Gregory Benford Quotes

"The Holy Ghost," Luther instructs us, "is not a skeptic." Not everyone can be, and that is really too bad.

Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

Religion deals in certainties and philosophy deals more in un-answered questions.

We cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain ; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.

The version I got of Christianity was quite confusing to me, even as a child, because there were certain things that didn't add up.

I think maybe it is better to believe than not to believe. But I couldn't tell you why.

Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of.

The unbelieving mind would not be convinced by any proof, and the worshiping heart needs none.

We cannot know what faith is if we have never had it, and we cannot obtain it as long as we deny it. Faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time, for one will dispel the other.

I wouldn't like to be a non-believer in anything.

Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do 'faith.'

The best thing about science is that hard, empirical answers are always there if you look hard enough. The best thing about religion is that the very absence of that certainty is what requires - and gives rise to - deep feelings of faith.

I just have a sense that, you know, I'm curious about what is religion about, you know? Why do some of us still engage it? It's not because it's a set of old beliefs or old ideas. Or even, particularly, the view that this is the only true religion. Many of us no longer accept those views.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

I believe in possibility, but I'm not sure I believe in demons.

We all have our beliefs or our agnosticism.

Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.

I'm not really a fan of organized religion.

What do we believe? Why do we believe it?

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.

I'm not sure about anything as far as religion and spirituality go.

I'm a strict, strict agnostic. It's very different from a casual, 'I don't know.' It's that you cannot present as knowledge something that is not knowledge. You can present it as faith, you can present it as belief, but you can't present it as fact.

You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt.