MILLIKAN, Robert A. Quotes
(1868-1953), American physicist
If the growth of modern science has taught anything to religion and to the modern world, it is that the method of progress is the method of evolution, net the method of revolution. Let every man reflect well on these things before he assists in stabbing to death, or in allowing to starve to death, organized religion in the United States.
Fullness of knowledge always and necessarily means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance, and that is always conducive to both humility and reverence.
I conceive the essential task of religion to be "to develop the consciences, the ideals, and the aspirations of mankind."
The change from the individual life of the animal to the group life of civilized man, which becomes a life of ever-expanding complexity as our scientific civilization advances, would obviously be impossible unless the individual learned in ever-increasing measure to subordinate his impulses and interests to the furtherance of the group life.
War will disappear, like the dinosaur, when changes in world conditions have destroyed its survival value.
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