Elizabeth Gilbert Quotes

Whether religion is man-made is a question for philosophers or theologians. But the forms are man-made. They are a human response to something. As a historian of religions, I am interested in those expressions.

When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.

The Athanasian Creed is to me light and intelligible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science.

Religious thinkers have done their best to twist science and philosophy to back up their law.

What's true will never contradict what's true. Article 2 of the Belgic Confession, based on Psalm 19, Romans 1, and several other texts, declares that God has given us two reliable revelations: the words of Scripture and the facts of nature. Thus, it would be impossible for the facts of nature ever to contradict the words of the Bible.

To insist that belief in the Bible demands belief in a young Earth is to put a stumbling block in the path of many nonbelievers. It raises the question of why a God who is committed to revealing truth would make the universe and Earth measure to be old if, in fact, they are not.

I can understand how evolution says, "don't believe in God", but I've never had this problem. I've always loved His creation. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean any_thing to some people, and I just don't get that! After all, if you just read the Bible plainly, it tells you everything. From Creation, to the Flood, to Jesus. I can't see how you can come to the conclusion, there is no God.

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

I am open to [the notion of theistic revelation], but not enthusiastic about potential revelation from God. On the positive side, for example, I am very much impressed with physicist Gerald Schroeder's comments on Genesis 1. That this biblical account might be scientifically accurate raises the possibility that it is revelation.

The word God asks a question and then answers it before there is any chance to wonder.

It's a weird state to be in to go to the Bible and try to invoke science, right?

I suppose that the great questions of "Fate, Freewill, Foreknowledge Absolute," which used to be discussed at Concord, are still unsettled.

Socrates is not just expounding noble ideas in a vacuum. He is in the middle of a war between those who think truth is absolute and those who think truth is relative. He is fighting that war with everything he has.

[Science] has challenged the super-eminence of religion; it has turned all philosophy out of doors except that which clings to its skirts; it has thrown contempt on all learning that does not depend on it; and it has bribed the skeptics by giving us immense material comforts.

To stand on one leg and prove God's existence is a very different thing from going on one's knees and thanking him.

I have never, so far, in all the studies I have done, met a contradiction between what the human, experimental and natural sciences are telling us and the Islamic rules. In fact, the opposite is true: anything that is coming from the modern sciences is helping me better understand the text. It's not a contradiction. It's a relation.

As to harmonizing the theory of evolution with the Biblical account of creation, I do not believe it can be done, and I do not see why it should be. The story of Genesis is beautiful, and profoundly significant as symbolism: there is no good reason to torture it into conformity with modern theory.

The Church demonstrated the falsity and folly of Darwin's theories by showing that they contradicted the Mosaic account of creation, and now that the theories of Darwin having been fairly established, the Church says that the Mosaic account is true because it is in harmony with Darwin. Now, if it should turn out that Darwin was mistaken, what then?

How could a just God permit great misery? The Haitian peasants answered with a proverb: "Bondye konn bay, men li pa konn separe," in literal translation, "God gives but doesn't share." This meant... God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us.

There's things in the Bible when you read the Quran there different wordings. The Quran is dealing with the Most High and the Bible is dealing with God. If they read them both and put it together they'll know what the true culture is.

The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope, then he sees worlds beyond; but if he looks at his telescope, then he does not see anything but that. The Bible is a thing to be looked through, to see that which is beyond; but most people only look at it; and so they see only the dead letter.

If I believe in anything, it is in the dark night of the soul. Awe is my religion, and mystery is its church.

The more we learn about the wonders of our universe, the more clearly we are going to perceive the hand of God.

God's voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellect.

If you want to come behind the Bible and explain everything scientifically, then you're denying God's power over miracles.