Michael Ruse Quotes

• Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.

  Michael Ruse

  Creation Science, Today, Evolution

  "Is Darwinism a Religion?". www.huffingtonpost.com. July 21, 2011.

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• Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth... Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' they think they are referring above and beyond themselves... Nevertheless... such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction... and any deeper meaning is illusory...

  Michael Ruse

  Thinking, Hands, Feet

  "The Darwinian Paradigm: Essays on Its History, Philosophy and Religious Implications (Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics)". Book by Michael Ruse, 1989.

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• Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion - a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint - ...and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it - the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution today.

  Michael Ruse

  Christian, Alternatives, Today

  "How evolution became a religion: creationists correct?". Article by Michael Ruse, May 13, 2000.

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• Their [the new atheists] treatment of the religious viewpoint is pathetic to the point of non-being. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course. Proudly he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing.

  Michael Ruse

  Religious, Atheist, Philosophy

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• In particular, I argue that in both evolution and creation we have rival religious responses to a crisis of faith-rival stories of origins, rival judgments about he meaning of human life, rival sets of moral dictates, and above all what theologians call rival eschatologies-pictures of the future and of what lies ahead for humankind.

  Michael Ruse

  Religious, Lying, Stories

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• ...I really want to believe. I find the goodies offered by Christianity extremely attractive. But I am damned (again!) if I am going to sell my evolutionary birthright for a mess of religious pottage.

  Michael Ruse

  Religious, Believe, Want

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• The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist, and the McGraths show why.

  Michael Ruse

  Atheist, Embarrassed, Delusion

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• Being a philosophical naturalist does not mean that one thinks that science can provide all of the answers. That is scientism and that is wrong. I don't think a billion buckets of science could speak to the problems raised by the Tea Party. Being a philosophical naturalist does not mean that one thinks that the only truths are those of science. I think the claim just made in the last sentence is true but I don't think it is a claim of science. It means that you use science where you can and you respect and try to emulate its standards.

  Michael Ruse

  Party, Philosophical, Mean

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• In other words, science tells us that Adam and Eve are fictions. That Saint Paul or Uncle Tom Cobley and all thought otherwise is irrelevant. They were wrong.

  Michael Ruse

  Uncles, Saint, Fiction

  "Adam and Eve Didn’t Exist. Get Over It!" by Michael Ruse, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 10, 2011.

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• We who cherish science should be careful to distinguish when we are doing science and when we are extrapolating from it

  Michael Ruse

  Cherish, Should, Be Careful

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