God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist | Victor J. Stenger

God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist | Victor J. Stenger | Simon says

books:

God: The Failed Hy...

	God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist Victor J. Stenger Prometheus Books, 2008 - 310 pages average customer review:based on 143 reviews view larger image
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No more need be said.

Logically demolishes theism. Therefore, will have no effect on theists, but one can always hope.

Simon says

I have been a long term reader-thinker of and about the "God" question etc. I found that "Hypothesis" was a review of much of what I had already learned but the material was very well organized for the author's purpose. The last point made (Why there is something rather nothing?) seems to be derived from the latest understandings of Cosmology combined with quantum mechanical tenets. These areas of modern physics are quite difficult for the layman to grasp (including me). But Stenger's position is fairly well supported by his other points.
I had no difficulty with most of the book and was overwhelmed by the extensive referencing. Finally, I don't see any continuation of the road after this delivery. So "hats off" to Victor.

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God The Failed Hypothesis?

Stenger's book is a scientific/logical critique of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God having the apparent purpose of countering all possible reasons for believing in that God. It contributes to the growing cottage industry of atheistic books and as for some others of those books I give it a reluctant thumbs up. I liked the range and abundance of ideas Stenger offers. My two main disappointments with his book were: (1) the title implies a categorical denial of God (not just the JCI God) thereby promising more than it attempts to deliver and (2) throughout many of the arguments I had intrusive thoughts of `Yes, but' and `No, No, No,' (my usual experience with atheistic books.) Since for Stenger's book I may lack the required understanding, I await the judgments of more acute and better-educated minds.

I was particularly struck by the sense of being cornered and bludgeoned into acceptance during my reading of the book, which did not seem consistent with the scientific objectivity I expected to find, but the final chapter's discussions of God and current events suggest a possible reason. The author appears to have a political passion for the topic extending beyond scientific and philosophical curiosity.

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Dr. Stenger's has failed on his ground at his own points.

I carefully studied Dr. Stenger's points. His arguments and substantiation are weak.

There is scientifically accepted evidence that God exists, though of course, not all scientists view the evidence as clearly pointing to "God exists"; however scientists do accept the basic scientific evidence that tells us: "There is no scientific nor physics basis for how this big complex universe and complex rational thinking life comes from nothing on its own without a cause and without outside transcendent influences or powers [this reviewer's comments: other than by breaking existing scientific and physics laws and parameters, and once the universe has started, then those same scientific and physics laws are somehow restored and made to work properly thereafter]".

1. There is ample scientific evidence that time was created outside the universe by God since time is limited for us to one direction only (we cannot go backwards in time, only forwards); Einstein's' equations and other physics tells us mathematically there is no such limitation on time - they are allowed to go in both directions, forward and backward in time - therefore, since time only goes forward for our universe, this tells us scientifically that time has been imposed upon our universe from the outside by a powerful source [this reviewer and others see God's hand in limiting time in this manner - especially since scientifically there is no such limit on time].

2. Stephen Hawking tells us "The Big Bang can be described of as a Black Hole running in reverse [this reviewers paraphrase of his thought]" - in other words, the singularity of the Big Bang is comparable in concept to the "singularity" of a Black Hole. Now we know that nothing escapes the Black Hole's singularity, and the way that Big Bang advocates get around this known scientific limitation is to suggest that the known laws of science and physics were somehow [this reviewer: magically?, supernaturally?] put aside and suspended long enough for the Big Bang to really get started, then somehow [this reviewer again: magically?, supernaturally?] restarted to work in the conventional scientific and stable manner that we know today.

Points 1. and 2. above are the kind of "miracle" that science has proved today, which Dr. Stenger is probably well aware of, and such "miracles" as Dr. Stenger says in his book, if Dr. Stenger would accept them, prove that God exists. But Dr. Stenger doesn't mention these points 1. and 2. and Dr. Stenger puts forth weak and unsubstantiated arguments throughout which have the purpose of proving to his satisfaction and to other atheists that God doesn't exist and that believers in God are like Dr. Richard Dawkins (another famous atheists) says, which are fools, probably irrational, and at minimum such believers in God are unscientific and ignorant.

Dr. Stenger doesn't adequately explain Dr. Antony Flew's conversion from atheism to deism (from no-God to there must be a God), so Dr. Stenger proves to this reviewer that his arguments are weak, limited in scope to those which are favorites to long-stand atheists, and even invalid in their final form.

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