Creationism

"Some foolish men declare that creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill advised and should be rejected. If God created the world, where was he before the creation? If you say he was transcendent then and needed no support, where is he now? How could God have made this world without any raw material? If you say that he made this first, and then the world, you are faced with an endless regression. If you declare that this raw material arose naturally you fall into another fallacy, For the whole universe might thus have been its own creator, and have arisen quite naturally. If God created the world by an act of his own will, without any raw material, then it is just his will and nothing else — and who will believe this silly nonsense? If he is ever perfect and complete, how could the will to create have arisen in him? If, on the other hand, he is not perfect, he could no more create the universe than a potter could. If he is form-less, action-less and all-embracing, how could he have created the world? Such a soul, devoid of all morality, would have no desire to create anything. If he is perfect, he does not strive for the three aims of man, so what advantage would he gain by creating the universe? If you say that he created to no purpose because it was his nature to do so, then God is pointless. If he created in some kind of sport, it was the sport of a foolish child, leading to trouble. If he created because of the karma of embodied beings [acquired in a previous creation] He is not the Almighty Lord, but subordinate to something else. If out of love for living beings and need of them he made the world, why did he not take creation wholly blissful free from misfortune? If he were transcendent he would not create, for he would be free: Nor if involved in transmigration, for then he would not be almighty. Thus the doctrine that the world was created by God makes no sense at all, And God commits great sin in slaying the children whom he himself created. If you say that he slays only to destroy evil beings, why did he create such beings in the first place? Good men should combat the believer in divine creation, maddened by an evil doctrine. Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning or end, and is based on the principles, life and rest. Uncreated and indestructible, it endures under the compulsion of its own nature."

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork."

"I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

"Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: "Who is this that speaks so ignorantly? Stand up like a man: I will question you, and you will answer me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you are so smart. Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?""

"For we also are his offspring."

"Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood, The source of evil, one, and one of good."

"Only because the people see"

"And Plato says that all things are made from matter by God, and according to His design; but Epicurus and his followers say that all things are made from the atom and the void by some kind of self-regulating action of the natural movement of the bodies...."

"Is the world created or uncreated? -- that is the first question.Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and if sensible, then created; and if created, made by a cause, and the cause is the ineffable father of all things, who had before him an eternal archetype."

"Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi sed saepe cadendo."

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools."

"For I consider that the sufferings of the present time do not amount to anything in comparison with the glory that is going to be revealed in us. For the creation is waiting with eager expectation for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but through the one who subjected it, on the basis of hope that the creation itself will also be set free from enslavement to corruption and have the glorious freedom of the children of God. For we know that all creation keeps on groaning together and being in pain together until now."

"Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed."

"For who that has understanding will sup­pose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, ex­isted without a sun, and moon, and stars? and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden ..."

"Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe."

"There is naturally present in all men the desire to know the causes of whatever things are observed. Hence, because of wondering about things that were seen but whose causes were hidden, men first began to think philosophically; when they found the cause, they were satisfied. But the search did not stop until it reached the first cause, for "then do we think that we know perfectly, when we know the first cause." Therefore, man naturally desires, as his ultimate end, to know the first cause. But the first cause of all things is God. Therefore, the ultimate end of man is to know God."

"He created Him from dust; then He said to him, "Be," and he was."

"O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women."

"And We did certainly create man out of clay from an altered black mud. And the jinn We created before from scorching fire."

"He [Allah] created the heavens and earth in truth. High is He above what they associate with Him. He created man from a sperm-drop; then at once, he is a clear adversary. And the grazing livestock He has created for you."

"Does man not remember that We created him before, while he was nothing?"

"[Allah] Created man from a clinging substance."

"Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books."

"From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: From harmony, to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man."

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use."

"Though to recount almighty works What words of tongue or seraph can suffice, Or heart of man suffice to comprehend?"

"Open, ye heavens, your living doors; let in The great Creator from his work return'd Magnificent, his six days' work, a world!"

"What cause Moved the Creator in his holy rest Through all eternity so late to build In chaos, and, the work begun, how soon Absolved."

"When I consider everything that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment; That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows, Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; Then the conceit of this inconstant stay Sets you most rich in youth before my sight."

"Through knowledge we behold the world's creation, How in his cradle first he fostered was; And judge of Nature's cunning operation, How things she formed of a formless mass."

"The chain that's fixed to the throne of Jove, On which the fabric of our world depends, One link dissolved, the whole creation ends."

"You own a watch the invention of the mind, Though for a single motion 'tis designed, As well as that which is with greater thought With various springs, for various motions wrought."

"Are we a piece of machinery that, like the Æolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? Or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod?"

"And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps, Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the soul of each, and God of all?"

"Nature they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote."

"This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."

"Nature, and Nature's laws lay hid in Night. God said Let Newton be! and All was Light."

"Each moss, Each shell, each drawling insect, holds a rank Important in the plan of Him who fram'd This scale of beings; holds a rank which, lost Would break the chain, and leave behind a gap Which Nature's self would rue."

"[T]hat the Universe was formed by a fortuitous Concourse of Atoms … I will no more believe, than that the accidental Jumbling of the Letters of the Alphabet, could fall by Chance into a most ingenious and learned Treatise of Philosophy."

"Le monde m'embarrasse, et je ne puis pas songer Que cette horloge existe et n'a pas d'Horloger."

"Creation is great, and cannot be understood."

"[This saying of Alphonso about Ptolemy's astronomy, that] "it seemed a crank machine; that it was pity the Creator had not taken advice.""

"Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled."

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

"It has often and confidently been asserted, that man's origin can never be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

"The Religion that is afraid of science dishonors God & commits suicide. … Every influx of atheism, of skepticism is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting & removing a diseased religion & making way for truth."

"History warns us, however, that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions; and, as matters now stand, it is hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty years, the new generation, educated under the influences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting the main doctrines of the 'Origin of Species' with as little reflection, and it may be with as little justification, as so many of our contemporaries, twenty years ago, rejected them. Against any such a consummation let us all devoutly pray; for the scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors."

"The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitious–fabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of science, theology, with religion; and, on the other, by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside the boundaries of that province, they must be content with imagination, with hope, and with ignorance. …The antagonism of science is not to religion, but to the heathen survivals and the bad philosophy under which religion herself is often well-nigh crushed. And, for my part, I trust that this antagonism will never cease; but that, to the end of time, true science will continue to fulfil one of her most beneficent functions, that of relieving men from the burden of false science which is imposed upon them in the name of religion."

"The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence."

"The non-existent was not; the existent was not at that time. The atmosphere was not nor the heavens which are beyond. What was concealed? Where? In whose protection? Was it water? An unfathomable abyss?"