Quotes & Sayings About Creation And Evolution

If a man is able to submit himself to nature, then nature will react to his needs. Almighty nature is all powerful and all loving, for the laws of nature are for the creation and evolution of all beings and creatures throughout the cosmos. There is no greater kindness than the kindness of nature. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

The story of evolution is more dramatic, more compelling, more intricate than any creation myth. Yet like any creation myth, it is a tale of transformations, of sudden and spectacular changes, eruptions of innovation that transfigured our planet, overwriting past revolutions with new layers of complexity. The tranquil beauty of our planet from space belies the real history of this place, full of strife and ingenuity and change. How ironic that our own petty squabbles reflect our planet's turbulent past, and that we alone, despoilers of the Earth, can rise above it to see the beautiful unity of the whole. — Nick Lane

The theory of evolution also had a very great effect in alienating science from religion and creating a world in which one could go about studying the wonders of creation without ever having a sense of wonder in the religious sense of that term. — Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Every song has a composer, every book has an author, every car has a maker, every painting has a painter, and every building has a builder. So it isn't irrational to take this simple logic a little further and say that nature must have had a Maker. It would be irrational to believe that it made itself. — Ray Comfort

Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species. Description or law, it challenged the theory of special creation and bruited the idea of evolution in a tone of thunderous innuendo. — David Quammen

In my opinion, using creation and evolution as topics for critical-thinking exercises in primary and secondary schools is virtually guaranteed to confuse students about evolution and may lead them to reject one of the major themes in science. — Eugenie Scott

Well, where did you come from? Evolution? Creation? Couldn't we have evolved in the same way as other species, predator and prey? Or, if you don't believe that all this world could have just happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, is it so hard to believe that the same force that created the delicate angelfish with the shark, the baby seal and the killer whale, could create both our kinds together?
Edward Cullen, Stephenie Meyer's Twilight — Stephenie Meyer

As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention. — Thomas Huxley

An all-out attack on evolutionist thinking is possibly the only real hope our nations have of rescuing themselves from an inevitable social and moral catastrophe. — Ken Ham

Creationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life-yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammarabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. — Michael Shermer

The evolution theory is one of the dumbest and most dangerous religion in history of humanity. — Kent Hovind

The tree in the field is to be treated with respect. It is not to be romanticized as the old lady romanticizes her cat (that is, she reads human reactions into it) ... But while we should not romanticize the tree, we must realize that God made it and it deserves respect because he made it as a tree. Christians who do not believe in the complete evolutionary scale have reason to respect nature as the total evolutionist never can, because we believe that God made these things specifically in their own areas. So if we are going to argue against evolutionists intellectually, we should show the results of our beliefs in our attitudes. The Christian is a man who has a reason for dealing with each created thing on a high level of respect. — Francis A. Schaeffer

An example of perfection in nature is the cockroach. It was living six million years before us and it may outlast us by that long. The brain of a cockroach is a splendid little engine. It doesn't evolve and it doesn't need to. The human brain is a disaster from the point of view of perfection
great intellectual power combined with primitive emotional reactions. Human beings today are living with terrible risks of their own creation
nuclear weapons, the exploitation of natural resources, the great disparity between the wealthy and the poor. Our brains will probably bring us to destruction, but we also have the possibility of growth, evolution. I prefer being a human. We shouldn't always look for perfection, in nature or our lives. — Rita Levi-Montalcini

God. However, if we do not believe in the Christian myths about God, creation and souls, what does it mean that all people are 'equal'? Evolution is based on difference, not on equality. Every person carries a somewhat different genetic code, and is exposed from birth to different environmental influences. This leads to the development of different qualities that carry with them different chances of survival. 'Created equal' should therefore be translated into 'evolved differently'. — Yuval Noah Harari

If it has been revealed to man that the Almighty made him out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, it is in vain to tell a Christian that man was originally a speck of albumen, and passed through the stages of monads and monkeys, before he attained his present intellectual preeminence. If it be a received truth that the Creator has repeatedly interposed in the government of the universe and displayed his immediate agency in miraculous interpositions, it is an insult to any reader to tell him that the being slumbers on his throne and rules under a "primal arrangement in his counsels," and "by a code of laws of unbending operation. — David Brewster

Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable. — Arthur Keith

Evolution is not measured by the advancement of ecocidal technology, but by our ability to comprehend, resonate and cooperate with the forces of creation. Our — Juliet And Jiva Carter

In the beginning, God created human beings, which is to say God put the ingredients together, embedded the instructions for building on the template, and put it all into four separate eggs marked 'Some Assembly Required. — Karen Lord

Disagreements over the interpretation of Genesis 1 are not new. Early church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine wrestled with this issue hundreds of years ago. However, the debate within Christian circles over the age of creation has intensified during the last 150 years, largely in response to the Darwinian theory of evolution. — Gregory A. Boyd

Who would talk about the evolutionary mind? Who cares about the good and evil in the evolution of species, and so on? This must be interesting only to the degree to which it informs us in this very present moment regarding our choices that we will make in the creation of our future. — Ralph Abraham

Evolution is the phenomenon of change and the challenge of the next time cycle will involve the creation of constructs that will provide the kind of dynamic knowledge base that can assist the challenges of tomorrow (involving both fundamental and extended information). — Anthony Braxton

Music is one of those things that is constantly going in my head all the time. It's sort of like the evolution and creation of doing food, or my philosophy about wine. It's always beating in my head, so it keeps the spirit moving. — Emeril Lagasse

Even though our physical reality is more like an illusion, it is still the "illusion" that helps us evolve, so we should take it seriously. Giving up in life or committing suicide because we found out that our reality works like an illusion is not going to help us evolve back to Creation. Committing suicide is one of the worst things you can do because it can cause your soul to become stuck on Earth with little awareness of what is happening. You can be stuck in an illusionary reality that seems to keep replaying itself for centuries. Some of us like to refer to these lost souls as ghosts. Being in this lost state of awareness will not free you from pain and suffering, but will stunt your spiritual evolution which is one of the worst things you can do to your soul. DNA creates our external reality because — Pao Chang

The scientific creation story has majesty, power and beauty. and is infused with a powerful message capable of lifting our spirits in a way that its multitudinous supernatural counterparts are incapable of matching. It teaches us that we are the products of 13.7 billion years of cosmic evolution and the mechanism by which meaning entered the universe, if only for a fleeting moment in time. Because the universe means something to me, and the fact that we are all agglomerations of quarks and electrons in a complex and fragile pattern that can perceive the beauty of the universe with visceral wonder, is, I think, a thought worth raising a glass to this Christmas. — Brian Cox

Once, on a walk by a river- Eskdale in low reddish sunlight, with a dusting of snow- his daughter quoted to him an opening verse by her favourite poet. Apparently, not many young women loved Phillip Larkin the way she did. 'If I were to construct a religion/ I should make use of water.' She said she liked the laconic use of 'called in'- as if he would be, as if anyone ever is. They stopped to drink coffee from a flask, and Perowne, tracing a line of lichen with a finger, said that if he ever got the call, he'd make us of evolution. What better creation myth? An unimaginable sweep of time, numberless generations spawning by infinitesimal steps complex living beauty out of inert matter, driven on by the blind furies of random mutation, natural selection and environmental change, with the tragedy of forms continually dying, and lately the wonder of minds emerging and with them morality, love, art, cities- and the unprecedented bonus of this story happening to be demonstrably true. — Ian McEwan

When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so. He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment. — Pope Francis

No doubt, the theory of evolution will continue to play the singular role in the life of our secular culture that it has always played. The theory is unique among scientific instruments in being cherished not for what it contains, but for what it lacks. There are in Darwin's scheme no biotic laws, no Bauplan as in German natural philosophy, no special creation, no elan vital, no divine guidance or transcendental forces. The theory functions simply as a description of matter in one of its modes, and living creatures are said to be something that the gods of law indifferently sanction and allow. — David Berlinski

Catholics have seldom had the difficulties and embarrassments many Protestants have had about creation vs. evolution. Ever since Augustine, they have interpreted Genesis' "days" non-literally. — Peter Kreeft

It honestly didn't matter how we humans got to be the way we are, whether evolution or special creation was responsible. What mattered and mattered desperately was our future development. Were we going to go on destroying God's creation, fighting each other, hurting the other creatures of the His planet? — Jane Goodall

