Why don't most higher up scientists believe in a God?

[PonderingJak]

I’m speaking specifically about Steven Hawking and Neil Degrade Tyson. They are perceived as geniuses and are extremely smart in terms of science. I’m a high school freshman wanting to see if God exists or not, and this fact came up. And it really made me wonder. Space is incredibly big, and maybe is endless, but we’re stuck in the Milky Way with a very small sun (compared to other suns). That’s one scientist’s reason for being an atheist. He’s an astrologist and spent a lot of time studying the stars, and he noted that there are many things that could easily kill us if we were on a collision course, and there’d be no way to save anyone of that happened. Can anyone help answer my question? I got a little bit off track, but still want to know why people perceive as extremely smart are atheists and vehemently deny the existence of God

 

[Sarcelle]

I’m speaking specifically about Steven Hawking and Neil Degrade Tyson. They are perceived as geniuses and are extremely smart in terms of science. I’m a high school freshman wanting to see if God exists or not, and this fact came up. And it really made me wonder. Space is incredibly big, and maybe is endless, but we’re stuck in the Milky Way with a very small sun (compared to other suns). That’s one scientist’s reason for being an atheist. He’s an astrologist and spent a lot of time studying the stars, and he noted that there are many things that could easily kill us if we were on a collision course, and there’d be no way to save anyone of that happened. Can anyone help answer my question? I got a little bit off track, but still want to know why people perceive as extremely smart are atheists and vehemently deny the existence of God

Umm, astrology and science do not go together. This scientist you speak of is in all likelihood an astronomer. Big difference.

I have worked with a lot of astronomers. Most of them were devout Christians and they all worked in fairly secular universities. Peter Kreeft wrote that the highest percentage of scientists who were devout Christians were either astronomers or cellular biologists. The lowest percentage? Clinical psychologists.

 

[mikekle]

The way I see it, the scientists in the world actually should be the most devout believers, after all, they have studied the world, how things work, seems like they could easily see all of this was the creation of something greater than mankind, but I guess there is also an agenda being pushed, so that gets in the way of the truth.

 

[mjs2001]

You’ve cited only two scientists. It just proves that one can be a super genius and have no wisdom or humility. Hawking, for example, is the world’s worst philosopher. For a critique of the scientists who claim too much for science, read anything by David Berlinski. He is an agnostic, secular Jew, a mathematician and writer and wickedly entertaining speaker who excoriates scientists who posit that science demands that one disclaim the existence of God. You can find some of his interviews on YouTube as well. Have fun! This is a great topic for young people like yourself to think about.

 

[Beryllos]

… and he noted that there are many things that could easily kill us if we were on a collision course, and there’d be no way to save anyone of that happened…

I don’t see how that is an argument either for or against the existence of God. I guess it’s another variation of the “bad things happen, so there is no God” argument.

 

[PonderingJak]

You’ve cited only two scientists. It just proves that one can be a super genius and have no wisdom or humility. Hawking, for example, is the world’s worst philosopher. For a critique of the scientists who claim too much for science, read anything by David Berlinski. He is an agnostic, secular Jew, a mathematician and writer and wickedly entertaining speaker who excoriates scientists who posit that science demands that one disclaim the existence of God. You can find some of his interviews on YouTube as well. Have fun! This is a great topic for young people like yourself to think about.

I was also watching part of a debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham. Bill Nye, as you may know, is the extremely popular TV show person that makes science videos showed in most schools

 

[z_0101]

The way I see it, the scientists in the world actually should be the most devout believers, after all, they have studied the world, how things work, seems like they could easily see all of this was the creation of something greater than mankind, but I guess there is also an agenda being pushed, so that gets in the way of the truth.

This is more addressed to PonderingJak; however, Mikekle, thank you for letting me leapfrog from you post.

