Maya Angelou Quotes
Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory.
Angelou, Maya. Letter to My Daughter. Random House, 2008.
This quotation is noteworthy because although there are some scientists who are sympathetic to the religious fundamentalist view of the origin of the universe, they are almost always second class scientists. In this case, the scientist is a first class scientist, a Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. So his quotation has more weight than of most others and is used more often by many fundamentalists who support the Biblical Genesis version of creation rather than the Big Bang scientific explanations and evolution. There are however many great scientists who also are people of faith in a God. They may be religious, but like most religious Americans, interpret the Bible metaphorically and symbolically rather than literally as the fundamentalists do.
Darwin who had a Protestant Christian upbringing, never precluded the possibility that God had created the universe with the Laws of Evolution and that was the mechanism He selected to allow all the species and diversity of life to develop. But he did not say that explicitly. While he found immediate acceptance and accolades from the scientific communities throughout the world, and enthusiastic approval by most educated people with the exception of theologians and clerics. Their reaction was extreme—almost apoplectic. The book as a best seller and they sold out with each successive printing. In the 6th edition, Darwin not only was explicit about the role the Deity might have had, but Darwin stated that he personally believed that He was the impetus to the creative process. Ironically, almost all the social and political opponents of Evolution have never read Darwin’s work (or much else on the subject) and certainly do not realize that the man they accuse of leaving God out of the Creation, actually believed that God was the critical element and he and other evolutionary scientists were just discovering God’s laws. Dr. Huxley and some other supporters of Darwin were disappointed with this change in the 6th edition, as they were atheists and believed that there was no deity involved in the creation. Today, there are evolutionary scientists who are on both sides of the issue. They just disagree on this point, but they work together on everything else.
Maya Angelou was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
