4 Quotes & Sayings By Andrew Bernstein

Andrew Bernstein is a writer and broadcaster who has been a contributor to the BBC since 2005. He studied English at Oxford University and has edited numerous anthologies of poetry and fiction, including the bestselling The Poetry Anthology, The Poetry Anthology 2, and The Poetry Anthology 3. Andrew's non-fiction book on the life and work of George Orwell won the 2014 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. His novel A Sleep in My Mouth was longlisted for the 2011 Booker Prize, while his other works include a biography of Oscar Wilde and two volumes of his own poetry.

1
Here is the tragedy of theology in its distilled essence: The employment of high-powered human intellect, of genius, of profoundly rigorous logical deduction–studying nothing. In the Middle Ages, the great minds capable of transforming the world did not study the world; and so, for most of a millennium, as human beings screamed in agony–decaying from starvation, eaten by leprosy and plague, dying in droves in their twenties–the men of the mind, who could have provided their earthly salvation, abandoned them for otherworldly fantasies. Andrew Bernstein
2
Theologians, and religionists in general, start with a fantasy premise and then proceed to apply rigorous formal logic to tease out its implications. Stark himself points out that “theology consists of formal reasoning about God.” This is admirably exact. Theologians, beginning with a wished-for creation of their own minds, analyze that creation’s characteristics by rigorous application of the principles of formal–that is, deductive–logic. Andrew Bernstein
3
Nothing is given to man on earth - struggle is built into the nature of life, and conflict is possible - the hero is the man who lets no obstacle prevent him from pursuing the values he has chosen. Andrew Bernstein