Whether one believes in evolution, intelligent design, or Divine Creation, one thing is certain. Since the beginning of history, human beings have been at war with each other, under the pretext of religion, ideology, ethnicity and other reasons. And no civilization has ever willingly given up its most powerful weapons. — Mohamed ElBaradei

I love the world the Lord has created; I love the mountains, the rivers, the valleys, the skies. I love the forests, the fields, the flowers. I love the mysteries of evolution and dna and the big bang. I want to know the majesties of the Lord's Creation. I cannot close my eyes to all this. I cannot turn away from science and scientific exploration. — Anne Rice

No person, collection of people, institution, government or organization of any kind can in any way promise to meet all of my needs for no person, collection of people, institution, government or organization possesses the array of resources necessary to do that. And so, I am left with the reality that either there is a God who can meet all of my needs, or I've been stranded in an existence that created me with needs that the existence itself cannot meet. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

And specimens like this confirmed there had been some kind of divine rule in the universe because no natural selection process was up to the task of creating something like him. This was some god's, somewhere's, handiwork. — Nicole Williams

When religions disagree about just creation, there is nothing to do but argue. When two scientists disagree about evolution, they confer with colleagues, develop theories, collect evidence, and arrive at a more complete understanding. Every question leads to new answers, new discoveries, and new smarter questions. The science of evolution is as expansive as nature itself. — Bill Nye

I can understand how evolution says, "don't believe in God", but I've never had this problem. I've always loved His creation. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean any_thing to some people, and I just don't get that! After all, if you just read the Bible plainly, it tells you everything. From Creation, to the Flood, to Jesus. I can't see how you can come to the conclusion, there is no God. — Betty Cuthbert

In trying to explain life we have reduced it to a series of chemical reactions, whether it be the burning of glucose in mitochondria to create energy, or the folding of proteins to make bile, or pollen, or blood. Zoom out to where we perceive things, the titanic mathematics of it all is silent. We have twisted our thoughts and feelings into all sorts of psychological origami about whether these things are a result of evolution, intelligent design, or creation ex nihilo, and for all we know, our little planet is the only place that holds all of this wonder in a void that is too staggeringly huge to conceive. — Sean J Halford

Intelligent design theorists have learned a few lessons from the failures of their predecessors and have devised a more sophisticated strategy to compete head on with evolution. One of the main things they [intelligent design creationists] have learned is what not to say.
A major element of their strategy is to advance a form of creation that not only omits any explicit mention of Genesis but is also usually vague, if not mute, about any of the specific claims about the nature of Creation, the separate ancestry of humans and apes, the explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophic global flood, or the age of the earth - items that readily identified young-earth creationism as a thinly disguised biblical literalism. — Robert T. Pennock

Darwin caused controversy, not merely because his ideas contradicted Genesis, but because they fell foul of the way in which Genesis had been read by those influenced by the Enlightenment, for it was the Enlightenment that conceived of the human as almost exclusively rational and intellectual, and set the human at a distance from the animal. — Andrew Louth

Chosen are those artists who penetrate to the region of that secret place where primeval power nurtures all evolution. There, where the powerhouse of all time and space call it brain or heart of creation activates every function, who is the artist who would not dwell there? — Paul Klee

It necessarily follows that chance alone is at the source of every innovation, and of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among many other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. And nothing warrants the supposition - or the hope - that on this score our position is ever likely to be revised. There is no scientific concept, in any of the sciences, more destructive of anthropocentrism than this one. — Jacques Monod

I do not think that there is any general statement in the Bible or any part of the account of creation, either as given in Genesis 1 and 2 or elsewhere alluded to, that need be opposed to evolution. — B. B. Warfield

Evolution is the gradual development and stratification of progressive series of wholes, stretching from the inorganic beginnings to the highest level of spiritual creation. — Jan Smuts

I simply can't look into the heavens on a crisp starry night and somehow bring myself to believe that the gaping expanse that engulfs the whole of me is the product of chance happenstance. And neither can I believe that the gaping expanse that rests within me is anything less. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

People have taken advantage of the very well-trodden pathways that divide science and faith on other issues, such as creation, evolution, and the age of the universe, to pigeonhole climate change as yet another variant on the same theme. — Katharine Hayhoe

