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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

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Victor J. Stenger
Age: 79 †
Born: 1935
Born: January 29
Died: 2014
Died: August 25
Astronomer
Philosopher
Physicist
Writer
Bayonne
New Jersey
Victor John Stenger
Every
Seem
Physics
Mysteries
Principles
Mysterious
Removed
Universe
Deeply
Regarded
Science
Basic
Continually
Nature
Although
Exact
Uncovers
Seems
Atheism
Apply
Farthest
Today
Certainly
Horizon
Component
Much
Mystery
Visible
Components

More quotes by Victor J. Stenger

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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
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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
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Is there a place in a church where you leave your brains when you enter?
Victor J. Stenger
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Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.
Victor J. Stenger
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Fifteen years of skepticism has done more for me than 20 years of force-fed religion and 30 years of indifference in between.
Victor J. Stenger
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Define self-awareness and tell me what it is about it that requires something more than a material explanation. I do not accept the burden of explaining all phenomena, real or imagined. If you think more than matter is required for this thing you call self-awareness, which you have not defined, then you have the burden of showing why.
Victor J. Stenger
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Nature is capable of building complex structures by processes of self-organization simplicity begets complexity.
Victor J. Stenger
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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
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Debating is not an honest intellectual exercise. It's like a trial in which the goal is not to get to the truth but to win.
Victor J. Stenger
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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
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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
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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
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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