Katharine Jefferts Schori Quotes

You have to know evolution to understand the natural world. And that cannot be a threat to people of faith. There's a serious problem if you are forced by your faith to reject the most well-supported theory in all of science.

It is unconstitutional to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.

I'd love to meet Darwin. He caused such controversy over whether God created the earth in six days or whether we evolved over time. I'd love to discuss that with him - what a fantastic conversation!

Well I think fundamentally, what I think surprises me is the creationist movement, and the notion that somehow you can't believe in God if you believe in evolution. But I don't think there's anything in the Bible which prevents a recognition that evolution is a highly plausible way that we came to be here.

We have politicians running for office—for school boards—in parts of the country who are denying the fundamental principle of biology. They are trying to equate the fact that Evolution is a theory with the idea that Evolution might not be true…. The teaching of Evolution should not be a political issue…. Evolution was discovered, not invented.

I am a believer in the evolutionary process, and yet I have sympathy for the friends of mine who are creationists. I don't find the positions incompatible.

The first and most important reason for its elimination is the unquestioned fact that evolution is not a science; it is a hypothesis only, a speculation.

Scientists and creationists are always at odds, of course.

I don't think that the total creation took place in six days as we now measure time. If we can confirm, say, the Big Bang theory, that doesn't at all cause me to question my faith that God created the Big Bang.

For all the creationists out there, Darwin's just an atheist. But he was actually agnostic.

Whether or not evolution is compatible with faith, science and religion represent two extremely different worldviews, which, if they coexist at all, do so most uncomfortably.

The information and the materials [of “Intelligent Design”] aren't scientific, it's not a compromise. You either include non-scientific materials or you don't. And in a science class, we don't include non-scientific, non-empirically based material.

Darwinistic evolution would be a most peculiar creative method for God to choose, given the Darwinistic insistence that biological evolution was undirected. That requirement means that God neither programmed evolution in advance nor stepped in from time to time to pull it in the right direction. How then did God ensure that humans would come into existence so that salvation history would have a chance to occur?

As a matter of principle, science teachers are professionally bound to limit their teaching to science and should resist pressure [from religious fundamentalists] to do otherwise.

Anti-Evolution League

The brute theory [evolution] has paralyzed the influence of many of our preachers and undermined the faith of many of our young people in college.

Evolution is the key to avoiding the whole issue of God. When you challenge evolution, you're basically challenging someone on a spiritual level.

Evolution is fundamentally hostile to religion.

Evolution and creationism both require faith. It's just a matter of where you choose to place that faith.

I was never raised with the traditional story of creation in religion, and because of that I think I had a lot of questions. And evolution, the evolutionary narrative, helped provide some of that for me.

I believe in evolution. But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.

Sadly, I have found that even evolution's most staunch believers are afraid to debate, because they know that their case for atheism and evolution is less than extremely weak.

Evolution is true, it happens, it is the way the world is, and we too are one of its products. This does not mean that evolution does not have metaphysical implications; I remain convinced that this is the case.

How can you look at the Texas legislature and still believe in intelligent design?

I think there's nothing about evolution in the Bible; I think this is a statement of religious insecurity. But people have their beliefs.