God: The Failed Hypothesis

Book Review - God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor J. Stenger.

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What you are about to read is a book review about deeply rooted in Humanistic properties, which I am very much in favour of. Since you are not supposed to discuss religion or politics with friends, I warn you beforehand. This is a mix of information about myself and how this book and myself interacted.

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Recently, I have been on a religious quest of sorts. Initially, I was brought up to believe in God, and to do good things in his name, and follow the teachings of the church. Somewhere around grade 7, my education was already too good for me to be quite so gullible anymore. I lost touch with religion and with morality in general. I was focused only on myself and friends. High school taught me more about morals, and I started doing things for others as well. Eventually, graduating high school, I was in an altruistic stage. I still consider myself to be there. Every decision I make is based on two questions - a) will this hurt anybody else? b) will I make the world a better place by doing so? If the answers are no and yes respectively, I will do the action. Sometimes you are forced to do something when only one of those questions is answered the way you want it to be, but that is where morality comes in, I suppose.

In any case, I agreed to review God: The Failed Hypothesis for the publisher Prometheus Books. It was touted as “Scientific proof that God does not exist”. Initially, I thought “yeah right” - there is NO way you can legitimately prove that God does not exist. Essentially, I still believe that. However, Victor Stenger has done a remarkable job that is hard to refute. The main reason for my disbelief in God stems from the fact that we are organisms, just like any other ones on earth. Just because we have the mental ability to fathom a God exists, does not make it correct. Victor proves scientifically (that is, using various models and logical statements, such as “IF this God we are describing has these certain attributes, it is irrefutable to say He exists”) that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, described to us in scriptures and teachings without a doubt does not exist.

Being of a scientific mind, yet also having a very religious childhood, I tried as hard as I could to argue with his points. The best I could come up with regarding his discussion of the investigation of the effects of prayers. Scientific studies were done where various groups of people prayed for others (either known or unknown), and then a group of sick people were either a) prayed for, and knew it, b) not prayed for, and not knew it, or c) either prayed for or not prayed for, and either knew it or didn’t know it. The results showed that prayer does not help at all, and actually had a negative effect to the people who knew they were being prayed for. My rebuttal, however, would be that prayer (if effective, at all) would not be effective in this situation. It is not genuine, and it is only being done for the purpose of discovering if God will answer your prayers, and thus answering your test. If God exists, and is omniscient, he knows of your TRUE motives, and would not reveal himself through this. Prayer is also a very sketchy subject to talk about in general. Prayer is not always just asking for something and getting what you ask for. Prayer is used by many as just a way of talking with God - it is calming, relaxing, comforting, and makes some feel content with the status quo.

Aside from this one point, I could not find anything else that I disagreed with. In fact, I loved reading his chapters discussing the creation of the Universe - order and disorder. It is truly astounding the work that physicists and astronomists do to understand the Universe. If I were to recommend any part of this book to anyone, it would be the Cosmic Evidence chapter. Here, he has proven to me without a doubt that the Universe creation and existence does not disobey any currently known physical or biological law that we know today to be true. This was often something that I struggled through in my disbelief of a God. “How can the Universe, being so vast and filled with debris, have just appeared?” I would have typically thought it disobeyed the conservation of mass, yet I have been shown it does not. Stenger also debunks the notion that “the Universe is so fine-tuned, it could not have happened by accident. If ____ were different by just ____ degree, the Universe could not exist!”. I loved reading about how non-fine-tuned some things really are. How they are more just a case of nature taking the simplest course (ie. star formation and nuclear reactions in stars)

This book does not get into very much detail about how sickening it is to think of how many people have died in the names of various Gods. Personally, I think it is disgusting, what people of the past (and present) have done (and still do!) under the guise of religion. While it is an empirical fact that people are more generous in giving to charities when they believe in God, it is also an empirical fact that the morality of religious and non-religious people are equal. How can this be possible? How can it be that non-religious people do just as many bad things as religious people? Our values do not come from God, then. We see in the animal world that creatures are innately driven to perform various compassionate acts. Yet religious believers will put us above animals - God has given us our morals, they will say. God has created Man to be above all other creatures on the earth. I’m sorry, I just don’t believe that. As comforting as it may be to believe that we are created to be rulers of this earth, it is simply not so. We are simply an insignificant abnormality in this Universe. As Stenger says, a single spot of order in an otherwise chaotic Universe. I understand some people may feel sad to think that when we die, that is it, but there is simply no evidence to believe otherwise. “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.” - Steven Weinberg.

Here is a point to ponder: The Paradox of Omnipotence.
1. Either God can create a stone that he cannot lift, or he cannot create a stone that he cannot life.
2. If God can create a stone that he cannot lift, then he is not omnipotent.
3. If God cannot create a stone that he cannot lift, then he is not omnipotent.
4. Therefore, God is not omnipotent.

I read this and laughed out loud. Why would God waste time creating (or not creating) stones that he can (or cannot) lift! However, the logic is flawless. There are many more similar ones in the book that are hard to disagree with.

Lastly, I particularly enjoyed reading about the problem of evil in the world. If God exists, and he is a perfectly loving God, why has he allowed so much evil in the world? There are various arguments to this, but none of them seem to make sense to me. The only logical conclusion for me is that a perfectly loving God does not exist.

That being said, that is a perfectly logical conclusion for me. A religious person will read this book, and shrug it off, because you cannot prove or disprove God, they believe. I do still firmly believe that the belief in God has some major purpose. People struggling through difficult times can use God as a crutch or support - someone they KNOW will always be there for them. It has often been said that when recovering from a serious addiction, the only way to stay sober is to give yourself over to God. In the end, you are never going to be able to prove to people who want to believe. That is what it comes down to. If someone wants to believe in the inanimate object of God, they can choose to do so. I know for 100% that He does not exist. Humanity happened by chance, and will soon end by chance. It seems fruitless to write books about how God does not exist when it will not change a believer’s mind (as they likely wouldn’t have the conviction to challenge their born-in beliefs). This book has given me ammunition, at least, so if I get into a theological debate, I can hold my own.

Scientifically speaking, this book is quite sound. I believe the science 100%, and I have since grade 6 and I will forever. I have been educated too well to be so gullible. I mean, honestly - how can anyone believe evolution didn’t really happen? It is mind-boggling. You can’t fake fossils. Stenger says he “finds it amusing that opponents of evolution undermine it by calling it ‘just a theory’.” I tend to agree that this is laughable - particularly when they fail to realize that God is still a theory. A hypothesis. A Failed Hypothesis. Thank you Stenger.

Dan