I asked the whole frame of the world about my God; and he answered, I am not He, but He made me. — Saint Augustine

Shepherd Book: What are we up to, sweetheart?
River: Fixing your Bible.
Book: I, um ... What?
River: Bible's broken. Contradictions, false logistics - doesn't make sense.
Shepherd Book: No, no. You-you-you can't ...
River: So we'll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with God's creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one. Noah's ark is a problem.
Shepherd Book: Really?
River: We'll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon. Only way to fit 5000 species of mammal on the same boat.
Shepherd Book: River, you don't fix the Bible.
River: It's broken. It doesn't make sense.
Book: It's not about making sense. It's about believing in something, and letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It's about faith. You don't fix faith, River. It fixes you. — Ben Edlund

I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way. — Theodosius Dobzhansky

In the most important sense a creationist is a person who believes in creation, and that includes people who believe that Genesis is a myth and that creation involved a process called evolution and consumed billions of years. — Phillip E. Johnson

If we are merely a chance product of 'random happenstance' and nothing more, doesn't it strike you as a bit odd that we have the ability to contemplate the question of 'random happenstance' with such methodical complexity? — Craig D. Lounsbrough

I had written the sentence, 'You mustn't think that the evolution that gave rise to us was the only evolutionary possibility on this planet ... that cultural developments could be shaped through the mediation of another animal species. If the biological conditions were favorable, some civilization not inferior to our own could arise in the depths of the sea ... Would it do the same stupid things mankind has done? Would it invite the same historical calamities? What would we say if some animal other than man declared that its education and its numbers gave it the sole right to occupy the entire world and hold sway over all creation? — Karel Capek

Freedom is essential to the pursuit of happiness.
Freedom is essential to artistic evolution and expression.
Freedom is essential to the expansion of the human mind.
Freedom is essential to the development and application of basic humanitarianism.
Freedom is essential to the creation of an individual's will, motivations, preferences, and unique talents.
In essence, freedom is essential to the success and progress of humanity. — Richelle E. Goodrich

If God is to create or to preserve a creature, God must be present and must make and preserve God's creation both in its innermost and outermost aspects. — Martin Luther

Each worldview was a cultural product, but evolution is true and separate creation is not. [ ... ] Worldviews are social constructions, and they channel the search for facts. But facts are found and knowledge progresses, however fitfully. Fact and theory are intertwined, and all great scientists understand the interaction. — Stephen Jay Gould

Theism, as religious people typically hold it, does not merely state that some entity created the universe, but that the universe was created specifically with humans in mind as the most important part of creation. If we have any understanding at all of how an intelligent agent capable of creating the material universe would act if it had such an intention, we would say it would not create the huge structure we see, most of it completely irrelevant for life on Earth, with the Earth in such a seemingly random location, and with humans appearing only after a long and rather random course of evolution. — Tim Maudlin

In most people's minds, fossils and Evolution go hand in hand. In reality, fossils are a great embarrassment to Evolutionary theory and offer strong support for the concept of Creation. If Evolution were true, we should find literally millions of fossils that show how one kind of life slowly and gradually changed to another kind of life. But missing links are the trade secret, in a sense, of paleontology. The point is, the links are still missing. What we really find are gaps that sharpen up the boundaries between kinds. It's those gaps which provide us with the evidence of Creation of separate kinds. As a matter of fact, there are gaps between each of the major kinds of plants and animals. Transition forms are missing by the millions. What we do find are separate and complex kinds, pointing to Creation. — Gary Parker

Women, churchgoers, and conservative were more likely than men, nonchurch goers, and liberals to disagree with the reductionist (neural) account of human life. — Andrew Ferguson