Many Scientists are very devout believers… maybe agnostic… but none-the-less believers. As a Scientist, I get very tired if the trite ascription made by the few; however loud, individuals that, as a class, Scientists must be atheistic where in-fact, Mikekle as you’ve noted, the study of The Universe often confirms our belief in the greater force, mind, existence, behind the creation…
From a BBC article (click here for context):(…)
Spark of divinity

Most physicists are instinctively drawn towards theories with a simple elegance.

The Reverend Sir John Polkinghorne used to be a theoretical physicist and worked with Professor Peter Higgs, after whom the boson was named.

Professor Polkinghorne went on to become an Anglican priest. He believes the equations which describe the way sub-atomic particles interact contain a natural beauty in which some find a spark of divinity.

He said: “Physicists are deeply impressed with the order of the world. It is rationally beautiful and structured, and the feeling that there is a mind behind it is a very natural feeling to have.”
(…)

The Hawkins are more the exception in the fields of science when it comes to God, although he is becoming more and more mainstream as the world is corrupted by secularism.

As for Dr. Tyson, he’s a self professed agnostic:
reasonablefaith.org/neil-deGrasse-tyson-on-god-part-one
reasonablefaith.org/neil-deGrasse-tyson-on-god-part-two

PonderingJak
I leave you with one more article. A link to a short biography of my Confirmation Saint,
St. Albert the Great: Patron of Scientists and Defender of Faith and Reason

In 1899, St. Albert’s writings were gathered together and totaled 38 volumes spanning an astounding array of topics, including logic, theology, zoology, astronomy, botany, physiology, justice, law, and love. While the intensity of his mind and the depths of his knowledge are impressive,** it was his passionate belief that faith and reason don’t simply co-exist, but complement each other by their very natures**, that is perhaps the most enduring and relevant. He was methodical and exacting in his pursuit of knowledge, not simply because of his keen mind and curious nature, but because he understood intuitively that all of God’s creation spoke of Him, and that even the smallest and most seemingly insignificant bit of scientific knowledge could illuminate for us the face God. It’s perhaps for that reason that he was named the patron Saint of scientists when he was canonized by Pope Pius the XI in 1931.

The Periodic Table of the Elements - The Hand of God made Visible.

 

[cornbread_r2]

Here is a summary of a poll originally published in the Nature science journal.

 

[Tomdstone]

Here is a summary of a poll originally published in the Nature science journal.

The poll indicates that most scientists are atheists.

 

[Gliggle]

For physicists it largely seems to be because of acausality. At the quantum level, things appear completely random until the moment we measure them. The cat in the box is both dead AND alive until the moment we open the box#. There is no apparent cause… The outcome is determined by probably statistics. This seems to contradict the idea of a God… A God who controls everything. Even Einstein did not believe this concept of acausality because it flew in the face of a common conception about God. He said “God does not play dice”

But Einstein was proven wrong on this. For instance have you heard of Bells inequality? This experiment seems to reliably confirm that acausality exists. Therefore either God plays dice, or he doesn’t exist.

Actually Aquinas recognised God played dice long ago*. The notion is already embedded in Catholic theology, there is no contradiction. God has allowed randomness to exist. We know he has allowed free will to exist too. He does not tightly control everything that happens in his universe even in the physical world. The very atoms that surround us seem to have a kind of “free will”. Does this scare you? Yes, it scares physicists too, they run up against the idea more than the average man, and each time they do they shut their eyes and they run, they run from this frightening idea of God, because they believe they understand the universe better than God! Everything is meaningless! They think… because we cannot find a sensible pattern at the most fundamental level. But they don’t understand this randomness is part of Gods plan. Part of his magnificent creation. It is just our minds which find this difficult to conceive. Even great minds find this difficult. Therefore, you have the conundrum of a great majority of physicists actually being atheist. I also think there is a fair amount of hubris involved. This is my experience from working as a physicist and counting physicists amongst my best friends.

I think the answer to your question may be slightly different for each field of science, but at the core it is usually either hubris, or an ingrained resistance to deeply pondering the issue which causes the disbelief.

in case you haven’t heard of Schrödinger’s cat, I am actually talking about fundamental particles here, such as electrons or photons… Not cats. ​

• I read a really great physics/philosophy paper that discusses quantum physics from the point of view of Aquinas, which I recommend you read. See link below

arxiv.org/abs/1501.00769

 

[cornbread_r2]

The poll indicates that most scientists are atheists.

