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Quotes from Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up — John Allen Paulos

born 1945 United States

← All quotes by John Allen Paulos

9 quotes

The whole weight of science is the prima facie evidence against a miracle having occurred.

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Claiming that a holy book’s claims are undeniable because the book itself claims them to be is convincing only to the convinced.

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Confirmation of a person’s unreliable statement by another unreliable person makes the statement even less reliable.

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

It’s always healthy to recognize facts.

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

For the record, natural selection is a highly nonrandom process that acts on the genetic variation produced by random mutation and genetic drift and results in those organisms with more adaptive traits differentially surviving and reproducing.

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

While not a panacea, candidly recognizing the absence of any good logical arguments for God’s existence, giving up on divine allies and advocates as well as taskmasters and tormentors, and prizing a humane, reasonable, and brave outlook just might help move this world a bit closer to a heaven on earth.

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

The universe acts on us, we adapt to it, and the notions that we develop as a result, including the mathematical ones, are in a sense taught us by the universe. Evolution has selected those of our ancestors (both human and not) whose behavior and thought were consistent with the workings of the universe.

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

It’s become somewhat fashionable to say that religion and science are growing together and are no longer incompatible. This convergence is, in my opinion, illusory. In fact, I don’t believe that any attempt to combine these very disparate bodies of ideas can succeed intellectually.

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Allen Paulos (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.