Annie Besant

“ Foolhardy science produces miserable pieces of rock, containing fossil animals older than any plants, and sets them against our glorious revelation. But are men moles or rabbits, that they should burrow in the earth and bring out these deceiving pebbles which God mercifully hid out of sight, clearly showing that he intended them to be out of mind? Far better leave the earth as God made it, and live on the surface, where God placed us. The fossils cannot injure the moles, whereas it is plain that they are a serious danger to a child-like faith. ”

“ At any rate, no one ever alleges that people will be damned for refusing to believe in fossils, while if Christianity be true, people may be damned for believing them, and it is surely wiser to be on the safe side. Fossils would be no consolation in hell, especially as they would probably all become metamorphic rocks. ”

“ It is perfectly true that now the fig-tree is covered with leaves long before its remarkable inflorescence has ripened into fruit, but it is clear that this particular fig-tree began at the other end and worked backward, otherwise we should be obliged to come to the horrible and blasphemous conclusion that Jesus was both silly and ill-tempered, and that he behaved like a petulant child, howling because it cannot obtain impossibilities.
The Revelation of St. John the Divine offers a rich feast of creatures unknown to science ”

“ This pious faith has been rudely shaken by the study of anatomy, and by the unpleasant discovery that the number of male ribs is not odd; it now exists only, I fear, in country villages where science classes under South Kensington have not yet exerted their sceptic-making influence, and where people do not enquire too curiously into their internal arrangements. ”

“ Let us search the Scriptures, as did the noble Bereans, and we shall be rewarded by discovering therein biological facts that we shall never find if we confine ourselves to works written by mere uninspired scientific men. ”

“ The "fowls that creep, going upon all four" (v. 20) have also become extinct, and have left no fossils behind them to perpetuate their memory; four-legged fowls given to creeping are wholly unknown. So again with the "flying creeping things which have four feet," and go "upon all four" (verses 23, 21) , such as locusts, beetles, etc. These have six legs now-a-days, having acquired two more since the days of Moses, and I desire to point out to scoffing sceptics that were it not for this blessed book these remarkable quadrupedal birds and insects would have remained unknown. ”