[Grovenet] Interesting reading . . . .

Wed Apr 4 09:06:21 PDT 2007

So, I guess Iraq is a threat because they believe in god.

Bob Browning wrote:
>
> //From the 4-4-2007 issue of e-Skeptic online magazine at 
> http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-04-03.html :
>
>
>         Conspicuous by His Absence
>
> book review by David Ludden
>
> There’s good news for readers of Richard Dawkins’ latest bestseller, 
> /The God Delusion/ <http://www.skeptic.com/productlink/b113HB> 
> (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) whose appetites were whetted for more. 
> Physicist Victor Stenger has just served up a second course of 
> delectable arguments for the non-existence of God. In his latest book 
> /God: The Failed Hypothesis/, Stenger runs through the standard 
> rational and biological arguments against any sort of meaningful 
> deity, but he does much more. In plain, easily understood language, 
> Stenger lays out the evidence from cosmology, particle physics and 
> quantum mechanics showing that the universe appears exactly as it 
> should if there is no creator.
>
> Stenger does not agree with those who maintain that science has 
> nothing to say about the existence of god. He soundly rejects Steven 
> Jay Gould’s NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria) argument (/Rock of Ages: 
> Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life/, Ballantine, 1999), 
> which posits that science and religion are independent fields of 
> knowledge and that there can be no conflict between the two. 
> Furthermore, he dismisses the notion that science is limited to 
> studying the natural world. If there is a deity that interacts with 
> the world — such as the standard Judeo-Christian-Islamic god — then 
> the effects of divine intervention are observable within the natural 
> world, and so they are under the purview of naturalistic science. 
> Hence, Stenger argues, although science cannot directly test the 
> existence of a supreme being, it can make inferences about a deity 
> based on the observable behavior of the universe. This is exactly the 
> same approach physicists have taken to the study of quarks and black 
> holes, which cannot be directly observed either.
>
> In a sense, every science experiment is a test of the God hypothesis. 
> This is because of the assumption of methodological naturalism, that 
> is, the null hypothesis that God does not affect the outcome of 
> experiments. If scientists ever obtained consistent data that could 
> not be explained by any known natural processes, this would lend 
> support to the hypothesis that God exists, and scientists would 
> eagerly pursue this line of research. But the assumption of 
> methodological naturalism holds; that is, we find no evidence of God’s 
> intervention in the natural world. Hence, we conclude that a god of 
> the Judeo-Christian-Islamic type does not exist. While it is true, as 
> the apologist will argue, that absence of evidence is not evidence of 
> absence, it is nevertheless reasonable grounds for an assumption of 
> non-existence, at least until reasonable evidence to the contrary is 
> provided.
>
> Stenger considers a number of arguments from physics that point to the 
> non-existence of God. Curiously, these are often the same arguments 
> proffered by theists for the existence of a creator. However, Stenger 
> turns each argument on its head. Consider, for example, the first law 
> of thermodynamics, or the conservation of energy. Some theists argue 
> that the universe could not have come into existence without a 
> violation of the first law because energy was created at the beginning 
> of the universe. However, Stenger shows that inflationary big bang 
> theory, which is amply supported by the data, predicts a “close 
> balance between positive and negative energy” so that “the total 
> energy of the universe is zero”. Thus, no violation of conservation 
> was required to bring the matter and energy of the universe into being.
>
> Another favorite of the theists is the second law of thermodynamics, 
> or entropy. Savvy creationists have given up this as an argument 
> against evolution, but it is still pulled out to argue for the 
> existence of a creator. According to the second law, the total 
> entropy, or disorder, of a closed system must increase over time. If 
> the universe started as chaos, the theist argues, a miracle was needed 
> to impose order upon it. On the other hand, if the universe was 
> maximally ordered at the beginning of time, this could be interpreted 
> as the signature of a perfect creator. But the cosmological evidence 
> indicates that the universe began in a state of maximum entropy — and 
> that the total entropy of the universe has been increasing ever since! 
> This apparently contradictory state of affairs is explained by the 
> fact that the universe is expanding, with the maximum possible entropy 
> of the universe growing faster than the total actual entropy. Thus, 
> the universe only appears to be getting more ordered, but this is only 
> because there is more room to spread out the clutter. In short, no 
> miracle, and hence no creator, is needed to explain the origin or 
> current state of the universe.
>
> God: The Failed Hypothesis
>
> ORDER the book 
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1591024811/skepticcom-20/104-6491725-8322313?creative=125581&camp=2321&link_code=as1> 
>
>
> Stenger even takes on one of the biggest mysteries of all — why is 
> there even a universe in the first place? Intuition tells us that 
> nothingness is the normal state of affairs. Hence, the theist argues 
> that the mere existence of a universe is evidence for a creator, 
> because without a creator there would be nothing. But Stenger argues 
> that something, rather that nothing, is the normal state of affairs. 
> The laws of physics tell us that nothingness is an unstable state and 
> will soon “undergo a spontaneous phase shift” to a state of 
> /somethingness/. Indeed, Stenger argues, a state of continuous 
> nothingness is so improbable that it could only be maintained through 
> divine intervention. Hence, the existence of a universe is no evidence 
> for the existence of a creator.
>
> Probably the most commonly-used theistic argument that Stenger 
> challenges is the anthropic principle. The crux of this argument is 
> that a number of constants in the universe are finely tuned to allow 
> for the existence of life as we know it, and this fine tuning implies 
> a benevolent creator. Stenger notes that the apparent precision in the 
> values of many of these constants is nothing more than an artifact of 
> the units used to measure them. Furthermore, computer modeling shows 
> that something like our universe would have developed under a wide 
> range of values for these constants. Stenger points out that those 
> making this argument mistakenly assume that each of these values is 
> independent of the others, when in fact they are tightly interrelated. 
> Again, no creator is required to explain the features of the universe.
>
> /God: The Failed Hypothesis/ shares a common central theme with 
> Dawkins’ /The God Delusion/, namely that the universe looks exactly as 
> we would expect it to look if there were no supreme being. However, 
> while Dawkins’ language is more eloquent, Stenger’s is less abrasive, 
> and so somewhat less likely to offend. Nevertheless, the two books 
> complement each other, with Dawkins focusing more on biological 
> evidence and Stenger on physical evidence. All freethinkers should 
> have both volumes, side by side, on their bookshelves.
>
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