If evolutionism were to be rejected, the whole structure upon which the modern world is based would collapse and one would have to accept the incredible wisdom of the Creator in the creation of the multiplicity of life forms which we see on the surface of the earth and in the seas. This realization would also change the attitude that modern man has concerning the earlier periods of his own history, vis-a-vis other civilizations and also other forms of life. Consequently the theory of evolution continues to be taught in the West as a scientific fact rather than a theory and whoever opposes it is usually brushed off as religious obscurantist. — Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Muse, We are servants of the Mystery. We were put here on earth to act as agents of the Infinite, to bring into existence that which is not yet, but which will be, through us. Every breath we take, every heartbeat, every evolution of every cell comes from God and is sustained by God every second, just as every creation, invention, every bar of music or line of verse, every thought, vision, fantasy, every dumb-ass flop and stroke of genius comes from that infinite intelligence that created us and the universe in all its dimensions, out of the Void, the field of infinite potential, primal chaos, the Muse. To acknowledge that reality, to efface all ego, to let the work come through us and give it back freely to its source, that, in my opinion, is as true to reality as it gets. — Steven Pressfield

The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory -is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation - both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof. — L. Harrison Matthews

As to harmonizing the theory of evolution with the Biblical account of creation, I do not believe it can be done, and I do not see why it should be. The story of Genesis is beautiful, and profoundly significant as symbolism: there is no good reason to torture it into conformity with modern theory. — Will Durant

When it comes to the whole debate today over evolution versus creation, Jesus affirmed the early chapters of Genesis were accurate when He said, "Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female" (Matthew 19:4). Adam and Eve didn't come on the scene after billions of years of mutations and evolution. No. God created them all the way back in the beginning-just like Moses reported in the Book of Genesis. — Charlie Campbell

There are only two possible explanations as to how life arose: Spontaneous generation arising to evolution or a supernatural creative act of God ... There is no other possibility. Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others, but that just leaves us with only one other possibility ... that life came as a supernatural act of creation by God, but I can't accept that philosophy because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation leading to evolution. — George Wald

It is amazing that 2001: A Space Odyssey has not aged at all, except for a few minor technical gadgets. The main reason is, of course, the philosophical or spiritual element in this story. We know as little today about the secrets of Creation and evolution as we knew before, and it is not likely that we'll ever know much more. We'll have to be satisfied, as Kubrick was, respectfully admiring the potential for evolution within the mystery of the universe's creation. — Jan Harlan

Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today. — Michael Ruse

The debate that has been conducted in terms of "creation versus evolution" has gotten caught up with all kinds of other debates, and this has provided a singularly unhelpful backdrop to the would-be serious discussion of other parts of the Bible. — N. T. Wright

Mankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history. — P. J. O'Rourke

Evolution was in a strange mood when that creation came along ... It makes one wonder just where the plant world leaves off and the animal world begins. — John Colton

One general theory for the origin of AIDS goes that, during the late nineteen-sixties, a new and lucrative business grew up in Africa, the export of primates to industrialized countries for use in medical research. Uganda was one of the biggest sources of these animals. As the monkey trade was established throughout central Africa, the native workers in the system, the monkey trappers and handlers, were exposed to large numbers of wild monkeys, some of which were carrying unusual viruses. These animals, in turn, were being jammed together in cages, exposed to one another, passing viruses back and forth. Furthermore, different species of monkeys were mixed together. It was a perfect setup for an outbreak of a virus that could jump species. It was also a natural laboratory for rapid virus evolution, and possibly it led to the creation of HIV. Did HIV crash into the human race as a result of the monkey trade? — Richard Preston

I finally became convinced that the theory of creation actually had a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution, for the creation model was actually better able to explain the physical and biological complexity in the world ... — Roy Spencer

Only God was able to create a free creature, and freedom could only arise by the act of creation. Freedom is not the result or product of evolution. Freedom and product are disparate ideas. God does not produce or construct. He creates. We used to say the same for artists, for the artist who constructs does not create a personality but rather a poster of man. A personality cannot be constructed. Maybe sooner or later, during this century or after a million years of continued civilization, man will succeed in constructing an imitation of himself, a kind of robot or monster, something similar to its constructor. This human-looking monster may look very much like man, but one thing is certain: it will never have freedom. Without a divine touch, the result of evolution would not have been man, but rather a developed animal, a super-animal, a creature with a human body and intelligence but without a heart and personality. — Alija Izetbegovic

I prefer a God who once and for all impressed his will upon creation, to one who continually busied about modifying what he had already done. — William Temple