Not quite. According to the summary, the poll questionnaire was only sent to 517 members of the National Academy of Scientists and only a little more than half responded.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

I think many scientists are atheists because they don’t know enough about theology. They feel theology conflicts with science, when in fact, the two are quite complementary. I’ve found many scientists to be very narrow minded and focused on their specialty only. They are geniuses, but only in the area of science and math.

I am surprised at the clinical psychologists, though. I would have thought more of them would be believers.

Some of the students in the college where I teach claim to be atheists. They have to take some religion classes because they are required, though. They are very belligerent in class and just slide by, sometimes with a D- (a C if they are receiving financial aid). They won’t TRY to understand theology.

 

[eazyduzit]

The reason they reject a creator has noting to do with science. It is because they don’t want to live under the MORAL constraints of the creator. (according to Thomas Huxley)

 

[josh987654321]

I’m speaking specifically about Steven Hawking and Neil Degrade Tyson. They are perceived as geniuses and are extremely smart in terms of science. I’m a high school freshman wanting to see if God exists or not, and this fact came up. And it really made me wonder. Space is incredibly big, and maybe is endless, but we’re stuck in the Milky Way with a very small sun (compared to other suns). That’s one scientist’s reason for being an atheist. He’s an astrologist and spent a lot of time studying the stars, and he noted that there are many things that could easily kill us if we were on a collision course, and there’d be no way to save anyone of that happened. Can anyone help answer my question? I got a little bit off track, but still want to know why people perceive as extremely smart are atheists and vehemently deny the existence of God

The following I believe will help you (It’s a short 10 minute youtube video)

Finding God (Finding Shakespeare) by C.S. Lewis Doodle - youtube.com/watch?v=BXlBCZ_5OYw

I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Josh

 

[josh987654321]

The following I believe may also help -
Extract from the book 'Mere Christianity' by C.S. Lewis:

Ever since men were able to think they have been wondering what this universe really is and how it came to be there. And, very roughly, two views have been held. First, there is what is called the materialist view. People who take that view think that matter and space just happen to exist, and always have existed, nobody knows why; and that the matter, behaving in certain fixed ways, has just happened by a sort of fluke, to produce creatures like ourselves who are able to think. By one chance in a thousand something hit our sun and made it produce the planets; and by another thousandth chance the chemicals necessary for life, and the right temperature, occurred on one of these planets, and so some of the matter on this earth came alive; and then, by a long series of chances, the living creatures developed into things like us.

The other view is the religious view. According to it, what is behind the universe is more like a mind than it is like anything else we know. That is to say, it is conscious, and has purposes, and prefers one thing to another. And on this view it made the universe, partly for purposes we do not know, but partly, at any rate, in order to produce creatures like itself - I mean, like itself to the extent of having minds.

Please do no think that one of these views was held a long time ago and that the other one has gradually taken it’s place. Wherever there have been thinking men both views turn up. And note this too. You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense. Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long run, however complicated it looks, really means something like, ‘I pointed the telescope to such and such part of the sky at 2:00 a.m. on January 15th and saw so-and-so.’ or, ‘I put some of this stuff in a pot and heated it to such-and-such a temperature and it did so-and-so.’ Do not think I am saying anything against science: I am only saying what it’s job is. And the more scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with me that this is the job of science - and a very useful and necessary job it is too.

But why anything come to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes - something of a different kind - this is not a scientific question. If there is ‘Something Behind’, then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientist do not usually make them. It is usually the journalists and popular novelists who have picked up a few odds and ends of half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them. After all, it is really a matter of common sense. Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, ‘Why is there a universe?’ ‘Why does it go on as it does?’ ‘Has it any meaning?’ would remain just as they were?

