Theistic Evolution Quotes

Many Christians, including BioLogos, like to throw out the "you can't take the Bible literally" argument. They think it is the ultimate zinger that will end any debate in their favor. But if we shouldn't take the Bible literally, why should we believe God is real in the literal sense? Perhaps God is a metaphor also. Maybe God is really a metaphor for nature or chance. Heaven forbid! However, BioLogos insists on having it both ways: God is literally true but the Bible is not. That's like saying Mother Goose is literally true but her nursery rhymes are not. ~ G.M. Jackson

In that context, I find theistic evolution, or BioLogos, to be by far the most scientifically consistent and spiritually satisfying of the alternatives. This position will not go out of style or be disproven by future scientific discoveries. It is intellectually rigorous, it provides answers to many otherwise puzzling questions, and it allows science and faith to fortify each other like two unshakable pillars, holding up a building called Truth. ~ Francis S. Collins

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

Design theorists are no friends of theistic evolution. ~ William A. Dembski

Revolutions just spread blood. Evolution - this is something that changes in the long term. ~ Marjane Satrapi

We are surrounded by worn-out, banal, useless and exhausted images, limping and dragging themselves behind the rest of our cultural evolution. ~ Werner Herzog

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

MRI testing again shows what may be the underlying brain mechanism. The amygdalae are two small lobes in the brain associated with fear, arousal, and emotions. When they are active, it is thought to be a sign of vigilance, meaning that the brain is wary and wants more information. A study at Massachusetts General Hospital found that when subjects looked at photographs of faces - half were white, half were black - MRI scans found high amygdala activity. This was considered to be a normal reaction to unfamiliar faces. When the subjects looked at the photographs a second time the faces were more familiar; only the other-race faces continued to provoke high amygdala activity. This was true for both blacks and whites, suggesting that encounters with people of different races keep the brain at a higher level of watchfulness.
Amygdalae notice race even when a person does not. William A. Cunningham of Ohio State University showed white subjects pictures of faces for only 30 milliseconds - not long enough for the subjects to be conscious of them - but black faces triggered greater amygdala activity than white faces. When he showed faces for a half a second - long enough for people to notice race - he found that black faces prompted greater activity in the pre-frontal areas, a part of the brain associated with detecting internal conflicts and controlling conscious behavior. This suggested the subjects were trying to suppress certain feelings about blacks.
Steven Neuberg of Ar ~ Jared Taylor

There's a theory that says that life is based on a competition and the struggle and the fight for survival, and it's interesting because when you look at the fractal character of evolution, it's totally different. It's based on cooperation among the elements in the geometry and not competition. ~ Bruce Lipton

It is a total mystery how we evolved minds capable of piloting cars through wild maneuvers using a wrist to steep while shouting at a cell phone. The creationists are fools for focusing on animal evolution. Darwin explains nature! He has more difficulty explaining us. ~ David Brin

You don't wanna know the sinner.
You don't wanna know the killer. Because it's you.
Television is stalling evolution.
Medication is stalling evolution.
Evolution is stalling revolution. Evolution, revolution.
Collaboration, the start of revolution.
My decision, the start of revolution.
Revolution, the start of evolution. Revolution, evolution. ~ Tablo

Furthermore, it's equally evident that what goes on is actually one degree better than self-reproduction, for organisms appear to have gotten more elaborate in the course of time. Today's organisms are phylogenetically descended from others which were vastly simpler than they are, so much simpler, in fact, that it's inconceivable, how any kind of description of the latter, complex organism could have existed in the earlier one. It's not easy to imagine in what sense a gene, which is probably a low order affair, can contain a description of the human being which will come from it. But in this case you can say that since the gene has its effect only within another human organism, it probably need not contain a complete description of what is to happen, but only a few cues for a few alternatives. However, this is not so in phylogenetic evolution. That starts from simple entities, surrounded by an unliving amorphous milieu, and produce, something more complicated. Evidently, these organisms have the ability to produce something more complicated than themselves. ~ John Von Neumann

A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die - which variety or species shall increase in number, and which shall decrease, or finally become extinct. ~ Charles Darwin

Computational processes are abstract beings that inhabit computers. As they evolve, processes manipulate other abstract things called data. The evolution of a process is directed by a pattern of rules called a program. People create programs to direct processes. In effect, we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells. ~ Harold Abelson

For there are strong grounds for thinking that, in the evolution of thought, magic has preceded religion . ~ James G. Frazer

A Pleasant Theology One reason why many people find Creative Evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences. When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen? - from Mere Christianity ~ C.S. Lewis

We are built to be effective animals, not happy ones. ~ Robert Wright

The brain rewards us for interacting with beautiful things. In this way, evolution wants to encourage us to do what is good for us. ~ Frank Wilczek

