God the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

This is an outstanding book. Victor Stenger, a Professor of both Physics and Astronomy, convincingly argues against the existence of God (by which he means the Judea-Christian-Islamic version) by examining a wide variety of scientific evidence. In my view Stenger succeeds in disproving God beyond a level of reasonable doubt. Certain high profile atheists (Richard Dawkins and Same Harris, to name but two) have already written bestsellers on this subject, and I would evaluate Stenger's work as one that fully deserves the same level of success and recognition.

The structure of the book is roughly as follows:

In the first chapter, Stenger lucidly explains the scientific method and what makes it such a potent investigative tool. This is important because many people have no real understanding of these concepts. He also refutes the widely held (at least, by religious people) view that science has nothing to say about religion. This is a very important point, which sets the foundation for the rest of the book.

Stenger also deals with another common misconception, which is that scientists are somehow opposed to, or in denial of the discovery of any supernatural forces, whether religious, psychic, or anything else which violates the natural laws as they are currently understood. In reality the only reason why most scientists do not acknowledge the evidence of such things is because the evidence does not exist.

In the remainder of the book, Stenger goes on to assess the objective evidence for and against the God hypothesis by investigating a plethora of scientific and historical research. He covers everything from biblical prophecies to the illusion of design to prayer experiments and much more. All of this research could very well have produced compelling evidence for God, but none of it has. Stenger logically concludes that the evidence looks exactly the way we would expect it to look in the absence of God.

As a mild criticism, I found that certain topics could have been covered in a bit more detail. On the other hand, some of these issues could easily form the subject of entire books, and so it would have been almost impossible to discuss them in full detail within just a single chapter. Overall I think the author has penetrated to the heart of most of the important issues, and there are plenty of references for those who which to carry out further reading.

Chapters 4 and 5 (entitled Cosmic Evidence and The Uncongenial Universe) deserve a special mention. These two chapters are the undisputed gems of the book, in my opinion. Perhaps this is not so surprising given Stenger's expertise in physics and astronomy. For me personally, the knowledge I gained from these two chapters was easily worth the price of book by itself, and it was an absolute joy to have my eyes opened to some of the mind-boggling secrets of the universe that have been yielded by the investigative efforts of physicists and astronomers. Things do get a little hard to follow at times, but this is pretty much unavoidable for such a complex subject, and overall I think that Stenger does a great job of making it understandable to the lay reader. I won't give too much away, but rest assured that pro-god arguments like "how can something come from nothing?" (with reference to the 'big bang') and "how do you explain the fine-tuning of the universe" are comprehensively dismantled.

To conclude, I would strongly recommend this book for:

- Atheists wishing to learn about how science can be used to disprove God beyond a reasonable doubt.

- People who are vaguely religious/agnostic who wish to learn about the objective evidence for and against a supreme being.

- Religious people who:

a) wish to strengthen their faith by familiarising themselves with arguments for the opposing viewpoint, and/or

b) are brave enough to admit that they could be wrong, and wish to assess the objective evidence for and against God.

In a nutshell, I think that Victor Stenger has done a wonderful job with this book. I have no hesitation in awarding it five stars - with six stars for chapters 4 and 5!

Having just finished the book moments ago, I was left with the distinct impression that I liked it better than almost any other non-fiction book that I have read lately.

One thing that I liked immensely about "God: The Failed Hypothesis" was its focus on science and showing that it is by far the best way to know the universe, not necessarily the only way, but indeed the best and most accurate method available to human beings to learning about life and all of its mysteries.

Preceding my reading of "G:TFH," I had just finished "Atheist Universe" by David Mills and while I agreed with almost everything he had to say, that book left me with an ambiguous feeling towards its merit. Not so the case with Stenger's book; it could almost be called uplifting.

As a former evangelical, who has studied almost every religion at least in a cursory manner, I am convinced that a personal, religiously affiliated, or intervening god does not exist and is a mere psychological projection. However, I had still remained somewhat agnostic toward the concept of a deistic god. Stenger shows that modern physics can indeed answer such seemingly hard questions as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" rather convincingly. This book weakened my position of agnostic deism from "maybe" to "probably not" because complete naturalism seems to be the best and most likely explanation.

There are several reasons I highly recommend purchasing this book even though I believe it contains some major flaws that yields a less than convincing argument by Dr. Stenger:

Stenger makes an excellent argument the scientific method is able to run the various hypotheses for the existence of God with certain characteristics through the gauntlet. While an informed person could certainly argue we didn't have the knowledge and tools to perform such a task 100 years ago, Stenger eloquently points out that our accumulated knowledge in this century provides the empirical evidence necessary to make rational conclusions of History's arguments on the question of God's existence.

Stenger does an excellent job early in the book of describing the scientific method itself. To those of us who follow the interface between science and culture in modern America, I welcome his pre-empting any criticism of his conclusions that are based on an ignorant understanding of what a theory actually is and how one is developed and differs from credible and absurd hypotheses. He also does an excellent job of defining who has the obligation to make their case, though he's not dependent on expecting fundamentalists and other theists to make their case; the book is filled with arguments backed with empirical evidence on why a certain type of god cannot exist.

Stenger presents the best arguments for the existence of God and rebuts each claiming to use the approach scientists' use when critiquing scientific claims. I do believe Dr. Stenger stretches his case on some of his rebuttals. Having a comprehensive list alone with a usually adequate response makes the book not only worthy to buy and read, but also to keep for future reference. Stenger also does a great job of including arguments and evidence found by others and rarely makes strawmen of his opponents' positions. His writing is clear and his logic easy to follow, making for an interesting read as well.

I have three major concerns that I believe make this book deeply flawed when it comes to matching my opinion to Dr. Stenger based on his arguments:

Stenger often doesn't adequately describe his rebuttal to some hypotheses, instead referring the reader to a previous book authored by Stenger. Thus, some of his rebuttals are a mere sentence or two with no compelling argument or evidence we should believe him nor providing independent evidence. When I referenced other Stenger books in Amazon's search inside the book feature, his conclusions were vapid.

Stenger introduces us to his political beliefs, best described as secular progressive. Stenger even makes absolute statements about his political beliefs where his footnotes reference bloggers' opinions rather than convincing empirical evidence. Thus, Stenger's standards for making a conclusion are often as bad as his ideological opponents and unbecoming of a scientist claiming to use the scientific method to evaluate the various God hypotheses. In fact, this point alone insured me that I should investigate other sources to verify his conclusions since I'm not going to trust anyone using this method.

Stenger makes a strong and convincing case, similar to Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, that atheists are as moral if not more so then religious zealots and that our morals and ethics did not originate with God. While this is a worthy topic and Stenger's argument is convincing, I believe this subject has no business being in a book that claims to make an honest assessment of the case for or against a God with certain characteristics.

In fact once again, it's the same rhetorical trap his opponents make. Fundamentalists often claim the existence of God because if God didn't exist, then life isn't worth living; of course this argument in no way addresses the existence of God and instead is a product of wishful or uncreative thinking when confronting an argument against his existence. When Stenger makes the case that atheists are at least as moral as religious people, he falls into the same trap and weakens his argument by identifying himself as just another ideologue. Stenger should have kept to evaluating each God hypothesis and kept the editorializing that atheism is a superior belief system to guys like Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris, including it here dilutes his moral authority to speak on the behalf of Science.

Even with all these big flaws, the reasons provided above along with some very good arguments rebutting the existence of God, especially his arguments in the chapter titled, "The Uncongenial Universe" makes this required reading for those interested in this subject. However, if you are a critical and/or freethinker, be prepared to exit unconvinced by many of Stenger's arguments though up to speed on what the arguments actually are.