Victor J. Stenger > Quotes

“Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.”
― Victor 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

“Science flies men to the moon, religion flies men into buildings.”
― Victor Stenger

“The myth of quantum consciousness sits well with many whose egos have made it impossible for them to accept the insignificant place science perceives for humanity, as modern instruments probe the farthest reaches of space and time. ... quantum consciousness has about as much substance as the aether from which it is composed. Early in this century, quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity destroyed the notion of a holistic universe that had seemed within the realm of possibility in the century just past. First, Einstein did away with the aether, shattering the doctrine that we all move about inside a universal, cosmic fluid whose excitations connect us simultaneously to one another and to the rest of the universe. Second, Einstein and other physicists proved that matter and light were composed of particles, wiping away the notion of universal continuity. Atomic theory and quantum mechanics demonstrated that everything, even space and time, exists in discrete bits – quanta. To turn this around and say that twentieth century physics initiated some new holistic view of the universe is a complete misrepresentation of what actually took place. ... The myth of quantum consciousness should take its place along with gods, unicorns, and dragons as yet another product of the fantasies of people unwilling to accept what science, reason, and their own eyes tell them about the world.”
― 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

“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, God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion

“The so-called mysteries of quantum mechanics are in its philosophical interpretation, not in its mathematics.”
― Victor J. Stenger, God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion

“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 even...Observations in cosmology look just as they can be expected to look if there is no God.”
― Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“The origin and the operation of the universe do not require any violations of the laws of physics.”
― Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“The universe is not fine-tuned to us; we are fine-tuned to our particular universe.”
― Victor J. Stenger, The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us

“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, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“The claim that the universe *began* with the big bang has no basis in current physical and cosmological knowledge. The observations confirming the big bang do not rule out the possibility of a prior universe.”
― Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“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, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“Observations in cosmology look just as they can be expected to look if there is no God.”
― Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“The transition of nothing-to-something is a natural one, not requiring any agent.”
― Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“All great discoveries in experimental physics have been due to the intuition of men who made free use of models, which were for them not products of the imagination but representatives of real things.
Max Born (1953)”
― Victor J. Stenger, Timeless Reality: Symetry, Simplicity, and Multiple Universes

“A common refrain among theoretical physicists is that the fields of quantum field theory are the “real” entities while the particles they represent are images like the shadows in Plato's cave. As one who did experimental particle physics for forty years before retiring in 2000, I say, “Wait a minute!” No one has ever measured a quantum field, or even a classical electric, magnetic, or gravitational field. No one has ever measured a wavicle, the term used to describe the so-called wavelike properties of a particle. You always measure localized particles. The interference patterns you observe in sending light through slits are not seen in the measurements of individual photons, just in the statistical distributions of an ensemble of many photons. To me, it is the particle that comes closest to reality. But then, I cannot prove it is real either.”
― Victor J. Stenger, The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us

“However, it wouldn't matter much whether the universe is 13.7 billion years old, or 12.7 or 14.7, so it is hardly fine-tuned. If the universe were only 1.37 billion years old, then life on Earth or elsewhere would not yet have formed; but it might eventually. If the universe were 137 billion years old, life may have long ago died away; but it still could have happened. Once again, the apologists' blinkered perspective causes them to look at our current universe and assume that this is the only universe that could have life, and that carbon-based life is the only possible form of life.”
― Victor J. Stenger, Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us

“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, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“Infinity...is used in physics simply as a shorthand for "a very big number.”
― Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“The complex order we now observe [in the universe] could *not* have been the result of any initial design built into the universe at the so-called creation. The universe preserves no record of what went on before the big bang. The Creator, if he existed, left no imprint. Thus he might as well have been nonexistent.”
― Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“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, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“It has been determined that luminous matter—the stars and hot gas we see in the sky by eye and instrument—constitutes a mere 0.5 percent of the total mass of our universe. Another 4.5 percent is nonluminous matter, such as planets and dead stars, made of the same familiar atoms. In addition, 26 percent is composed of something different than atoms or their constituent elementary particles. Dubbed dark matter, it remains unidentified. The remaining, dominant 69 percent of the universe is an even more mysterious dark energy that has resulted in an accelerating expansion of the universe that will continue indefinitely into the future, making the universe increasingly dilute.”
― Victor J. Stenger, God and the Multiverse: Humanity's Expanding View of the Cosmos

“The diameters of nuclei range from 0.8 femtometers for hydrogen to 15 femtometers for uranium, where 1 femtometer equals 10-15 meter. The diameter of the hydrogen atom is about 0.11 nanometer, while that of the uranium atom is 0.35 nanometer, where 1 nanometer equals 10-9 meter. So, roughly speaking, the nucleus of the atom is a million times smaller than the atom itself. Matter is, indeed, mostly empty space.”
― Victor J. Stenger, God and the Atom

“Rather than being handed down from above, like the Ten Commandments, they [the laws of physics] look exactly as they should look if they were not handed down from anywhere...they follow from the very lack of structure at the earliest moment.”
― Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist