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Chet Raymo Quotes

The dark night was the first book of poetry and the constellations were the poems.

The dark night was the first book of poetry and the constellations were the poems.

Chet Raymo
Book, Dark, Night

Knowledge is an island surrounded by a sea of mystery.

Chet Raymo
Islands, Sea, Mystery
Chet Raymo (2005). “Honey from Stone: A Naturalist's Search for God”, p.184, Cowley Publications

Nancy According to astronomers, every atom in my body was forged in a star. I am made, they insist, of stardust. I am stardust braided into strands and streamers of information, proteins and DNA, double helixes of stardust. In every cell of my body there is a thread of stardust as long as my arm.

Chet Raymo
Stars, Dna, Cells

I am a cautious pilgrim of the night, a tentative wanderer among the stars. My awareness of my home in the universe is fleeting and incomplete. Into the homeless home of the sun-faced buddha I have stepped but briefly. My quest, such as it is, is rewarded with faint lights and scrawny cries, a trait here and trait there, a hint of the infinite and a tingle in the spine. Of "minute particulars" I will make my way.

Chet Raymo
Stars, Home, Night

Through our science we have created magnificent spacecrafts and telescopes to explore the night and the light and the half light. We have made visible things that are invisible to the unaided eye. We have brought the dreamy heavens down to Earth, held them in the mind's eye. Our explorations have produced a vast archive of remarkable astronomical images... The riches are too many for choices, the revelations beautiful and dreadful. Who can look at these images and not be transformed? The heavens declare God's glory.

Chet Raymo
Beautiful, Eye, Night

Coincidence is the science of the true believer.

Chet Raymo
Coincidence, Believer, True Believer

Beauty soaks reality as water fills a rag.

Chet Raymo
Reality, Water, Rags
Chet Raymo (2005). “Honey from Stone: A Naturalist's Search for God”, p.55, Cowley Publications

Someone once quoted Shakespeare to the philosopher W. V. O. Quine: There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. To which Quine is said to have responded: Possibly, but my concern is that there not be more things in my philosophy than are in heaven and earth.

Chet Raymo
Philosophy, Heaven, Earth
Chet Raymo (2008). “When God is Gone Everything is Holy: The Making of a Religious Naturalist”, Ave Maria Press

What about self-awareness, the mysterious ability of the brain to reflect upon itself? Self-awareness can be tampered with by brainwashing, psychoactive drugs, electrical stimulation, political or religious propaganda, even advertising. A lifetime in front of a TV set may be the equivalent of a self transplant.

Chet Raymo
Religious, Self, Political

The new advocates of ID [Intelligent Design] ask that their ideas be judged by scientific, not religious, criteria. OK, let's see how well ID stacks up as a scientific alternative to Darwinism. To gauge how well ID is doing as a platform for scientific research, I logged into the best database of the biological literature. A search for keyword ''evolution'' yielded 24,000 hits in the last decade. A search for ''intelligent design'' yielded not a single piece of research. Evolution by natural selection remains the basis of every successful biological research program.

Chet Raymo
Religious, Successful, Intelligent

Scratch the surface of knowledge and mystery bubbles up like a spring. And occasionally, at certain disquieting moments in history (Aristarchus, Galileo, Plank, Einstein), a tempest of mystery comes rolling in from the sea and overwhelms our efforts.

Chet Raymo
Spring, Sea, Effort
Chet Raymo (2005). “Honey from Stone: A Naturalist's Search for God”, p.59, Cowley Publications

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