Victor J. Stenger Quotes About Religion

Quotes about: Religion

• When people start using science to argue for their specific beliefs and delusions, to try to claim that they're supported by science, then scientists at least have to speak up and say, You re welcome to your delusions, but don't say that they're supported by science.

  Victor J. Stenger

  People, Religion, Atheism

  Interview with Cliff Walker, www.tapatalk.com. November 6, 1999.

• Assuming the universe came from nothing, it is empty to begin with... Only by the constant action of an agent outside the universe, such as God, could a state of nothingness be maintained. The fact that we have something is just what we would expect if there is no God.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Religion, Atheism, Agents

• Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Moon, Religion, Atheism

• In fact, current cosmological observations indicate that the average density of matter and energy in the universe is equal, within measurement errors, to the critical density for which the total energy of the universe was exactly zero at the beginning.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Zero, Errors, Average

• With pantheism...the deity is associated with the order of nature or the universe itself...when modern scientists such as Einstein and Stephen Hawking mention 'God' in their writing, this is what they seem to mean: that God is Nature.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Mean, Writing, Order

• Scientific evidence for God's existence is being claimed today by theists, many of whom carry respectable scientific or philosophical credentials. He who is neither a she nor an it supposedly answers prayers and otherwise dramatically affects the outcome of events. If these consequences are as significant as believers say, then the effects should be detectable in properly controlled experiments.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Prayer, Philosophical, Religion

  Victor J. Stenger (2003). “Has Science Found God?: The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe”, Pyr Books

• Scientists have practical reasons for wishing that religion and science be kept separate. They can see nothing but trouble ... if they venture into the deeply divisive issue of religion - especially when their results tend to support a highly unpopular, atheistic conclusion.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Issues, Support, Religion

  Victor J. Stenger (2003). “Has Science Found God?: The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe”, Pyr Books

• The battle over the validity of evolution has been publicly posed as a scientific one. However, you will find little sign of it in scientific journals, where such quarrels as exist are over details, not the basic concept... Evolution has proved so useful as a paradigm for the origin and structure of life that it constitutes the foundation of the sciences of biology and medicine.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Medicine, Religion, Atheism

  Victor J. Stenger (2003). “Has Science Found God?: The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe”, Pyr Books

• Any attempt at understanding humanity must include an explanation of the hold that supernatural belief continues to have on most of the human race.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Race, Understanding, Humanity

  Victor J. Stenger (1990). “Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses”

• To most theistic believers, human life can have no meaning in a universe without God. Quite sincerely, and with understandable yearning for a meaning to their existence, they reject the possibility of no God. In their minds, only a purposeful universe based on God is possible and science can do nothing else but support thistruth.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Support, Mind, Religion

• Any strategy that attempts to reinforce faith by undermining science is also doomed to failure. Showing that some scientific theory is wrong will not prove that the religious alternative is correct by default. When the sun was shown not to be the center of the universe, as Copernicus had proposed, the Earth was not moved back to that singular position in the cosmos. If Darwinian evolution is proved wrong, biologists will not develop a new theory based on the hypothesis that each species was created separately by God 6,000years ago.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Religious, Religion, Cosmos

• But, as we have seen, movement does not require a mover, and modern quantum mechanics has shown that not all effects require a cause. And even if they did, why would the Prime Mover need to be a supernatural anthropomorphic deity such as the Judeo - Christian God? Why could it not just as well be the material universe itself?

  Victor J. Stenger

  Christian, Religion, Doe

  Victor J. Stenger (1990). “Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses”

• In short, evolution is as close to being a scientific fact as is possible for any theory, given that science is open - ended and no one can predict with certainty what may change in the future. The prospect that evolution by natural selection, at least as a broad mechanism, will be overthrown in the future is about as likely as the prospect of finding out some day that the Earth is really flat. Unfortunately, those who regard these scientific facts as a threat to faith have chosen to distort and misrepresent them to the public.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Religion, Atheism, Earth

• Is there a place in a church where you leave your brains when you enter?

  Victor J. Stenger

  Brain, Religion, Church

• Just because quantum mechanics is weird does not mean that everything that is weird is quantum mechanics.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Mean, Religion, Doe

• Nature is capable of building complex structures by processes of self-organization; simplicity begets complexity.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Self, Organization, Simplicity

  Victor J. Stenger (2010). “God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist”, p.132, Prometheus Books

• Proof is not required to believe [in a god]. But some sign, some evidence is needed. None exists... Find some inkling of evidence. There is none.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Believe, Religion, Proof

• Until recent times, absence of evidence for his [Jehovah's] existence has not been sufficient to rule him out. However, we now have enough knowledge that we can identify many places where there should be evidence, but there is not. The absence of that evidence allows us to rule out the existence of this God beyond a reasonable doubt.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Doubt, Religion, Jehovah

• Alternative explanations are always welcome in science, if they are better and explain more. Alternative explanations that explain nothing are not welcome... Note how science changed those beliefs when new data became available. Religions stick to the same ancient beliefs regardless of the data.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Data, Religion, Alternatives

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