TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Punish

Punish Quotes (8 quotes)

For any one who is pervaded with the sense of causal law in all that happens, who accepts in real earnest the assumption of causality, the idea of a Being who interferes with the sequence of events in the world is absolutely impossible! Neither the religion of fear nor the social-moral religion can have, any hold on him. A God who rewards and punishes is for him unthinkable, because man acts in accordance with an inner and outer necessity, and would, in the eyes of God, be as little responsible as an inanimate object is for the movements which it makes. Science, in consequence, has been accused of undermining morals—but wrongly. The ethical behavior of man is better based on sympathy, education and social relationships, and requires no support from religion. Man’s plight would, indeed, be sad if he had to be kept in order through fear of punishment and hope of rewards after death.
From 'Religion and Science', The New York Times Magazine, (9 Nov 1930), 1. Article in full, reprinted in Edward H. Cotton (ed.), Has Science Discovered God? A Symposium of Modern Scientific Opinion (1931), 101. The wording differs significantly from the version collected in 'Religion And Science', Ideas And Opinions (1954), 39, giving its source as: “Written expressly for the New York Times Magazine. Appeared there November 9, 1930 (pp. 1-4). The German text was published in the Berliner Tageblatt, November 11, 1930.” This variant form of the quote from the book begins, “The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation….” and is also on the Albert Einstein Quotes page on this website. As for why the difference, Webmaster speculates the book form editor perhaps used a revised translation from Einstein’s German article.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accused (3)  |  Act (278)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Causality (11)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Death (406)  |  Education (423)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Event (222)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fear (212)  |  God (776)  |  Happen (282)  |  Hope (321)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inanimate (18)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inner (72)  |  Interfere (17)  |  Law (913)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moral (203)  |  Movement (162)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Outer (13)  |  Plight (5)  |  Punishment (14)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Religion (369)  |  Require (229)  |  Responsible (19)  |  Reward (72)  |  Sadness (36)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Social (261)  |  Support (151)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Through (846)  |  Undermine (6)  |  Unthinkable (8)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrong (246)

He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Command (60)  |  Evil (122)

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Creature (242)  |  Death (406)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeble (28)  |  God (776)  |  Individual (420)  |  Notion (120)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physical (518)  |  Reward (72)  |  Soul (235)  |  Survive (87)  |  Type (171)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own–a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.
From 'What I Believe: Living Philosophies XIII', Forum and Century (Oct 1930), 84, No. 4, 194. Article in full, reprinted in Edward H. Cotton (ed.), Has Science Discovered God? A Symposium of Modern Scientific Opinion (1931), 97.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Body (557)  |  Creation (350)  |  Death (406)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeble (28)  |  God (776)  |  Harbor (8)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humbly (8)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Individual (420)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Life (1870)  |  Marvelous (31)  |  Model (106)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Reward (72)  |  Ridiculous (24)  |  Short (200)  |  Soul (235)  |  Structure (365)  |  Survive (87)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Try (296)  |  Universe (900)

Society is everybody’s way of punishing one another because they daren’t take it out on the universe.
In The Decline and Fall of Science (1976), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Everybody (72)  |  Society (350)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)

Sociological researchers maintain a mask of objectivity. But … when students in these movements report facts that contradict the tenets of their group's creed, they are … punished for their heresy. … forcing them “to leave the movement.” A similar mechanism of repression is at work in every scientific discipline that I know.
In 'The Conformity Police', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Contradict (42)  |  Creed (28)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Force (497)  |  Group (83)  |  Heresy (9)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leave (138)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mask (12)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Movement (162)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Report (42)  |  Repression (3)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Similar (36)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Student (317)  |  Tenet (3)  |  Work (1402)

The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer’s outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even or life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Believer (26)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Conception (160)  |  Dead (65)  |  Desire (212)  |  Dispose (10)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Life (1870)  |  Limit (294)  |  Long (778)  |  Longing (19)  |  Love (328)  |  Moral (203)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Prompt (14)  |  Protect (65)  |  Providence (19)  |  Race (278)  |  Reward (72)  |  Social (261)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Soul (235)  |  Support (151)  |  Tribe (26)

The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events–provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man’s actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God’s eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death.
From 'Religion And Science', as collected in Ideas And Opinions (1954), 39, given its source as: “Written expressly for the New York Times Magazine. Appeared there November 9, 1930 (pp. 1-4). The German text was published in the Berliner Tageblatt, November 11, 1930.” The NYT Magazine article in full, is reprinted in Edward H. Cotton (ed.), Has Science Discovered God? A Symposium of Modern Scientific Opinion (1931), 101. This original version directly from the magazine has significantly different wording, beginning, “For anyone who is pervaded with the sense of causal law….” See this alternate form on the Albert Einstein Quotes page on this website. As for why the difference, Webmaster speculates the book form editor perhaps used a revised translation from Einstein’s German article.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Base (120)  |  Basis (180)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Being (1276)  |  Causality (11)  |  Causation (14)  |  Charge (63)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Course (413)  |  Death (406)  |  Determine (152)  |  Education (423)  |  Effectually (2)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Equally (129)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Event (222)  |  External (62)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fear (212)  |  God (776)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inanimate (18)  |  Inconceivable (13)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Interfere (17)  |  Internal (69)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Causation (2)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moment (260)  |  Moral (203)  |  Morality (55)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Need (320)  |  Object (438)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Operation (221)  |  Poor (139)  |  Provide (79)  |  Punishment (14)  |  Really (77)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Responsible (19)  |  Restrain (6)  |  Reward (72)  |  Seriously (20)  |  Simple (426)  |  Social (261)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Tie (42)  |  Undergo (18)  |  Undermine (6)  |  Universal (198)  |  Unjust (6)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.