Quotes from Phillip E. Johnson

Some theists in evolutionary science acquiesce to these tacit rules and retain a personal faith while accepting a thoroughly naturalistic picture of physical reality.

A constitutional democracy is in serious trouble if its citizenry does not have a certain degree of education and civic virtue.

The assumption that nature is all there is, and that nature has been governed by the same rules at all times and places, makes it possible for natural science to be confident that it can explain such things as how life began.

If modernist naturalism were true, there would be no objective truth outside of science. In that case right and wrong would be a matter of cultural preference, or political power, and the power already available to modernists ideologies would be overwhelming.

No doubt it is true that science cannot study God, but it hardly follows that God had to keep a safe distance from everything that scientists want to study.

The restriction of religion to private life therefore does not necessarily threaten the vital interests of the majority religion, if there is one, and it protects minority religions from tyranny of the majority.

The problem with allowing God a role in the history of life is not that science would cease, but rather that scientists would have to acknowledge the existence of something important which is outside the boundaries of natural science.

Evolutionary naturalism takes the inherent limitations of science and turns them into a devastating philosophical weapon: because science is our only real way of knowing anything, what science cannot know cannot be real.

So one reason the science educators panic at the first sign of public rebellion is that they fear exposure of the implicit religious content in what they are teaching.

In short, it is not that evolutionary naturalists have been less brazen than the scientific creationists in holding science hostage, but rather that they have been infinitely more effective in getting away with it.

Materialism sets us free from sin-by proving that there is no such thing as sin. There's just antisocial behavior, which we can control with measures like laws and educational programs.

Modernist discourse [...] incorporates semantic devices - such as the labeling of theism as 'religion' and naturalism as 'science' - that work to prevent a dangerous debate over fundamental assumptions from breaking out in the open.

Trying to get to the answer before one has understood all the right questions is a prime source of error in human affairs.

As students grow more and more accustomed to assuming materialism and naturalism in their academic work, the concept of creation by God gradually tends to become less real to them. It is not so much that any single finding undermines their faith; rather, the day-to-day practice of thinking in naturalistic terms about academic subjects makes it awkward to think differently when it comes to religion.

The whole thing seems absurdly easy - so easy that you ought to smell a rat.

Darvinizam je pri?a o osloba?anju ?ovje?anstva od iluzije da njegovom sudbinom upravlja neka sila viša od njega.

To step off the reservation to question the rules of the larger society is to take a great risk, but perhaps also to find a great opportunity. We will never know how great the opportunity was if we are afraid to take the risk.

One of the truly bizarre things about our current cultural situation is that the leading figures of the scientific establishment seem genuinely amazed that the citizens do not accept finch-beak variation as proof of the claim that humans, like all animals and plants, are accidental products of a purposeless universe in which only material processes have operated from the beginning.

The restriction of religion to private life therefore does not necessarily threaten the vital interests of the majority religion, if there is one, and it protects minority religions from tyranny of the majority.

Darwinism is not merely a support for naturalistic philosophy: it is a product of naturalistic philosophy.

Scientists have long known that Darwinism is false. They have adhered to the myth out of self-interest and a zealous desire to put down God.

To philosophical materialists God is no more than an idea in the human mind, and not a very important idea.

In short, the proposition that God was in any way involved in our creation is effectively outlawed, and implicitly negated.

Evolutionary naturalism takes the inherent limitations of science and turns them into a devastating philosophical weapon: because science is our only real way of knowing anything, what science cannot know cannot be real.