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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
Seems
Atheism
Apply
Farthest
Today
Certainly
Horizon
Component
Much
Mystery
Visible
Components
Every
Seem
Physics
Mysteries
Principles
Mysterious
Removed
Universe
Deeply
Regarded
Science
Basic
Continually
Nature
Although
Exact
Uncovers

More quotes by 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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Nature is capable of building complex structures by processes of self-organization simplicity begets complexity.
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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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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People want to be at the center of the Universe...and they're going to flock to anybody who tells them that.
Victor J. Stenger
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Thought, without the data on which to structure that thought, leads nowhere.
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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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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Saying the universe is eternal simply is saying that it has no beginning or end, not that it had a beginning an infinite time ago
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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Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.
Victor J. Stenger
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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
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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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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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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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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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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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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
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Just because quantum mechanics is weird does not mean that everything that is weird is quantum mechanics.
Victor J. Stenger
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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