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“Evolution strikes me as infinitely more spiritually profound than Genesis.”
― Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

“Matter,�� Vittoria repeated. “Blossoming out of nothing. An incredible display of subatomic fireworks. A miniature universe springing to life. He proved not only that matter can be created from nothing, but that the Big Bang and Genesis can be explained simply by accepting the presence of an enormous source of energy.��
“You mean God?�� Kohler demanded.
“God, Buddha, The Force, Yahweh, the singularity, the unicity point—call it whatever you like—the result is the same. Science and religion support the same truth—pure energy is the father of creation.”
― Dan Brown, Angels & Demons

“ADAM AND EVE, sitting in Paradise, chatting:
"If we could only open the gate and leave," says Eve.
"To go where, my dearest?"
"If we could only open the gate and leave!"
"Outside is sickness, pain, death!"
"If we could only open the gate and leave!”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis

“At present, a good many men engaged in scientific pursuits, and who have signally failed in gaining recognition among their fellows, are endeavoring to make reputations among the churches by delivering weak and vapid lectures upon the 'harmony of Genesis and Geology.' Like all hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree, and so turn and pervert facts and words that they succeed only in gaining the applause of other hypocrites like themselves. Among the great scientists they are regarded as generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies.

Surely the time must come when the wealth of the world will not be wasted in the propagation of ignorant creeds and miraculous mistakes. The time must come when churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of man; when minister and priest will deem the discoveries of the living of more importance than the errors of the dead; when the truths of Nature will outrank the 'sacred' falsehoods of the past, and when a single fact will outweigh all the miracles of Holy Writ.

Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?

When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then, and not until then, will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

“If God created the universe, there was a time when he commenced to create. Back of that commencement there must have been an eternity. In that eternity what was this God doing? He certainly did not think. There was nothing to think about. He did not remember. Nothing had ever happened. What did he do? Can you imagine anything more absurd than an infinite intelligence in infinite nothing wasting an eternity?”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

“The American people spend thousands of dollars to propagate the doctrines of the fall of man, the creation of the world out of nothing in six days by a personal God, vicarious atonement, absolution from sin by the shedding of innocent blood. This is the Christianity offered to the poor and illiterate of India...

Christianity has percolated through the layers of dogmatism and bigotry, of intolerance and superstition, of damnation and hell fire. It takes on itself the quality of these layers and imparts them to those that are received within its folds.”
― Virchand Gandhi, The Monist

“And to think of this great country in danger of being dominated by people ignorant enough to take a few ancient Babylonian legends as the canons of modern culture. Our scientific men are paying for their failure to speak out earlier. There is no use now talking evolution to these people. Their ears are stuffed with Genesis.”
― Luther Burbank

“Every single Biblical doctrine of theology, directly or indirectly, ultimately has its basis in the book of Genesis.”
― Ken Ham, The Lie: Evolution

“An interesting contrast between the geology of the present day and that of half a century ago, is presented by the complete emancipation of the modern geologist from the controlling and perverting influence of theology, all-powerful at the earlier date. As the geologist of my young days wrote, he had one eye upon fact, and the other on Genesis; at present, he wisely keeps both eyes on fact, and ignores the pentateuchal mythology altogether. The publication of the 'Principles of Geology' brought upon its illustrious author a period of social ostracism; the instruction given to our children is based upon those principles. Whewell had the courage to attack Lyell's fundamental assumption (which surely is a dictate of common sense) that we ought to exhaust known causes before seeking for the explanation of geological phenomena in causes of which we have no experience.”
― Thomas Henry Huxley, Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century, The

“When I saw that Moses�� version of the Genesis of the world did not fit sufficiently in many ways with Aristotle and the rest of the philosophers, I began to have doubts about the truth of all philosophers and started to investigate the secrets of nature.”
― Gerardus Mercator

“Why didn't Jacob simply refuse to go along with this bold, obvious swindle? Again, Robert Alter's insights are invaluable. When Jacob asks, 'Why have you DECEIVED me?' the Hebrew word is the same one used in chapter 27 to describe what Jacob did to Isaac. Alter then quotes an ancient rabbinical commentator who imagines the conversation the next day between Jacob and Leah. Jacob says to Leah: 'I called out "Rachel" in the dark and you answered. Why did you do that to me?' And Leah says to him, 'Your father called out "Esau" in the dark and you answered. Why did you do that to him?' His fury dies on his lips. He sees what it is like to be manipulated and deceived, and he meekly complies with Laban's offer.”
― Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

“Our public life is largely premised on an exploitation of our common anxiety. The advertising of consumerism and the drives of the acquisitive society, like he serpent, seduce into believing there are securities apart from the reality of God.”
― Walter Brueggemann

“If you destroy the foundations of anything, the structure will collapse. If you want to destroy any building, you are guaranteed early success if you destroy the foundations.”
― Ken Ham, The Lie: Evolution

“Now if there is anything in this universe for which we do not have an "inkling," it is the ultimate goal of the Creator. Erroneous notions regarding this goal often stem from the misconception that all existence exists for man alone. The foible in this perception of the universe is the failure to realize that existence itself is good. The Five Books of Moses are bracketed by explicit statements of the worth of being. At the start we are told: "And God saw all that was made and behold it was very good" (Gen. 1:31)”
― Gerald Schroeder, Genesis and the Big Bang: The Discovery Of Harmony Between Modern Science And The Bible

“The biblical account of the origin of the cosmos in Genesis, for example, posits that a god created the physical universe particularly with human beings in mind, and so unsurprisingly placed the Earth at the center of creation.

