God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist | 
| Author: Victor J. Stenger
Creator: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $11.55
You Save: $6.40 (36%)
New (22) Used (8) from $10.92
Avg. Customer Rating:  142 reviews
Sales Rank: 9693
Media: Paperback
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 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: NEW AND IN EXCELLENT CONDITION. SAME DAY SHIPPING WEEKDAYS BEFORE 3:00PM EST
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Book Description
This edition includes a new Foreword by CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling GOD IS NOT GREAT.
In the paperback's afterword, Victor Stenger addresses criticisms of his New York Times bestselling first edition.
Throughout history, arguments for and against the existence of God have been largely confined to philosophy and theology. In the meantime, science has sat on the sidelines and quietly watched this game of words march up and down the field. Despite the fact that science has revolutionized every aspect of human life and greatly clarified our understanding of the world, somehow the notion has arisen that it has nothing to say about the possibility of a supreme being, which much of humanity worships as the source of all reality.
Physicist Victor J. Stenger contends that, if God exists, some evidence for this existence should be detectable by scientific means, especially considering the central role that God is alleged to play in the operation of the universe and the lives of humans. Treating the traditional God concept, as conventionally presented in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, like any other scientific hypothesis, Stenger examines all of the claims made for God's existence.
He considers the latest Intelligent Design arguments as evidence of God's influence in biology. He looks at human behavior for evidence of immaterial souls and the possible effects of prayer. He discusses the findings of physics and astronomy in weighing the suggestions that the universe is the work of a creator and that humans are God's special creation.
After evaluating all the scientific evidence, Stenger concludes that beyond a reasonable doubt the universe and life appear exactly as we might expect if there were no God.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 137 more reviews...
 All Humans are Presumtuous and Ridiculous July 11, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Does God exist? Who the hell knows. Certainly not a preist nor a scientist. Nobody knows one way or the other. You either believe based on faith - unseen, unproven belief - or you do not. And moments after our bodies stop, every single person will either know something - or know nothing. But to waste our energy fighting over something that is not given to "proof." Well...it's just very human. Wasting time instead of enjoying what we do know. And worst of all, you've all been doing it for thousands of years and killing hundreds of millions of otherwise happy human beings.
I really want to say that all Christians, Atheists, Muslims, Theists, Jews and Agnostics --and the rest! - should all jump in the same muddy river and just go to hell...but then we'd get into fighting about hell and the devil. Fight, argue, fight, disagree - idiot human beings. Dogs are wiser. They've got it down - eat, sleep, poop, love. I prefer them.
 Great Arguments July 10, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I found some great nuggets of logic and wisdom in this book. I want to re-read it for additional detail, but overall I would recommend it!
God The Failed Hypothesis? July 2, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
 Dr. Stenger's has failed on his ground at his own points. July 1, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
Horrible July 1, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book only proves that science is out to reduce God, which cannot be done because God is a Mystery and not a problem/solution. Hypothesis are made to give an educated guess surrounding a problem not a mystery. This book was biased from its front cover onward. Also God is not some object, it is more an infinite verb one that does exist but not like an object. The search for scientific materialism to explain God away is only another fruitless attempt to change everything in life into a problem.
|
|
|
