, insofar as it is interpreting and applying science to ultimate ques.. | John C. Lennox | ||
| fb35399 | The ancient world knew as well as we do the law of nature that dead bodies do not get up out of graves. Christianity won its way by dint of the sheer weight of evidence that one man had actually risen from the dead. | John C. Lennox | ||
| fb35fc2 | Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the right conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say 'supernatural') plan.' Arno Penzias, Physics Nobel Prize-winner | John C. Lennox | ||
| 8a37d9d | The fact that we understand some of the mechanisms of the working of the universe or of living systems does not preclude the existence of a designer, any more than the possession of insight into the processes by which a watch has been put together, however automatic these processes may appear, implies there can be no watchmaker.'39 | John C. Lennox | ||
| 1192cc1 | The existence of laws of physics... strongly implies that there is a God who formulates such laws and ensures that the physical realm conforms to them. | John C. Lennox | ||
| f1ac640 | when we see some examples of a mechanism... do we doubt that it is the creation of a conscious intelligence? So when we see the movement of the heavenly bodies... how can we doubt that these too are not only the works of reason but of a reason which is perfect and divine? | John C. Lennox | ||
| 0a6abe3 | Large evolutionary innovations are not well understood. None has ever been observed, and we have no idea whether any may be in progress. There is no good fossil record of any.'23 | John C. Lennox | ||
| 19f8300 | the laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics' and that the 'human mind is a work of God and one of the most excellent'. | John C. Lennox | ||
| b67a9fc | So, is naturalism actually demanded by science? Or is it just conceivable that naturalism is a philosophy that is brought to science, more than something that is entailed by science? Could it even be, dare one ask, more like an expression of faith, akin to religious faith? One might at least be forgiven for thinking that from the way in which those who dare ask such questions are sometimes treated. Like religious heretics of a former age th.. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 37f0665 | The example of the jet engine can help us to clear up another confusion. Science, according to many scientists, concentrates essentially on material causation. It asks the "how" questions: how does the jet engine work? It also asks the "why" question regarding function: why is this pipe here? But it does not ask the "why" question of purpose: why was the jet engine built? What is important here is that Sir Frank Whittle does not appear in t.. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 1fde4ef | If life is the result of a purely naturalistic process, what then of morality? Has it, too, evolved? And if so, of what significance are our concepts of right and wrong, justice and truth? | John C. Lennox | ||
| 26c7e69 | Perhaps there is a subtle danger today that, in their desire to eliminate the concept of a Creator completely, some scientists and philosophers have been led, albeit unwittingly, to re-deify the universe by endowing matter and energy with creative powers that they cannot be convincingly shown to possess. Banishing the One Creator God they would then end up with what has been described as the ultimate in polytheism - a universe in which ever.. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 8f8a21a | we should be humble enough to distinguish between what the Bible says and our interpretations of it. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 5c4412a | In this very brief history of modern cosmological physics, the laws of quantum and relativistic physics represent things to be wondered at but widely accepted: just like biblical miracles. M-theory invokes something different: a prime mover, a begetter, a creative force that is everywhere and nowhere. This force cannot be identified by instruments or examined by comprehensible mathematical prediction, and yet it contains all possibilities. .. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 6a8ccca | Both Genesis and science say that the universe is geared to supporting human life. But Genesis says more. It says that you, as a human being, bear the image of God. The starry heavens show the glory of God, yes; but they are not made in God's image. You are. That makes you unique. It gives you incalculable value. The galaxies are unimaginably large compared with you. However, you know that they exist, but they don't know that you exist. You.. | genesis god human-life | John C. Lennox | |
| 2a26855 | If the text means that the sun came into existence on day 4, Origen was asking a very reasonable question: "If the sun is not yet there, how are we to understand the first three days with their 'evenings and mornings" | John C. Lennox | ||
| 1cc82c3 | Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver. | John C. Lennox | ||
