Victor J. Stenger - God: The Failed Hypothesis (2007)

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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
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
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
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
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
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