In particular, I argue that in both evolution and creation we have rival religious responses to a crisis of faith-rival stories of origins, rival judgments about he meaning of human life, rival sets of moral dictates, and above all what theologians call rival eschatologies-pictures of the future and of what lies ahead for humankind. — Michael Ruse

Satan is behind the theory of evolution. Satan hates God and us. Satan is the father of all lies. So he wants nothing more than to make every human being alive believe lies about God, ourselves and how and why we exist. — Lisa Bedrick

I want to put it back together now, this artistic expression that contains religious feeling. I want to investigate: What was the origin? What's happened in the human mind? Can we trace back the moment of the creation of human consciousness? And why did only humans gain consciousness, not other animals? So, evolution? I don't know whether or not I can believe evolution. Maybe we wait for another 100,000 years and then apes get consciousness. — Hiroshi Sugimoto

The whole game is undone, this nightmare of evolution, and you are exactly where you were prior to the beginning of the whole show. With a sudden shock of the utterly obvious, you recognize your own Original Face, the face you had prior to the Big Bang, the face of utter Emptiness that smiles as all creation and sings as the entire Kosmos - and it is all undone in that primal glance, and all that is left is the smile, and the reflection of the moon on a quiet pond, late on a crystal clear night. — Ken Wilber

If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge fixed ideas and established structures, including our own. We listen to people in other denominations and religions. We don't find demons in those with whom we disagree. We don't cozy up to people who mouth our jargon. If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or: either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular, Beethoven or Madonna. We focus on both-and, fully aware that God's truth cannot be imprisoned in a small definition. — Brennan Manning

Evolution is one of the most powerful and important ideas ever developed in the history of science. Every question it raises leads to new answers, new discoveries, and new smarter questions. The science of evolution is as expansive as nature itself. It is also the most meaningful creation story that humans have ever found. — Bill Nye

I don't understand why people insist on pitting concepts of evolution and creation against each other. Why can't they see that spiritualism and science are one? That bodies evolve and souls evolve and the universe is a fluid package that marries them both in a wonderful package called a human being. What's wrong with that idea? — Garth Stein

My thoughts turn to something I read once, something the Zen Buddhists believe. They say that an oak tree is brought into creation by two forces at the same time. Obviously, there is the acorn from which it all begins, the seed which holds all the promise and potential, which grows into a tree. Everybody can see that. But only a few can recognize that there is anther force operating here as well-the future tree itself, which wants so badly to exist that it pulls the acorn into being, drawing the seedling forth with longing out of the void, guiding the evolution from nothingness to maturity. In this respect, say the Zens, it is the oak tree that creates the very acorn from which it was born. — Elizabeth Gilbert

If no one had ever challenged religious authority, there'd be no democracy, no public schools, women's rights, improvements to science and medicine, evolution of slavery and no laws against child abuse or spousal abuse. I was afraid to challenge my religious beliefs because that was the basis of creation - mine anyway. I was afraid to question the Bible or anything in it, and when I did, that's when I became involved with PFLAG and realized that my son was a perfectly normal human being and there was nothing for God to heal because Bobby was perfect just the way he was. — Mary Griffith

In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to "bend" their observations to fit in with it. — Henry Lipson

Chance alone is at the source of every innovaton, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, only chance, absolute but blind liberty is at the root of the prodigious edifice that is evolution ... It today is the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. Stating life began by the chance collision of particles of nucleic acid in the "prebiotic soup." — Jacques Monod

An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one. The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of the wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day, till he ended with four trotters and a curly tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and uncanny. — G.K. Chesterton

This was the scientific age, and people wanted to believe that their traditions were in line with the new era, but this was impossible if you thought that these myths should be understood literally. Hence the furor occasioned by The Origin of Species, published by Charles Darwin. The book was not intended as an attack on religion, but was a sober exploration of a scientific hypothesis. But because by this time people were reading the cosmogonies of Genesis as though they were factual, many Christians felt
and still feel
that the whole edifice of faith was in jeopardy. Creation stories had never been regarded as historically accurate; their purpose was therapeutic. But once you start reading Genesis as scientifically valid, you have bad science and bad religion. — Karen Armstrong

Plot, or evolution, is life responding to environment; and not only is this response always in terms of conflict, but the really great struggle, the epic struggle of creation, is the inner fight of the individual whereby the soul builds up character. — William Wallace Cook

