Henry M. Morris Quotes
When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
This quotation is important and memorable for several reasons. First, the Congressman is one of the relatively few highly educated Americans who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. Most Christians and Jews do not interpret the ancient scripture literally. Most Christian and Jewish religious organizations, including the Roman Catholic Church, have no problem at all with evolution and the big bang theory. As a matter of fact, the scientist who developed the mathematics to explain the big bang was a Catholic Priest. Even some religious people who do not believe that that evolution is not an accurate interpretation, rarely claim that the Earth is only 9,000 years old. It is actually over 13 Billion years old. An anti-scientific view of the world is certainly within an American’s right, but the fact that this congressman was assigned by The Republican Party leadership to be a Member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology given his belief structure is amazing, If the earth were only 9,000 years old, there is no way the global positioning satellites could tell us where we are, our nuclear arsenal would be unstable and dangerous, radiation medicine would not help anyone get well just for a few examples. A second noteworthy aspect is that the Congressman is not just stating that the millions of scientists and science teachers are wrong—in error. He accuses each and every one of them of acting as agents of Satan and that their motivation in studying and doing science is to undermine his and others faith in God and that none of them has any belief in or desire for a personal Savior. It is rare that this type of un-American behavior is found in a member of Congress who claims that any person who disagrees with his religions views or has different Biblical interpretations is an agent from Hell. The founding fathers created the First Amendment to cope with and even tolerate the few who had the extreme and unrealistic views of this Congressmen.
This quotation is used by some of those demonstrating that “Creation Science” is not science, as it is a set of facts, with no experimental verification.
In 1877 Wasburn was dropped from the List of Ministers by the Unitarian Church. He had become very critical of organized and orthodox religion of all kinds. He felt that literal interpretations of the Bible harmed religions as it made a mockery of God to claim His truths were the anachronistic and demonstrable falsehoods of the Book of Genesis. Today most Christians and Jews do not take the Old Testament Literally and in this sense Washburn was one of the early religious reformers of America. There is still a significant number of fundamentalist Christians and orthodox Jews who still believe in the literal truth of everything in the Bible.
In September, 2007, Vitter earmarked $100,000 in federal money for a Christian group, the Louisiana Family Forum, known for challenging evolution by means of "teaching the controversy" which promotes intelligent design. When the earmark became public, other legislators pressured Vitter to withdraw is earmark which he did in October of 2007. Vitter had been a major opponent of spending federal money for education, but made an exception for this project. Vitter’s hypocrisy extended to his own behavior as well. See {625898}.
This is a fundamental difference between science and religion. Politicians fall on both sides. Those who take a scientific view that everything in politics is provisional and might change and those who are ideological where the ideology is a fixed credo.
This is almost the universal belief of scientists—religious or not. The faith of religion, if extended to science, does not give the person the tools of logic, empiricism, and deduction that is so critical for the scientist. The cleric, in contrast, requires faith. Politicians split. There are many who have the outlook of the scientist. However, there are also political ideologues, who want faithful adherence to the doctrine, as the theological leaders does, and does not subject the doctrine to analytic scrutiny.
The Science Guy
This statement be the world’s greatest scientist persuaded many fundamentalist religious people to try and protect their children from science and it anti-religious influence. Many other religious thinkers would argue that the science experience of youth was not anti-religious but threatened literal interpretations of the Bible which for many has little to do with religion.
Henry Madison Morris was an American young Earth creationist, Christian apologist, and engineer. He was one of the founders of the Creation Research Society and the Institute for Creation Research. He is considered by many to be "the father of modern creation science." He coauthored The Genesis Flood with John C. Whitcomb in 1961.