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, or its driving engine natural selection, has no foresight. In every generation within every species, the individuals best equipped to survive and reproduce contribute more than their fair share of genes to the next generation. The consequence, blind as it is, is the nearest approach to foresight that nature permits. [...] It is always tinkering: here shrinking a bit, there expanding a bit, constantly adjusting, putting on and taking off, optimising immediate reproductive success. Survival in future centuries doesn't enter into the calculation, for the good reason that it isn't really a calculation at all. It all happens automatically, as some genes survive in the gene pool and others don't. ~ Richard Dawkins

Here's how a filter bubble works: Since 2009, Google has been anticipating the search results that you'd personally find most interesting and has been promoting those results each time you search, exposing you to a narrower and narrower vision of the universe. In 2013, Google announced that Google Maps would do the same, making it easier to find things Google thinks you'd like and harder to find things you haven't encountered before. Facebook follows suit, presenting a curated view of your "friends'" activities in your feed. Eventually, the information you're dealing with absolutely feels more personalized; it confirms your beliefs, your biases, your experiences. And it does this to the detriment of your personal evolution. Personalization - the glorification of your own taste, your own opinion - can be deadly to real learning. Only ~ Michael Harris

Why, then, do I continue to claim that creationism isn't science? Simply because these relatively few statements have been tested and conclusively refuted. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

Freud's most radical legacy is the one that is the least actualized. After years of evolution on the topic, he came to the conclusion that any exclusive monosexual interest - regardless of whether it was hetero- or homosexual - was neurotic. In a sense Freud is saying what second-wave critic Kate Millet said a half-century late: "Homosexuality was invented by a straight world dealing with its own bisexuality." By the end of his writings, in 1937, Freud was downright blythe about bisexuality: "Every human being['s] . . . libido is distributed, either in a manifest or a latent fashion, over objects of both sexes. ~ Jennifer Baumgardner

What is more of a symbol of eternal growth and change than the Goddess? The eternal spiral of creation. Coiled like a serpent, our Shakti energy sits, waiting to be awakened within all of us. ~ Emma Mildon

Only a tiny fraction of corpses fossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water. ~ Richard Dawkins

The journey of a human is not only to expand its illusory personality of his mind, in the external world, but to realize himself beyond the identity of the mind and see the truth behind the formation of life within. ~ Roshan Sharma

Religions, creeds, drama, poetry, games, folklore, folk tales, mythology, moral and aesthetic codes' elements of the political and juridical life affirming a personality's value , freedom and tolerance ; philosophy, theater, galleries , museums, libraries-this is the unbroken line of human culture, the first act of which has been played in heaven between God and man. That is climbing the holy mountain , the top of which remains unreachable' marching through darkness by means of the blazing candle carried by man.
Civilization is the continuation of technical rather than spiritual progress in the same way that Darwinian evolution is the continuation of biological rather than human progress. Civilization represents the development of the potential forces that existed in our less developed ancestors. It is a continuation of the natural , mechanical elements-that is, of the unconscious, senseless elements of our existence. Therefore, civilization is neither good nor bad in itself. Man must create civilization , just as he must breathe or eat. It is an expression of necessity and of our lack of freedom. Culture ,on the contrary, is the ever-present feeling of choice and expression of human freedom. ~ Alija Izetbegovic

Evolution itself embodies an ongoing exchange of information between organism and environment ... The gene has its cultural analog, too: the meme. In cultural evolution, a meme is a replicator and propagator - an idea, a fashion, a chain letter, or a conspiracy theory. On a bad day, a meme is a virus. ~ James Gleick

Among the things most characteristic of organisms--most distinctive of living as opposed to inorganic systems--is a sort of directedness. Their structures and activities have an adaptedness, an evident and vital usefulness to the organism. Darwin's answer and ours is to accept the common sense view...[that] the end ("telos") [is] that the individual and the species may survive. But this end is (usually) unconscious and impersonal. Naive teleology is controverted not by ignoring the obvious existence of such ends but by providing a naturalistic, materialistic explanation of the adaptive characteristics serving them. [Book review in "Science," 1959, p. 673.] ~ George Gaylord Simpson

(When we force a smile, we activate facial muscles with our prefrontal cortex. But when we smile because we are in a good mood, our nerves are controlled by our limbic system, which activates a slightly different set of muscles. Our brains can tell the subtle difference between the two, which was beneficial for our evolution.) ~ Michio Kaku

As a consequence, geneticists described evolution simply as a change in gene frequencies in populations, totally ignoring the fact that evolution consists of the two simultaneous but quite separate phenomena of adaptation and diversification. ~ Ernst Mayr

We completely reject the theory of evolution. ~ John Ambrose Fleming

Given that evolution is a fact, this lack of evolution needs to be explained. ~ J. William Schopf

One could almost define life as the organized disobedience of the law of gravity. One could show that the degree to which an organism disobeys this law is a measure of its degree of evolution. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

The 'wheel of fortune' is a better analogy for history than the 'evolution of humanity. ~ Nicolas Gomez Davila

MacLean has shown that the R-complex plays an important role in aggressive behavior, territoriality, ritual and the establishment of social hierarchies. Despite occasional welcome exceptions, this seems to me to characterize a great deal of modern human bureaucratic and political behavior. ~ Carl Sagan