„To say that the universe was here last year, or millions of years ago, does not explain its origin. This is still a mystery. As to the question of the origin of things, man can only wonder and doubt and guess.“

„There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.“

—  Hannes Alfvén Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist 1908 - 1995

Quelle: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 196.

„There is only one question. And once you know the answer to that question there are no more to ask. That one question is the Original Question. And to that Original Question there is only one Final Answer. But between that Question and its Answer there are innumerable false answers.“

—  Meher Baba Indian mystic 1894 - 1969

47 : The Question and its Answer, p. 78.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

„According to the big bang theory the universe is only 13 billion years old… We made some observations a year ago which we are still trying to explain but the simplest explanation seems to be that there stars that are 20 billion years old.“

—  Jayant Narlikar Indian physicist 1938

„It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: "Is it true in and for itself?"“

—  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, buch Lectures on the Philosophy of History

Pt. III, sec. 3, ch. 2 Lectures on the History of History Vol 1 p. 344 John Sibree translation (1857), 1914
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1
Kontext: It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: "Is it true in and for itself?" Many think that by pronouncing a doctrine to be Neo-Platonic, they have ipso facto banished it from Christianity. Whether a Christian doctrine stands exactly thus or thus in the Bible, the point to which the exegetical scholars of modern times devote all their attention is not the only question. The Letter kills, the Spirit makes alive: this they say themselves, yet pervert the sentiment by taking the Understanding for the Spirit.

„Abiogenesis has a decent amount of evidence behind it, but nowhere near as much as evolution does. So far we still don’t know which (if any) of the explanations posed for the origin of life is the most accurate one. But if there’s one thing the wisdom of the ages has taught us, it is that simply not yet knowing the real explanation is no reason to go and blame anything on magic. Besides, even if a god did appear and summon the first life into being billions of years ago, there is no question but that life has certainly evolved since then, and is still evolving now.“

—  Aron Ra Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast 1962

"6th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3k0dDFxkhM, Youtube (February 2, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

„Since the universe is infinitely old, you should see some very old stars. According to the big bang theory the universe is only 13 billion years old. No stars should be older than 13 billion years. In our cosmology, stars older than this should exist. So we are on the lookout for very old stars. We made some observations [a year ago] which we are still trying to explain but the simplest explanation seems to be that there stars that are 20 billion years old.“

—  Jayant Narlikar Indian physicist 1938

„In many cultures, the customary answer is that a God or Gods created the Universe out of nothing. But if we wish to pursue this question courageously, we must of course ask the next question: where did God come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the Universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God always existed, why not save a step, and conclude that the Universe always existed? That there's no need for a creation, it was always here. These are not easy questions. Cosmology brings us face to face with the deepest mysteries, questions that were once treated only in religion and myth.“

—  Carl Sagan American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator 1934 - 1996

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), "The Edge of Forever" [Episode 10]
Kontext: But we don't yet know whether the Universe is open or closed. More than that, there are a few astronomers who doubt that the redshift of distant galaxies is due to the doppler effect, who are skeptical of the expanding Universe and the Big Bang. Perhaps our descendants will regard our present ignorance with as much sympathy as we feel to the ancients for not knowing the Earth went around the Sun. If the general picture, however, of a Big Bang followed by an expanding Universe is correct, what happened before that? Was the Universe devoid of all matter and then the matter suddenly somehow created, how did that happen? In many cultures, the customary answer is that a God or Gods created the Universe out of nothing. But if we wish to pursue this question courageously, we must of course ask the next question: where did God come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the Universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God always existed, why not save a step, and conclude that the Universe always existed? That there's no need for a creation, it was always here. These are not easy questions. Cosmology brings us face to face with the deepest mysteries, questions that were once treated only in religion and myth.

