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God the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

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Author: Victor J. Stenger
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Category: Book

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Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

15 reviews
Sales Rank: 6628

Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 310
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.7

ISBN: 1591026520
Dewey Decimal Number: 211
EAN: 9781591026525
ASIN: 1591026520

Publication Date: April 30, 2008
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Also Available In:

•	Hardcover - God, the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

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Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...

3 out of 5 stars

Not a universally accepted viewpoint by scientists June 2, 2008
4 out of 12 found this review helpful

"God" is clearly important enough to have generated a vast plethora of literature for and against "Him".

Whilst quite clearly presented and logical, Hitchens axiomatic basis for existence is for physical "obersvability" in some sense. Yet this is the the longest standing argument of asthestic philosophy, not something new.

I would love to see Hitchens expand his axiomatic basis for existence to encompass arguments that were new and more convincing that 'I cannot see(observe)' so 'I dont believe'

Our own existence is confounding enough - I am not sure humanity has truly solved this mystery.Why are we self aware? Who and what are we?
All this before what is "God"?

Paul Davies 'Goldilocks Enigma' and the 'Mind of God' present an alternative scientific viewpoint - he is a theortical physicist and comologist- the axiomatic basis for his arguments here are different. Why are we who we are and what exactly are we produces deep questions as to existence and in my view more fruitful than the 'prove he doesn't exist' approach of the God Hypothesis which is essentialy based on only one line of argument.

All in all great to see so much God talk like in this book.Its definitely the way forward but this book does not indicate the end of the road.

5 out of 5 stars

Scientific method for unscientific hypothesis June 2, 2008
6 out of 10 found this review helpful

Victor Stenger is explaining in the entire first chapter the scientific method and what a theory is compared to hypothesis, and why/how science is able to test some of the religious hypothesizes.
The next chapter is then focusing on the testing of supernatural claims and highlights that several studies about the usefulness of prayers have been conducted. These studies were funded from religious organizations like Templeton, so not from "bad atheist scientists" who only want to disprove them. Nevertheless despite heavy intercessory praying of whole religious communities for the health of freshly operated patients, no positive effect of prayer could be found.

After this Stenger is demolishing the `fine tuning' Goldilocks argument about the basic constants of the universe, which is so often used from theists as the last deist refuge to house their God of the dwindling gaps. After reading several books mentioning this `fine tuning' and haven't found a strong scientific rebuttal, I was quite surprised that the so miraculous `fine tuning' argument is only valid if a single factor is changed c.p. (all other left unchanged). Stenger claims that several alternative combinations of the 4 fundamental constants are possible and are providing a stable universe where stars can form and burn for billions of years as well.
To give an example of real life: my car is so fine-tuned if the gearbox is just 2 millimeter from the engine block it would not work, if the clutch is just a few millimeter apart it would not close and can't drive, if the crankshaft is just a little shorter ...etc... yes true if just a single parameter is changed, but there are many other brands and models where another combination of all this parts result in a proper working car.

The maximal entropy of the initial universe makes a deity unnecessary and unable to control any future development of the universe especially when quantum effects prevent any deterministic Lamarckian plan. And the universe don't need to be `divinely created' as the universe has a zero balance of energy and mass versus gravity e.g. coming out of nothing.

All claims of creationist and ID are refuted by the usual arguments from evolution, and the millennia old philosophical word games as `proof of God' ala St. Augustine or Aquinas are countered by logical arguments from modern philosophers, who show logical arguments (proof) that God does not exists.

Also the Biblical history is outed as fiction and fairy tales as most stories from Genesis, great flood, Abraham, Exodus, Canaan's conquest, David and Solomon's powerful `golden empire' etc. are falsified from historical and archeological evidence. Ergo the god YHWH from the Bible as basis for Judeo-Christian-Islamic faith who is interacting with the local tribes of bronze-age gout and sheep herders does not exist.

In short Victor Stenger is claiming the absence of evidence on that grand scale plus all the falsifications of theist claims are evidence of absence and falsification of the theist God hypothesis, and is even a strong indicator for the non existence or of a deist God.

1 out of 5 stars

Good Science, Bad Theology May 13, 2008
8 out of 49 found this review helpful

Stenger brilliantly proves that something he has called "god" does not exist. As any proper theist would agree. He is very learned in the best of Physics but what has he read of the best theologians - Thomas aquinas, Augustine of Hippo, Karl Rahner, Karl Barth ? Does not understand about double causation ? Has he never read that God being described as "all powerful" means not "can do anything" but "can do what He wills to do"
Physics answers the questions physics asks.
But he could just as easily write an equally learned and fatally flawed book entitled "How Science shows that Love does not exist " or "How Science shows that Beauty does not exist
If a non-scientist wrote a book entitled "How Philopsphy proves Science is wrong" Sterner would be affronted.