Evolution is the creation-myth of our age. By telling us our origin it shapes our views of what we are. It influences not just our thought, but our feelings and actions too, in a way which goes far beyond its official function as a biological theory. — Mary Midgley

This brings me back to the statement that thee is no such thing as living matter. In the cell, all the parts and pieces are separate units, working precisely together, but not themselves alive. Life is not IN any of these parts and pieces, just as in your automobile, there is no automobility in any piece or part, in a spark plug or a carburetor needle. Automobility is a superior quality which coheres to the total motor car to the total motor car. Similarly, life is a super-quality that coheres to the total cell. — Wallace Johnson

The truth of faith about creation is radically opposed to the theories of materialistic philosophy. These view the cosmos as the result of an evolution of matter reducible to pure chance and necessity. — Pope John Paul II

Well, it [evolution] is a theory, it is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science and is not yet believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was believed. But if it was going to be taught in the schools, then I think that also the biblical theory of creation, which is not a theory but the biblical story of creation, should also be taught. — Ronald Reagan

And I've been thinking: if the human race manages to destroy itself, as it often seems to want to do, or if some great disaster comes, as it did for the dinosaurs, then the birds will still manage to survive. When our gardens and fields and farms and woods have turned wild, when the park at the end of Falconer Road has turned into a wilderness, when our cities are in ruins, the birds will go on flying and singing and making their nests and laying their eggs and raising their young. It could be that the birds will exist for ever and for ever until the earth itself comes to an end, no matter what might happen to the other creatures. They'll sing until the end of time. So here's my thought: If there is a God, could it be that He's chosen the birds to speak for Him. Could it be true? The voice of God speaks through the beaks of birds. — David Almond

In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top - the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation - and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as "the younger brothers of Creation." We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn - we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They've been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

All of creation expands and evolves. — Jay Woodman

[Evolution] doesn't mean God-guided, gradual creation. It means unguided, purposeless change. The Darwinian theory doesn't say that God created slowly. It says that naturalistic evolution is the creator, and so God had nothing to do with it. — Philip Johnson

The answer to what we're looking for, fixing the world with love, has to be traced back to something, and we can only trace it back to the God who is love. If we dive into the rest of Genesis and say, "What is this 'day' nonsense? As modern people, we can't believe that," then we have already missed the point. God has revealed to us through Moses the foundations of our desire for love and we want to talk about matter? When we lie in bed at night, do we miss matter or do we miss love? We miss love. — Zach Weihrauch

BioLogos claims there is no conflict between the theory of evolution and creationism. Huh? Here is where the creationists seem to have the intellectual advantage: they at least see the conflict. Actually, it is not that BioLogos isn't aware of the conflict, but rather, it has come up with the answer to the long-standing conflict between Darwinism and creationism: simply pretend there is no conflict. — G.M. Jackson

One of the truly bizarre things about our current cultural situation is that the leading figures of the scientific establishment seem genuinely amazed that the citizens do not accept finch-beak variation as proof of the claim that humans, like all animals and plants, are accidental products of a purposeless universe in which only material processes have operated from the beginning. — Phillip E. Johnson

The facts of paleontology seem to support creation and the flood rather than evolution. For instance, all the major groups of invertebrates appear "suddenly" in the first fossil ferrous strata (Cambrian) of the earth with their distinct specializations indicating that they were all created almost at the same time. — Enoch

I believe in the theory of evolution, but I believe as well in the allegorical truth of creation theory. In other words, I believe that evolution, including the principle of natural selection, is one of the tools used by God to create mankind. Mankind is then a participant in the creation of the universe itself, so that we have a closed loop. I believe that there is a level on which science and religious metaphor are mutually compatible. — Christopher Langan

To my mind, the theory of [evolution] does not stand up at all. If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces, and radiation [i.e., time, chance, and chemistry], how has it come into being? I think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. — Henry Lipson

Evolution is evolution - and it's happened before us and will continue after we're gone. But, what's taking place now is much more than change for the sake of change. The socialization of content creation, consumption and participation, is hastening the metamorphosis that transforms everyday people into participants of a powerful and valuable media literate society. — Brian Solis