George Morgan Quotes
Right thinking creationists do not impugn evolution. What we reject is a universe that made itself out of nothing.
George Morgan, Protestant Cleric, Letter to Time, September 13, 1999
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
While many people in America say they do not “believe in” evolution almost all of them do not know what evolution is much less understand what it is that they think is false. There are very few people who have studied evolution who reject it as being without merit in explaining life forms and their history. Almost all who are against it are religious fundamentalists who take the Judeo-Christian Bible literally. For their particular religion, evolution is a false doctrine, but there are many major religions in America for whom evolution is no problem. For example, Quakers, Unitarians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Reform Jews, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox just to list some. Creationism, of which the quote author is an advocate, is an excellent religious solution to the contradiction between Evolution and the literal word of the Bible, but it is such terrible science, that it is not even considered science or taught in science curricula.
There are many scientists who disagree with Johnson’s very unusual logic. They point out that it is certainly possible that God initially did not have had humans in minds, and when they evolved, decided that they were worthy of salvation history and then interfered to the extent of a virgin birth. Others would point out that just because man cannot exactly foresee the exact future pattern of evolution, does not men that a Supreme Being could not have initiated the mechanism that he/she knew would result in salvation history. The Pope and the Catholic Church see no inconsistency between Darwinism and the salvation history. Then there are those non-Christians who do not believe that God ever did introduce salvation and there are many more of them than there are Christians. Then, it is possible that God just set things in motion and had more important things then micromanaging evolution on our one planet in a universe of billions of billions. Last there are those who do not believe that there is or has been a God. Of course there is the possibility that Johnson is right, and religiously he may be, but that is not subject to scientific analysis.
This is an important quotation for several reasons. First, it demonstrates the extreme diversity of religion in America. To Swaggart, Evolution is a “Satanic Theory”. However, to most American religious leaders, Evolution, per se, is not problematic. The Roman Catholic Church has no trouble with Evolution; Catholic Universities teach Evolution as a basic part of their science curricula. Jews have no theological problems with Evolution. None of the main-line Protestant Churches have any theological opposition to Evolution per se. Yet there are other Protestant denominations who find that Evolution is in contradiction to a literal interpretation of the Bible and hence do not accept it. Second, it shows the extreme level of vituperation and disrespect that is given differing points of view by some of the extreme fundamentalists who do not have the traditional American religious tolerance for differing belief structures. Here Swaggart accuses the hundreds of millions of Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist and other clerics and laypeople who see Evolution as a well-established explanation of much of science, of being not only atheists but atheists in league with the Devil. A third factor is that this quotation is an example of a Minister telling people what is or is not science and scientifically demonstrated. If a scientist without any religious training of study were ever to render judgments on theology, most of us would laugh and see it as ridiculous. However when a cleric like Swaggert, untutored and ignorant of even basic science, makes scientific pronouncements, he (and many other fundamentalists) find that reasonable.
George Thomas Morgan was a mid-20th-century American country music singer. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and a former member of the Grand Ole Opry.
