Phillip E. Johnson > Quotes

“Architecture is the art of how to waste space.”
― Phillip Johnson

“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.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, An Easy-to-Understand Guide for Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds

“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.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law Education

“Trying to get to the answer before one has understood all the right questions is a prime source of error in human affairs.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, The Right Questions: Truth, Meaning & Public Debate

“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.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, An Easy-to-Understand Guide for Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds

“..."science" as defined in our culture has a philosophical bias that needs to be exposed. On the one hand, science is empirical. This means that scientists rely on experiments, observations and calculations to develop theories and test them. On the other hand, contemporary science is naturalistic and materialistic in philosophy. What this means is that materialist explanations for all phenomena are assumed to exist. And what that means is that the NABT's definition of evolution as an unsupervised process is simply true by definition--regardless of the evidence! It is a waste of time to argue about the evidence if one side has already won the argument by defining the terms.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds

“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.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds

“I approach the creation-evolution dispute not as a scientist but as a problem of law, which means among other things that I know something about the ways that words are used in arguments. What first drew my attention to the question was the way the rules of argument seemed to be structured to make it impossible to question whether what we are being told about evolution is really true. For example, the Academy's rule against negative argument automatically eliminates the possibility that science has not discovered how complex organisms could have developed. However wrong the current answer may be, it stands until a better answer arrives. It is as if a criminal defendant were not allowed to present an alibi unless he could also show who did commit the crime.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial

“The whole thing seems absurdly easy - so easy that you ought to smell a rat.”
― Phillip E. Johnson

“Biochemists assume that the three cellular kingdoms evolved from a single common ancestor, because the alternative of supposing an independent origin of life two or more times presents still greater difficulties. The common ancestor is merely hypothetical, as are the numerous transitional intermediate forms that would have to connect such enormously different groups to the ancestor. From a Darwinist viewpoint all these hypothetical creatures are a logical necessity, but there is no empirical confirmation that they existed.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial

“A second point that caught my attention was that the very persons who insist upon keeping religion and science separate are eager to use their science as a basis for pronouncements about religion. The literature of Darwinism is full of anti-theistic conclusions, such as that the universe was not designed and has no purpose, and that we humans are the product of blind natural processes that care nothing about us. What is more, these statements are not presented as personal opinions but as the logical implications of evolutionary science.

Another factor that makes evolutionary science seem a lot like religion is the evident zeal of Darwinists to evangelize the world, by insisting that even non-scientists accept the truth of their theory as a matter of moral obligation. Richard Dawkins, an Oxford Zoologist who is one of the most influential figures in evolutionary science, is unabashedly explicit about the religious side of Darwinism. his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker is at one level about biology, but at a more fundamental level it is a sustained argument for atheism. According to Dawkins, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."

When he contemplates the perfidy of those who refuse to believe, Dawkins can scarcely restrain his fury. "It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." Dawkins went to explain, by the way, that what he dislikes particularly about creationists is that they are intolerant.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial

“Darvinizam je priča o oslobađanju čovječanstva od
iluzije da njegovom sudbinom upravlja neka sila viša od njega.”
― Phillip E. Johnson

“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.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds

“First, let me agree with Dawkins on one thing: the Bible isn't a simple book; it is at least sixty-six different books collected into a whole. Each discrete book is different; some are very different. The Bible is not a modern novel, it is not a modern history, and it is not a science book. That doesn't mean it does not contain stories, history and scientific truths just that it is not any of those kinds of books.
Second, the Bible can be the most important book in human
history without being to my taste. Liking a particular work and recognizing greatness in it are two different things. It is easy to despise what we don't like, since it gives us an excuse not to bother with hard work, but the Bible isn't going”
― Phillip E. Johnson, Against All Gods: What's Right and Wrong About the New Atheism