Aanhalings – Evolusie vernietig geloof

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“Let met summarize me views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no Gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.”
[William B. Provine, Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University (Origins Research 16(1/2), p.9, 1994)]

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“This [creation] is a vital subject at university since the institution’s philosophy of education is secular humanism. Thus, studens are bombarded with it in every lecture as the basic assumption. This constant “brain washing” destroys the faity of many Christians each year. Our surveys indicate that 80% of first year students believe in a God who is there. By their second year only 15% believe in God.”
[Craig Tasker, Students for Christ Chalpain, Macquarie University, Australia, April 26, 1994]

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“I don’t pray to anything. I went to church in suburban Melbourne and had an intensely religious phase until I was 12, but then I heard the theory of evolution and it cured me of any idea we were God’s children. We’re just a life form that’s evolved reasonably successfully. There’s no grand plan for the universe or our lives, we’re the lucky recipients of random chance.”
[David Williamson, The Sunday Telegraph, 9th January 2005, Sunday Magazine, p.7.]

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“… belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is industinguishable from ateism.”
[William B. Provine, Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University, ‘No free will’, In Catching up with the Vision, ed. Margaret W Rossiter, Chicago University Press, 1999, p.S123.]

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Telling it straight

‘… I myself have little doubt that in England it was [uniformitarian, long-ages] geology and the theory of evolution that changed us from a Christian to a pagan nation.’

F. Sherwood Taylor, ‘Geology changes the outlook’, in Ideas and Beliefs of the Victorians, Sylvan Press Ltd, London, p. 195, 1949 (one of a series of talks broadcast on BBC radio).

(Taylor was Curator of the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford). [Uit http://creation.com/telling-it-straight]

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Richard Dawkins

“An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: ‘I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn’t a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.’ I can’t help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

Voor Darwin kon ’n ateïs na aanleiding van Hume gesê het: ‘Ek het geen verduideliking vir komplekse biologiese ontwerp nie. Al wat ek weet is dat God nie ’n goeie verduideliking is nie, so ons moet wag en hoop dat iemand met ’n beter een kom.’ Ek kan nie help nie om te voel dat so ’n posisie, alhoewel dit logies geldig is, ’n mens onbevredig sou laat voel het, en alhoewel ateïsme logies verdedigbaar sou gewees het voor Darwin, het Darwin dit moontlik gemaak om ’n intellektueel vervulde ateïs te wees.

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Lawrence M. Krauss
(Hy is ’n ateïstiese aktivis.)

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life – weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”

“Elke atoom in jou liggaam het gekom van ’n ster wat ontplof het. En die atome in jou linkerhand is waarskynlik afkomstig van ’n ander ster as jou regterhand. Dit is werklik die mees poëtiese ding wat ek van fisika weet: Jy is slegs sterstof. Jy kon nie hier gewees het as die sterre nie ontplof het nie, want die elemente – koolstof, stikstof, suurstof, yster, al die dinge wat saak maak vir evolusie en vir die lewe – is nie geskep aan die begin van tyd nie. Hulle is geskep in die kernoonde van die sterre, en die enigste manier om dit in jou liggaam te kry, is as die sterre gaaf genoeg was om te ontplof. So, vergeet Jesus. Die sterre het gesterf sodat jy vandag hier kan wees.”

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Jacques Monod
(Hy was ’n ateïs.)

“… man has to understand that he is a mere accident.”

“… die mens moet verstaan dat hy bloot ’n ongeluk is.”