Modern cosmological knowledge has refuted such an account. We are living in the golden age of cosmology: More has been discovered about the large-scale structure and history of the visible cosmos in the last 20 years than in the whole of prior human history. We now have precise knowledge of the distribution of galaxies and know that ours is nowhere near the center of the universe, just as we know that our planetary system has no privileged place among the billions of such systems in our galaxy and that Earth is not even at the center of our planetary system. We also know that the Big Bang, the beginning of our universe, occurred about 13.7 billion years ago, whereas Earth didn’t even exist until about 10 billion years later.

No one looking at the vast extent of the universe and the completely random location of homo sapiens within it (in both space and time) could seriously maintain that the whole thing was intentionally created for us. This realization began with Galileo, and has only intensified ever since.”
― Tim Maudlin

“Creatures cannot image even the true God in biblical thinking generally speaking. Nevertheless - and here is the extraordinary exception - there ARE "gods" in the world. There ARE images of God placed in a temple. These images are none other than the human beings - ALL human beings - whom God has created and set in his temple-cosmos.”
― Iain Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters

“It is high time that we grew up and left the Garden. We are indeed Eden’s children, yet it is time to place Genesis alongside the geocentric myth in the basket of stories that once, in a world of intellectual naivete, made helpful sense. As we walk through the gates, aware of the dazzling richness of the genuine biological world, there might even be a smile on the Creator’s face �� that at long last His creatures have learned enough to understand His world as it truly is.”
― Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution

“Did the Abrahamic God know that, by "divinely inspiring" the book of Genesis and other tales in the Bible, that He would cause millions to impede scientific understandings of our origins and push for myth to be taught in schools? Shouldn't he have left out the bit about humans being made from dust and ribs, knowing that fact?”
― David G. McAfee

“Man first creates the universe in his image, and then turns round to say that God created man in his image... As Voltaire quipped, if God created man in his image, man has returned the compliment.”
― Neel Burton, Hide and Seek: The Psychology of Self-Deception

“Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser one to rule the night. He made stars also.

Genesis 1:16”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: The New King James Version

“How convinced are you that man was created in the image of God when you can't see the image of God?”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Classic Quotations From The Otherworlds

“The sense of alienation that inspires wonder, awe and fear in us is enough of a proof that life does not belong to the planet Earth.”
― Raheel Farooq

“I have never felt the need to worship someone or something, but I recognize the beauty of creation, the miraculosity of existence, and honor the genius behind the scene, who came up with all of this.”
― Stefan Emunds

“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, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology

“Als Kain seinen Bruder Abel um die Ecke brachte, glauben Sie bloß nicht, dass der Alte da oben ein paar uniformierte Grünschnäbel zu den Ermittlungen schickte. Verdammt, nein, er holte einen Detective.”
― David Simon, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

“The greatest things that have ever happened in this world, had their genesis in the wake of special relationships of rare destiny.”
― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

“High buildings fall, black oceans rise, and coins sink in height
Where weapons smash in every grace, with every black and white
The east drops, the west too, children die and so do old
With every sin, and every crime, people drop by their gold

The ground wrecks to chunks where people tend to fall
And gardens turn dumps but the tiny bird’s soul
Fire, Wind, Water and Sun, all kill a birth
It just goes on to be the Last day on earth”
― Yehya El Kouzi

“As we begin our study of Genesis 1 then, we must be aware of the danger that lurks when we impose our own cultural ideas on the text without thinking. The Bible's message must not be subjected to cultural imperialism. Its message transcends the culture in which it originated, but the form in which the message was imbedded was fully permeated by the ancient culture. This was God's design and we ignore it at our peril.”
― John H. Walton

“In the morning of the world," he said, "when the dew still lay upon the Garden, man was created so that there might be some one to enjoy it. In order that he might relish beauty, he was given a soul; and having a soul, he was given speech, since without speech, it is impossible to understand such abstractions as the soul. That was a mistake, but I do not see how it could have been avoided.”
― Robert Nathan, The Bishop's Wife

“Cosmos drew himself to his full height. His cavernous chest swelled and his wings and various other appendages spread open, encompassing all the land and the rain-filled skies. “Henceforth,�� he boomed, “you shall call me your Omniarch, or Creator, or Lord. Maybe God. Lord Omniarch sounds best. But don’t call me Jehovah or I’ll drop a mountain on your head. I’m not joking.��
“Fair enough,�� said Terry, quickly adding, “Lord Omniarch,�� when Cosmos growled.
“And you shall spread word of my names �� except Jehovah �� to everyone! And to the dust shall you shout my names; yea, to the trees, also. And the mountains shall ring with the echo of my names, and the beasts of the ground and of the air and rivers and seas shall hear of me, and, though they will not comprehend, they will yet grovel under my might.��
“Why,�� said Terry, “if you don’t want me to say it, do you keep mentioning the name Jeh��”
― Scott Kaelen, When Gods Awaken