5 out of 5 stars

God: the eternal underachiever January 18, 2008
25 out of 31 found this review helpful

One of the many tiresome conversation stoppers people resort to is "But you can't disprove the existence of God!" In this stunning book, Victor Stenger provides convincing arguments that, actually, you can. Stenger writes: "The thesis of this book is that the supernatural hypothesis of [the Judeo-Christian-Islamic] God is testable, verifiable, and falsifiable by the established methods of science." His strategy is to run with this hypothesis and, with an open mind, to look for any objective evidence that may support it, all the while maintaining the rigour of the best scientific inquiry. If such evidence is not found, if the universe reveals only purely material and mindless processes to our observation, then the likelihood is that there is no such God. The "lack-of-evidence argument" works hard and in the end the hypothesis fails: this is a very powerful "scientific argument against the existence of God".

Atheists since Bertrand Russell have replied to this question of "proof" by saying that you cannot disprove the existence of a teapot in orbit, but this doesn't mean you should believe that such an object exists, much less base your life on this belief. The knockdown argument against this response is, apparently, that belief in orbiting teapots would not inspire the great art that belief in, say, the Virgin Birth does. (The Archbishop of Canterbury recently used this very same argument in conversation with Ricky Gervais, not caring that it has no bearing on the truth of the belief: an atheist has no difficulty in accepting that a false belief can inspire all manner of human activities, from painting the Sistine Chapel to torturing unbelievers.) Of course, if all the teapot did was stew in space, a silent emblem of Englishness, its existence would indeed be hard to disprove. But if shamans engaged in tea dances and then claimed their cups were filled to overflowing with the finest brew poured from the celestial pot, then we ought to be able to check this out.

Stenger asserts that "science is not forbidden from considering supernatural causes" and reminds us that "religions make factual claims that have no special immunity from being examined under the cold light of reason and objective observation." He rejects Stephen Jay Gould's proposition that religion and science are "non-overlapping magisteria" and laments the fact that too many scientists have been content to leave religion well alone (in part, perhaps, because of concerns over funding and the low status of atheists in public life, as well as having better things to do). Theists, on the other hand, have never been shy to plunder science for whatever might be useful: "the notion that the observation of nature alone provides evidence for the existence of God has a long history". However, that history is coming to an end for some theologians, who "have gradually begun to accept the absence of objective evidence for God and have been forced to conclude if a god exists, he must purposely hide himself from us." Like the problem of evil, the hiddenness of God is an intellectual hoop no bigger than the eye of a needle through which only the most emaciated theological mind can jump. As for ordinary believers, few will even try, especially while they are distracted by the shiny bauble of "intelligent design".

Theists are drawn to design arguments like rap stars to bling, and, while some atheists groan at having to cut yet another head off the hydra of creationism, Stenger relishes the task. Each theistic claim - for the design of the eye, a nonphysical soul or the fine-tuning of the universe - is an opportunity to falsify the hypothesis that there is a God. The new pinups for swivel-eyed creationists are Dembski and Behe, who both make "statements that are provably wrong": Dembski's "information" is related to entropy and is therefore "not a conserved quantity like energy", while Behe seems to be unaware of the literature on "irreducibly complex" systems. Catholics can believe in evolution, just so long as it applies only to the body and not the mind. Although he can provide no evidence for a "disembodied soul", Pope Pius XII cannot imagine "the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter". Too bad for him. As for fine-tuning, the whole argument "ultimately makes no sense... all physical parameters are irrelevant to an omnipotent God." There is also the obvious fact of the "uncongenial universe": vast tracts of space and time unfit for life of any kind. Again, no sign of and no need for a designing, intervening, caring god.

The real surprise to many readers, however, will be Stenger's take on that ancient philosophical question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" The irresistible suggestion for many is that there must have been a "creator" of some kind. That Lear exclaimed "nothing will come of nothing" is not the reason we think he lost the plot. The laws of physics had to come from somewhere, surely? And what does Stenger say? "They came from nothing!" The state of "nothing" is as simple as it gets and is not very stable. "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." The laws of physics follow from "the very lack of structure at the earliest moment." It would seem that one of the few remaining mysteries in this universe is why anyone still takes the god hypothesis seriously.

