"Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice. Science for its part will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition."

• E. O. Wilson

"Religious beliefs evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of religions is not a weakness but their essential strength."

• E. O. Wilson

"The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology."

• E. O. Wilson

"The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and the empiricist world views?"

• E. O. Wilson

"The biological evolutionary perception of life and of human qualities is radically different from that of traditional religion, whether it's Southern Baptist or Islam or any religion that believes in a supernatural supervalance over humanity."

• E. O. Wilson

"I'm very much a Christian in ideals and ethics, especially in terms of belief in fairness, a deep set obligation to others, and the virtues of charity, tolerance and generosity that we associate with traditional Christian teaching."

• E. O. Wilson

"True character arises from a deeper well than religion."

• E. O. Wilson

"Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals."

• E. O. Wilson

"Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals."

• E. O. Wilson

"Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God?"

• E. O. Wilson

"Even as empiricism is winning the mind, transcendentalism continues to win the heart."

• E. O. Wilson

"By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified."

• E. O. Wilson

"For me, the peculiar qualities of faith are a logical outcome of this level of biological organization."

• E. O. Wilson

"I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves."

• E. O. Wilson

"Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we're hard-wired to form tribalistic religions."

• E. O. Wilson

"Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn't stack up against a two-millennium-old funeral high mass."

• E. O. Wilson

"So in my freshman year at the University of Alabama, learning the literature on evolution, what was known about it biologically, just gradually transformed me by taking me out of literalism and increasingly into a more secular, scientific view of the world."

• E. O. Wilson

"Science and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds... is not productive."

• E. O. Wilson