"The time has gone by when a Huxley could believe that while science might indeed remould traditional mythology, traditional morals were impregnable and sacrosanct to it. We must learn not to take traditional morals too seriously. And it is just because even the least dogmatic of religions tends to associate itself with some kind of unalterable moral tradition, that there can be no truce between science and religion. There does not seem to be any particular reason why a religion should not arise with an ethic as fluid as Hindu mythology, but it has not yet arisen. Christianity has probably the most flexible morals of any religion, because Jesus left no code of law behind him like Moses or Muhammad, and his moral precepts are so different from those of ordinary life that no society has ever made any serious attempt to carry them out, such as was possible in the case of Israel and Islam. But every Christian church has tried to impose a code of morals of some kind for which it has claimed divine sanction. As these codes have always been opposed to those of the gospels a loophole has been left for moral progress such as hardly exists in other religions. This is no doubt an argument for Christianity as against other religions, but not as against none at all, or as against a religion which will frankly admit that its mythology and morals are provisional. That is the only sort of religion that would satisfy the scientific mind, and it is very doubtful whether it could properly be called a religion at all."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Science authorsNon-fiction authors from EnglandBiologists from EnglandChemists from EnglandGeneticists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
J. B. S. Haldane
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (5 November 1892 β 1 December 1964) was a British geneticist and evolutionary biologist.
39 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by J. B. S. Haldane β
Related Quotes
"The commonest cause of gastritis β that is to say, an inflamed and irritable stomach β is worry and anxiety. It is paβ¦"
"An inordinate fondness for beetles."
"I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages: (i) this is worthless nonsense; (ii) thiβ¦"
"An ounce of algebra is worth a ton of verbal argument."
"No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins."
"[F]our hundred years hence the power question in England may be solved somewhat as follows: The country will be coverβ¦"
"is weight for weight the most efficient known method of storing energy, as it gives about three times as much heat peβ¦"
"These huge reservoirs of liquified gasses will enable wind energy to be stored, so that it can be expended for industβ¦"
"There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god."
"My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel, or β¦"