Carl Sagan Quotes

My personal feeling is that understanding evolution led me to atheism.

One should never tie his faith to how old the earth is.

You know, our fundamentalist friends dislike the teaching of evolution in schools because of the effect they feel it has on our view of our own special importance, while liberals insist that scientific and spiritual matters can be kept in separate compartments. On this point, I tend to agree with the fundamentalists, though I come to opposite conclusions about teaching evolution because I am convinced it's true.

I need to know if she [Sarah Palin] thinks dinosaurs were here four thousand years ago... because she's going to have the nuclear code.

The fundamentalists deny that evolution has taken place; they deny that the earth and the universe as a whole are more than a few thousand years old, and so on. There is ample scientific evidence that the fundamentalists are wrong in these matters, and that their notions of cosmogony have about as much basis in fact as the Tooth Fairy has.

If anybody wants to believe they're the descendants of a primate, they're welcome to do it.

God creates dinosaurs, God kills dinosaurs, God creates man, man kills God, man brings back dinosaurs.

Well, here’s a scientific question: Has anybody ever seen hard evidence? What we get is theories from our earlier prophets. Now, people who think that God invented us think that the Earth can’t be more than 6,000 years old. So I guess it’s a question of belief. My belief system doesn’t support a creator as such, as we can call God, who created us in His/Her/Its image.

The anti-Darwin movement has racked up one astounding achievement. It has made a significant proportion of American parents care about what their children are taught in school.

I was raised in a Christian household and went to a Christian high school, so I believe in creationism, for sure.

I'm very interested in Darwinism and how that affects us on a day-to-day level. But I also have a deep interest in theology and the spiritual.

Mrs. Palin has neither pushed for creationism in Alaska schools nor moved to ban a single book in Wasilla.

People who believe in creationism say that by teaching evolution you are indoctrinating them with science, but I just don't agree with that.

There are Christians who think there were seven actual days, or that creation was over time. They have answers for dinosaurs and things of that nature. And I don't claim to have any of those answers. And I understand people wanting to have discussions about it.

It really does not matter whether one believes a mystical entity created the universe 5,000 or 10,000 million years ago - both are equally irrational, unsubstantiated claims of no fundamental validity.

Many Christians are raised believing that to be true to God's Word means to accept that the universe, Earth, and life were created in six 24-hour days, only a few thousand years ago. Most people lack the theological and scientific tools to think through the implications of this teaching.

When I was a child, my parents taught a literal creation. By the time I was in my 20s they were accommodating evolution. In other words, less creed, more roll with changing ways of seeing. Maybe adapting is a better way to see this.

If I know anything about the character of God after fifty years of ministry, I know that God hates abortion.

Ironically, members on both sides of the debate do agree about one thing: big bang cosmology puts their position in jeopardy. The big bang poses a problem for young-earth creationists because it makes the universe billions of years old rather than thousands. Such an assertion undercuts their system at its foundation. Big bang cosmology also presents a problem for atheistic scientists because it points directly to the existence of a transcendent Creator - a fact they dare not concede.

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?

In a better world, science teachers would teach creationism along with evolution as an exercise in critical thinking.

Theology made no provision for evolution.

For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions, and the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything chosen about them.

After all, religion has been around a lot longer than Darwinism.

Whether you understand they evolved over billions of years or believe that a God made them all one afternoon, please be kind to animals.