„These questions replace our original, "Can machines think?"“

—  Alan Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)
Kontext: "Can machines think?"... The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we call the 'imitation game." It is played with three people, a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex. The interrogator stays in a room apart front the other two. The object of the game for the interrogator is to determine which of the other two is the man and which is the woman. He knows them by labels X and Y, and at the end of the game he says either "X is A and Y is B" or "X is B and Y is A." The interrogator is allowed to put questions to A and B... We now ask the question, "What will happen when a machine takes the part of A in this game?" Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game is played like this as he does when the game is played between a man and a woman? These questions replace our original, "Can machines think?"

„The question of originality, if it arises at all, can never be peripheral: originality is more than a requirement in good poetry, it is a description of it.“

—  Clive James Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist 1939 - 2019

'Two Essays on Theodore Roethke'
Essays and reviews, As Of This Writing (2003)

„We all went to university here and spent the last 10 years living here, and we are among people who live here, who come to the show.“

—  Paul Smith (musician) English rock singer 1979

About a free Tyneside gig.
What's On North East http://www.whatsonne.co.uk/gb/music/news/interview-paul-smith-maximo-park

„“Aren’t you even curious?” he asked. “A million worlds out there with more wonders than I could tell you in a million years, and you don’t even want to ask a question?”“

—  Leigh Brackett American novelist and screenwriter 1915 - 1978

Quelle: The Ginger Star (1974), Chapter 15 (p. 128)

„As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future.“

—  Julian Huxley English biologist, philosopher, author 1887 - 1975

Transhumanism (1957)
Kontext: As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future. This cosmic self-awareness is being realized in one tiny fragment of the universe — in a few of us human beings. Perhaps it has been realized elsewhere too, through the evolution of conscious living creatures on the planets of other stars. But on this our planet, it has never happened before.

„The idea that a God or gods is necessary to effect one or more of these origins has been under repeated attack over the last few thousand years. Because we know something about phototropism and plant hormones, we can understand the opening of the morning glory independent of divine microintervention. It is the same for the entire skein of causality back to the origin of the universe. As we learn more and more about the universe, there seems less and less for God to do.“

—  Carl Sagan, buch Broca's Brain

Quelle: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (p. 335)

„Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name.“

—  Sam Harris American author, philosopher and neuroscientist 1967

Quelle: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

„Enthusiasm for the universe, in knowing as well as in creating, also answers the question of doubt and meaninglessness. Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge. And meaninglessness is no threat so long as enthusiasm for the universe and for man as its center is alive.“

—  Paul Tillich, buch The Courage to Be

Quelle: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 121

„Because the white genes are mutations of the genes of the original men of color - and males are mutations of the original females - we can finally answer the question "Is God black?"“

—  Luboš Motl Czech physicist and translator 1973

The answer is "Yes, She is."
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/10/skin-color-gene.html
The Reference Frame http://motls.blogspot.com/

„The brain is a mystery; it has been and still will be. How does the brain produce thoughts? That is the central question and we have still no answer to it.“

—  Charles Scott Sherrington English neurophysiologist and Nobel Prize recipient 1857 - 1952

As quoted in the article The Human Brain — Three Pounds of Mystery, in 'The Watchtower' magazine (15 July 1978)

„The question of origins can’t be proven through experimentation—indeed, there is no absolute proof for either evolution or creation! But a creation geologist looks at the layers of rock and the fossil record and finds that much of it fits in the biblical framework of a catastrophic global Flood, not in the evolutionary model of slow erosion over millions of years.“

—  Ken Ham Australian young Earth creationist 1951

"It is a Fearful Thing to fall into the Hands of the Living God" http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/06/01/a-fearful-thing-to-fall-into-the-hands-of-the-living-god/, Around the World with Ken Ham (June 1, 2014)

„The question about “good origins” becomes the crux for enlightenment. It becomes more and more clear that this idea of origin has not a temporal but a Utopian reference. The Good is still nowhere to be found, except in the wishful human spirit.“

—  Peter Sloterdijk German philosopher 1947

Quelle: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 56