Victor Stenger is overleden. Hij was natuurkundige, filosoof, schrijver, en scepticus.
Waar de meeste atheïsten argumenteren dat er geen bewijs is vóór het bestaan van een god, durft Stenger een stap verder te gaan en argumenteert dat er bewijs is voor het níet bestaan van een god. “While we cannot prove that every conceivable god does not exist, we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a god that plays such an important role in the universe such as the Abrahamic God would have been detected by now. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence when the evidence that should be there is not. For example, if the people who write all these bestsellers about visiting heaven during a near-death experience really entered a supernatural realm, why do they never come back with any verifiable new knowledge? They should, and the fact that they don’t is proof it was all in their heads. While we cannot prove that every conceivable god does not exist, we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a god that plays such an important role in the universe such as the Abrahamic God would have been detected by now. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence when the evidence that should be there is not. For example, if the people who write all these bestsellers about visiting heaven during a near-death experience really entered a supernatural realm, why do they never come back with any verifiable new knowledge? They should, and the fact that they don’t is proof it was all in their heads.”
Hieronder een lezing van Stenger op Skepticon 2 over zijn boek The New Atheism.
Bekijk deel 2, deel 3 en deel 4.
“People are entitled to their opinions, but when the opinion is in disagreement with the data — with the facts — when that opinion does not stand up under critical or rational scrutiny, I think we have a right to point that out. We shouldn’t be stepping on anybody’s toes when we do that. If they’re going to be spouting off nonsense, then we should say that — not as a matter of opinion, but as a matter of scientific fact. When someone says science says something, and science doesn’t say something (“It doesn’t say that! That’s a misrepresentation of what science says.”), then I think we can state that. And if it ruffles some feathers, so what? I just don’t see the basis for arguing that creationism has equal standing with evolution.”