Phillip E. Johnson quotes - page 2

We're not trying to prove the character of God through science. That's a bad idea. What I'm trying to do is clear away the misunderstandings, the debris that prevent people from accepting that God who wants to accept them. (Phillip E. Johnson)
I also don't think that there is really a theory of intelligent design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that's comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it's doable, but that's for them to prove...No product is ready for competition in the educational world. View quote
Phillip E. Johnson
The subject is not just the theory of evolution, the subject is the reality of God. View quote
Phillip E. Johnson
We are removing the most important cultural roadblock to accepting the role of God as creator. View quote
Phillip E. Johnson
Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools. View quote
Phillip E. Johnson
Modernism is typically defined as the condition that begins when people realize God is truly dead, and we are therefore on our own. View quote
Phillip E. Johnson
Evolutionary biologists are not content merely to explain how variation occurs within limits, however. They aspire to answer a much broader question-which is how complex organisms like birds, and flowers, and human beings came into existence in the first place. View quote
Phillip E. Johnson
Most importantly, I agree that the truth of these matters should be determined by interpretation of scientific evidence - experiments, fossil studies and the like. View quote
Phillip E. Johnson
This [origins debate] isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy. View quote
Phillip E. Johnson
So the question is: "How to win?" That's when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing" - the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do. View quote
Phillip E. Johnson