| c96f7bb | God loves an enquiring mind, a fact that has been a great encouragement to me in my study of mathematics and the history and philosophy of science. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 8bb215d | one should always be careful to record all the evidence against one's theories; indeed, one should bend over backwards to consider it, since the easiest person to fool is oneself. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 0314d53 | chimp may share 98 per cent of its DNA with ourselves but it is not 98 per cent human: it is not human at all - it is a chimp. And does the fact that we have genes in common with a mouse, or a banana say anything about human nature? Some claim that genes will tell us what we really are. The idea is absurd.'11 | John C. Lennox | ||
| e4753b0 | Some will take issue, however, with the idea that the resurrection body of Christ is physical, by pointing out that the New Testament itself speaks of the resurrection body as a "spiritual body".110 The objection, then, asserts that "spiritual" means "non-physical". But a moment's reflection shows that there are other possibilities. When we speak of a "petrol engine", we do not mean an "engine made of petrol". No, we mean an engine powered .. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 0bc5b86 | naive | John C. Lennox | ||
| a718838 | What this all goes to show is that nonsense remains nonsense, even when talked by world-famous scientists. What serves to obscure the illogicality of such statements is the fact that they are made by scientists; and the general public, not surprisingly, assumes that they are statements of science and takes them on authority. That is why it is important to point out that they are not statements of science, and any statement, whether made by .. | John C. Lennox | ||
| a05db45 | Der wesentliche Punkt ist hier, dass Menschen mit szientistischem Gedankengut wie Atkins oder Dawkins nicht unterscheiden zwischen Mechanismus und Urheberschaft. | creation creationism dawkins religion science scientism | John C. Lennox | |
| 6686128 | For some, the conviction that they "know the truth" produces in them an aggressive attitude that reeks of superiority and is very off-putting. They forget that the One about whom they profess to be witnessing - he who was the truth (John 14:6) - was the most gentle of men. He was gentle and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29). But this clearly does not mean that he was a soppy, insipid, and spineless pushover. Christ was full of moral courage an.. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 728a270 | Furthermore, there are weighty voices within science that are not as enthusiastic about the multiverse. Prominent among them is that of Sir Roger Penrose, Hawking's former collaborator, who shared with him the prestigious Wolf Prize. Of Hawking's use of the multiverse in The Grand Design Penrose said: "It's overused, and this is a place where it is overused. It's an excuse for not having a good theory."44 Penrose does not, in fact, like the.. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 28cd09d | Is the world divided into mind and matter, and, if so, what is mind, what is matter? Is mind subject to matter, or is it possessed of independent powers? Has the universe any unity or purpose? Is it evolving towards some goal? Are there really laws of nature, or do we believe in them only because of our innate love of order? Is man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water impotently crawling on a small and uni.. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 09d49ae | faith and evidence are inseparable. Indeed, faith is a response to evidence, not a rejoicing in the absence of evidence. The Christian apostle John writes in his biography of Jesus: 'These things are written that you might believe...'5 That is, he understands that what he is writing is to be regarded as part of the evidence on which faith is based. The apostle Paul says what many pioneers of modern science believed, namely, that nature itse.. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 1905ef7 | Modern bilim, ortacagda Tanri'nin rasyonelligi konusundaki israrin neticesinde ortaya cikmistir. | tanrı | John C. Lennox | |
| 99498fa | The teaching of morality likewise lies outside science. Science can tell you that, if you add strychnine to someone's drink, it will kill them. But science cannot tell you whether it is morally right or wrong to put strychnine into your grandmother's tea so that you can get your hands on her property. | John C. Lennox | ||
| 77087a7 | The existence of a limit to science is, however, made clear by its inability to answer childlike elementary questions having to do with first and last things - questions such as: "How did everything begin?" "What are we all here for?" "What is the point of living?"." | John C. Lennox | ||
| 65c36d0 | Of course, I reject atheism because I believe Christianity to be true. But I also reject it because I am a scientist. How could I be impressed with a worldview that undermines the very rationality we need to do science? Science and God mix very well. It is science and atheism that do not mix. | christianity science | John C. Lennox | |
| 98d93da | Czeslaw Milosz, who had reason to know, writes: "A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death -- the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged."54 Thus, if God does exist, atheism can be seen as a psychological escape mechanism to avoid taking ultimate responsibility for one's own life." | John C. Lennox | ||
| fd1f0e1 | Can we ask with Richard Feynman: 'What is the meaning of it all?' Or was Bertrand Russell right when he said that 'The universe is just there, and that's all'? | John C. Lennox |