Alan Lightman Quotes

Belief cannot be reckoned with in terms of science, for science and faith are mutually exclusive.

I want to put on the table, not why 85% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject God, I want to know why 15% of the National Academy don’t.

For one who feels compelled, as I do, to accept the existence of the Master Architect, it is important to examine his handiwork for the light it throws on him and on his program for his children. For me, there has been no serious difficulty in reconciling the principles of true science with the principles of true religion.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

One should never tie his faith to how old the earth is.

I personally feel that the teaching of modern science is corrosive of religious belief, and I'm all for that! One of the things that in fact has driven me in my life, is the feeling that this is one of the great social functions of science--to free people from superstition. But I don't think that that attitude of mine should control the high school curriculum. My own personal motivation is irrelevant, just as the motivations of religious people should not affect high school curricula: Science should be taught not in order to support religion and not in order to destroy religion--science should be taught simply ignoring religion.

There's been so much rhetoric in the past decade about how important religion is to being a good person, for people to say they don't believe in God.

I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says.

Everybody has a different definition of God. When people say, 'Do you believe?' I think they mean the Christian God. There are a lot of gods, so I think they cancel each other out.

Often times when I meet atheists and we talk about the god they don’t believe in, we quickly discover that I don’t believe in that god, either.

Scientific thought - indeed, any mode of thought, whether it be religious or philosophical or anything else - is just like the fashions that we wear - only much longer lived. It's a little like a boy band.

Science's tools will never prove or disprove God's existence.

Science ever has been, and ever must be, the safeguard of religion.

Next time someone tells me they believe in God, I'll say 'Oh which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?...' If they say 'Just God. I only believe in the one God,' I'll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don't believe in 2,870 gods, and they don't believe in 2,869.

You know, our fundamentalist friends dislike the teaching of evolution in schools because of the effect they feel it has on our view of our own special importance, while liberals insist that scientific and spiritual matters can be kept in separate compartments. On this point, I tend to agree with the fundamentalists, though I come to opposite conclusions about teaching evolution because I am convinced it's true.

If you came into the theater believing in the talking snake, it's kind of hard to leave the theater still believing in the talking snake.

I believe that the Bible is the literal word of God. And I say no, it's not, Dad. Well, I believe that it is. Well, you know, some people believe they're Napoleon. That's fine. Beliefs are neat. Cherish them, but don't share them like they're the truth.

Religion has ever been anti-human, anti-woman, anti-life, anti-peace, anti-reason and anti-science. The god idea has been detrimental not only to humankind but to the earth. It is time now for reason, education and science to take over.

Believe in order to Understand and Understand in order to Believe

I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it… and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it’s a good thing too.

There are three means of believing--by inspiration, by reason, and by custom. Christianity, which is the only rational institution, does yet admit none for its sons who do not believe by inspiration. Nor does it injure reason or custom, or debar them of their proper force; on the contrary, it directs us to open our minds by the proofs of the former, and to confirm our minds by the authority of the latter.

I shall not convert you at the end of my argument. I think the argument is sound. I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief, or even a little or infinitely more probably true than other belief; I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else.

Most geometricians, chemists, mathematicians, and great scientists submit religion to reason only to discover a problem as unsolvable as that of squaring a circle.

Every worldview has to bring together reason and faith.

A man who believes that he eats his God we do not call mad; yet, a man who says he is Jesus Christ, we call mad.