Nevertheless, just as I believe that the Book of Scripture illumines the pathway to God, so I believe that the Book of Nature, with its astonishing details-the blade of grass, the Conus cedonulli, or the resonance levels of the carbon atom-also suggest a God of purpose and a God of design. And I think my belief makes me no less a scientist.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the belief that both scripture and nature reveal the presence of a purposeful God, suggesting that faith and science can coexist.
Owen Gingerich emphasizes that the intricate details found in nature, from simple elements like a blade of grass to complex structures such as atoms, indicate a divine design and purpose. He argues that recognizing this connection does not detract from scientific inquiry; rather, it enriches the understanding of both science and spirituality, affirming that one can be both a faithful believer and a rigorous scientist.
In practice
You can use this quote in a discussion about the relationship between faith and scientific exploration during a debate.
History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!
Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.
Chess is a unique battlefield for human minds and computers - human intuition, our creativity, fantasy, our logic, versus the brute force of calculation and a very small portion of accumulated knowledge infused by other human beings. So in chess we can compare these two incompatible things and probably make projections into our future. Is there danger that the human mind will be overshadowed by the power of computers, or we can still survive?
Asanas penetrate deep into each layer of the body and ultimately into the consciousness itself.
Public behavior is merely private character writ large.
Where self-interest is violently suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control which dries up the wellsprings of initiative and creativity.
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