Thomas Paine Quotes

Why is it any more reasonable to believe that God has always been than it is to say that matter has always been?

If you say that there was no first cause (a Creator), then you are stuck with the unscientific and thoughtless belief that nothing created everything. So, what is it that you believe? Is it that something created everything? Then you are not an atheist, because you believe in a Creator.

An atheist is someone who thinks (but doesn't believe) that nothing created everything.

Hawking has violated the unspoken rules of atheism. He isn't supposed to use words like 'create' or even 'made.' They necessitate a Creator and a Maker. Neither are you supposed to let out that the essence of atheism is to believe that nothing created everything, because it's unthinking.

The universe is more than mere matter in motion. It and we were brought into being by a Creator who seeks our good.

When I did Inherit the Wind, I learned about teaching school. I also found out what a fundamentalist was.

Atheism is really nothing but a sorry litany of non-sequiturs, e.g., if God existed, why do we have all the evil and horrors in the world? But this presupposes that God is all-good, an obvious non-sequitur.

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.

One class of philosophers calls every extraordinary appearance a judgment or a sign; another class views everything as the working of matter and motion. These two sets are at war with each other. The one denounces the other as superstitious or atheistical.

To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth.

I'm always trying to figure out what God is and why matter exists and whether it contains spirit or not.

We preserve the legacy of my father through an education approach. We award scholarships. We do classes at schools about my father's philosophy and life.

There is no indisputable proof for the big bang," said Hollus. "And there is none for evolution. And yet you accept those. Why hold the question of whether there is a creator to a higher standard?

It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences, and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles: he can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.

What do they teach them at these schools?

The truth of faith about creation is radically opposed to the theories of materialistic philosophy. These view the cosmos as the result of an evolution of matter reducible to pure chance and necessity.

It was easier for me to think of a world without a creator than of a creator loaded with all the contradictions of the world.

Everything is more or less organized matter. To think so is against religion, but I think so just the same.

The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. Science brings men nearer to God.

If alpha [the fine-structure constant] were bigger than it really is, we should not be able to distinguish matter from ether [the vacuum, nothingness], and our task to disentangle the natural laws would be hopelessly difficult. The fact however that alpha has just its value 1/137 is certainly no chance but itself a law of nature. It is clear that the explanation of this number must be the central problem of natural philosophy.

We must consider teaching the Egyptian revolution in schools.

Computer science needs to be part of the core curriculum - like algebra, biology, physics, or chemistry. We need all schools to teach it, not just 10%.

I asked the whole frame of the world about my God; and he answered, I am not He, but He made me.

I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of dally life.

We have always believed that our people can stand on no higher ground than the school ground, or can enter any more hopeful room than the classroom. We blend time and faith and knowledge in our schools - not only to create educated citizens, but also to shape the destiny of this great Republic.