Jane Goodall and Religious Perspective

An interview with Jane Goodall was printed in the September 2010 issue of Reader's Digest magazine. Just in case you are not familiar with her name, Goodall pioneered primatology research by being accepted into groups of wild chimpanzees in Tanzania. Read the following excerpt. I found her viewpoint interesting, but I'm not sure I agree with everything she said.

RD: Where do you stand on the controversy between Darwinism--the theory that man is descended from the apes--and creationism--that God created man?
Goodall: How we got to be who we are and what we are today is of supreme unimportance compared with coming together to get out of the mess we have made of our world.

RD: Do you believe in God?
Goodall: I don't have any idea of who or what God is. But I do believe in some great spiritual power. I don't know exactly what to call it. I feel it particularly when I'm out in nature. It's just something that's bigger and stronger than what I am or what anybody is. I feel it. And it's enough for me.

RD: Who was the greatest influence in your life?
Goodall: My mother, who was a very wise woman. She would say, "You were born into this family, and your grandfather was a Christian, so you grew up as a Christian. But you might have been born somewhere in the Middle East, and then you would talk about Allah. Or you might have been born in a Jewish family...Or a Buddhist family..." My mother always put things in perspective. She said there could only be one God, and what we call him depends on where we were brought up.