5 out of 5 stars

In many ways the best of the "atheistic" books recently published January 2, 2008
22 out of 27 found this review helpful

"The thesis of this book is that the supernatural hypothesis of God is testable, verifiable, and falsifiable by the established methods of science." --from page 29

"...I will...argue that...science has advanced sufficiently to be able to make a definitive statement on the existence or nonexistence of a God having the attributes that are traditionally associated with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God." --from page 11

These statements are a great leap forward from the fairly recent belief (I'm thinking of the late, great Stephen Jay Gould, for example) that we ought to render unto science things belonging to science and unto religion things belonging to religion. But what Professor Stenger is saying is that we can look at religion in a scientific sense and decide which aspects of it are true and which are false. In particular Stenger looks at the God of Abraham and fulfills the promise of the subtitle: "How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist." Note that it is only the personal God of the three Middle Eastern religions that he specifically lays to rest. The Ineffable God of the Vedas is presumably still standing, as are many other gods who are not defined as personal and possessing the three O's: omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience. An interesting book including arguments against the existence of some other gods is The Impossibility of God (2003) by Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier (cited by Stenger; see my review at Amazon).

Stenger's is a step-by-step consideration of the arguments and the "evidence" for God's existence, followed by a demonstration that the arguments are faulty and/or the evidence is lacking. For example, he shows how the evil in the world is inconsistent with a God possessing the three O's; he shows how all the endless stories of miracles and such are easily explained by means not requiring an intervening deity; he (as many others have) demolishes the argument from design; he shows how morality has nothing to do with God or religion, that it is something humans naturally have, and that in fact, followers of especially Islam and Christianity, are less moral by most standards than are unbelievers.

The God of the Old Testament is exposed as ruthless and evil; Stenger even refers to the so-called "hidden" God (that is, hidden from nonbelievers) of evangelical Christians as a "hideous God." His point is that by staying hidden from nonbelievers this God (cf. the God of John Calvin) effectively makes certain that most people will spend an eternity in hell, people such as "Mahatma Gandhi...along with the six million Jews killed by Hitler and billions of others who died without accepting Jesus." It is interesting that Stenger allows that such a god could exist, but "I personally want nothing to do with him." (pp. 239-240)

As significant and important as showing that God is a hypothesis that has failed is, I think some other aspects of this fascinating book are what make it such an important read. I learned that a good answer to the eternal question (and one of my favorites) "Why is there something rather than nothing?" can be answered by "nothing is unstable" (Frank Wilczek) or, to put it another way, it is impossible for there to be nothing but nothing. (pp. 132-133)

I also discovered that the universe did not necessarily begin with the Big Bang, that events do not necessarily have causes, and that "even if the universe does not have a mathematically infinite number of events in the past, it still need not have a beginning." Additionally (quoting philosopher Keith Parsons), "To say the universe is infinitely old is to say that it had no beginning--not a beginning that was infinitely long ago." Here Stenger makes a nice distinction between the infinite of mathematics and the infinite of physics. He writes, "Physics is counting. In physics, time is simply the count of ticks on a clock. You can count backward as well as forward. Counting forward you can get a very big but never mathematically infinite positive number and time 'never ends.' Counting backward you can get a very big but never mathematically infinite negative number and time 'never begins.'" (pp. 123-125) The salient point, as Georg Cantor made clear, is that infinity is a mathematical concept and not a number. These points are brought to refute the claim that the universe must have had a beginning and therefore a creator God.

Stenger even brings entropy into the picture as an argument against the universe being created. He notes "If the universe were created, then it should have possessed some degree of order at the creation...." But according to Big Bang theory the initial state of the universe after the Planck time was one of high entropy or "total chaos." He then calls in "the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the total entropy or disorder of a closed system must remain constant or increase with time." So far it sounds like this is good argument (as it previously might have been) for God the Creator to have injected order into the cosmos since we clearly have order today. But then Stenger shows that because the universe is expanding, the order we see here on earth and elsewhere doesn't violate the second law because "maximum entropy...increases faster than the actual total entropy...." (pp. 117-119)

I have read and reviewed in recent months The God Delusion (2006) by Richard Dawkins; Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006) by Daniel C. Dennett; and The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason (2004, 2005) by Sam Harris. While all three are excellent books and sorely needed in this time of attempted evangelical takeover of our culture and government, none of them is as closely and convincingly argued as is this book.