Victor J. Stenger Quotes

36 Sourced Quotes

The argument from design stands or falls on whether it can be demonstrated that some aspect of the universe such as its origin or biological life could not have come about naturally. The burden of proof is... on the supernaturalist to demonstrate that something from outside nature must be introduced to explain the data.

Victor J. Stenger
The transition of nothing-to-something is a natural one, not requiring any agent. As Nobel laureate physicist Frank Wilczek has put it, "The answer to the ancient question 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' would then be that 'nothing' is unstable." [...] In short, the natural state of affairs is something rather than nothing. An empty universe requires supernatural intervention—not a full one. 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
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
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
I do not think science has to make any apologies. It looks at the world and tells it like it is. And we all live longer, better lives because of this dispassionate view. Sure, it commands awe and provides inspiration. Still, I would rather be operated on by a surgeon who sees me as an assemblage of atoms than one who lovingly tries to manipulate what he or she imagines are my vital energy fields.

Victor J. Stenger
In a poll taken in 1998, only 7 percent of the members of the US National Academy of Sciences, the elite of American scientists, said they believed in a personal god.

Victor J. Stenger
Scientists speak of the Law of Inertia or the Second Law of Thermodynamics as if some great legislature in the sky once met and set down rules to govern the universe.

Victor J. Stenger
Great physicists from Galileo to Einstein have clarified the meanings of space and time for us, not overthrown their basic conceptions nor declared them obsolete.

Victor J. Stenger
The fact that a theory may eventually test wrong does not detract from its original merit as a worthy try. On the other hand, if an idea is poorly formulated, often because the terms used are not clearly defined, then how can we even test it?...We cannot determine that gibberish is anything but gibberish.

Victor J. Stenger
We have yet to encounter an observable astronomical phenomenon that require a supernatural element to be added to a model in order to describe the event...Observations in cosmology look just as they can be expected to look if there is no God.

Victor J. Stenger
Neutrinos are neither rare nor anomalous — just hard to detect.

Victor J. Stenger
It was not that I thought I was smarter. I had simply explored science and found what seemed to me a far more powerful authority. And, I did not steal or murder because I thought they were wrong, not because I feared damnation.

Victor J. Stenger
Thought, without the data on which to structure that thought, leads nowhere.

Victor J. Stenger
Unlike those theists who at least pay lip service to science and scientific method, Johnson is out to convict science of fraud in the court of public opinion.

Victor J. Stenger
The belief in supernatural forces remains to this day a yoke on the neck of humanity, but at least Thales made it possible, for those of us who wish it, to be free of that yoke.

Victor J. Stenger
I have learned that obtaining new knowledge is not easy and that we shouldn't expect it to be easy. All the easy stuff was discovered a long time ago. Today, new knowledge is accumulated only through the greatest effort and concentration of resources, often by teams of hundreds of scientists.

Victor J. Stenger
Most humans on this planet use the fruits of science in every phase of their lives. I become very irritated at those who decry science while accepting its every benefit. It is especially ironic how the antiscientists use modern communications to get their messages to the public.

Victor J. Stenger
While science continually uncovers new mysteries, it has removed much of what was once regarded as deeply mysterious. Although we certainly do not know the exact nature of every component of the universe, the basic principles of physics seem to apply out to the farthest horizon visible to us today.

Victor J. Stenger
Selling eternal life is an unbeatable business, with no customers ever asking for their money back after the goods are not delivered.

Victor J. Stenger
The problem is that people think faith is something to be admired. In fact, faith means you believe in something for which you have no evidence.

Victor J. Stenger
Those who use the Bible as a reference for moral behavior are simply cherry-picking those teachings, such as the Golden Rule, that they have independently decided are moral for other reasons, while ignoring those teachings with which they disagree.

Victor J. Stenger
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
The universe is not fine-tuned to us; we are fine-tuned to our particular universe.

Victor J. Stenger
Science is not going to change its commitment to the truth. We can only hope religion changes its commitment to nonsense.

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

Victor J. Stenger
The God of the gaps argument for God fails when a plausible scientific account for a gap in current knowledge can be given. I do not dispute that the exact nature of the origin of the universe remains a gap in scientific knowledge. But I deny that we are bereft of any conceivable way to account for that origin scientifically.

Victor J. Stenger
Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.

Victor J. Stenger
The existence of matter and energy in the universe did not require the violation of energy conservation at the assumed creation. In fact, the data strongly support the hypothesis that no such miracle occurred. If we regard such a miracle as predicted by the creator hypothesis, then the prediction is not confirmed.

Victor J. Stenger
Infinity...is used in physics simply as a shorthand for "a very big number.

Victor J. Stenger
The most fundamental laws of physics are not restrictions on the behaviour of matter. Rather, they are restrictions on the way physicists may describe that behaviour.

Victor J. Stenger