Extract from John Lennox's book 'God's Undertaker':

In some quarters the very success of science has also lead to the idea that, because we can understand the mechanisms of the universe without bringing in God, we can safety conclude that there was no God who designed and created the universe in the first place.

However, such reasoning involves a logical fallacy, which we can illustrate as follows.

Take a Ford motor car. It is conceivable that someone from a remote part of the world, who was seeing one for the first time and who knew nothing about modern engineering, might imagine that there is a god (Mr Ford) inside the engine, making it go. He might further imagine that when the engine ran sweetly it was because Mr Ford liked him, and when it refused to go it was because Mr Ford disliked him. Of Course, if he were subsequently to study engineering and take the engine to pieces, he would discover that there is no Mr Ford inside it. neither would it take much intelligence for him to see that he did not need to introduce Mr Ford as an explanation for it’s working.

His Grasp of the impersonal principals of internal combustion would be altogether enough to explain how the engine works. So far, so good.

But if he then decided that his understanding of the principals of how the engine works made it impossible to believe in the existence of Mr Ford who designed the engine in the first place, this would be patently false - in philosophical terminology he would be committing a category mistake. Had there never been a Mr Ford to design the mechanisms, none would exist for him to understand.

It is likewise a category mistake to suppose that our understanding of the impersonal principals according to which the universe works makes it either unnecessary or impossible to believe in the existence of a personal creator who designed, made, and upholds the universe. In other words, we should not confuse the mechanisms of the universe with either it’s cause or it’s upholder.

The basic issue here is that those of a scientific turn of mind like Atkins and Dawkins fail to distinguish between mechanism and agency.

When Sir Isaac Newton discovered the universal law of gravitation he did not say, “I have discovered a mechanism that accounts for planetary motion, therefore there is no agent God who designed it.” Quite the opposite, precisely because he understood how it worked, he was moved to increased admiration for the God who had designed it that way.

“Careful not to confuse scientific statements with statements by scientists.” - John Lennox

I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

No competent physicist who has any knowledge of behaviors involved in quantum mechanics can honestly deny there are “spirit worlds” or at least dimensions we don’t know about which interact with us which is a bit of the same thing. Kind of cute they think the “number of dimensions” is 11, when I suspect it really isn’t a matter of counting dimensions or even degrees of freedom.

So my claim is a scientist who is honest cannot deny there is “spooky stuff” like particle entanglement and the two slit experiment. And therefore there are things we can never know. Further, every time we approach limits of observation in any domain “small, large, etc” the universe just runs further away from us. When they can build a breathing, thinking and feeling, and reproducing human being from dirt then they will be more qualified to speak on matters we cannot observe.

Whether they reject a certain “image” of God is another thing. For example, I personally reject a lot of what is said about the God of the Bible, like “God helps those who help themselves” – if I could help myself, why would I need God? Or that He’s some old bearded guy in the sky with a control system. We tend to personify God, and frankly I don’t even like the question any more “do you believe in God” because only God knows what the question even meant to the person asking it. They usually want to know if I believe in their image and assumptions about God, and so even if I say “yes” that will not actually reflect what they wanted to know.

 

[phil_at_dayboro]

Can you Explain your Faith in God ?

Smart people can’t,so that makes YOU. Smarter than them

 

[Trident_H]

I’m speaking specifically about Steven Hawking and Neil Degrade Tyson. They are perceived as geniuses and are extremely smart in terms of science. I’m a high school freshman wanting to see if God exists or not, and this fact came up. And it really made me wonder. Space is incredibly big, and maybe is endless, but we’re stuck in the Milky Way with a very small sun (compared to other suns). That’s one scientist’s reason for being an atheist. He’s an astrologist and spent a lot of time studying the stars, and he noted that there are many things that could easily kill us if we were on a collision course, and there’d be no way to save anyone of that happened. Can anyone help answer my question? I got a little bit off track, but still want to know why people perceive as extremely smart are atheists and vehemently deny the existence of God

Yeah. A lot of things can kill us here on earth too. A lot of things can kill us even in our own house. But I mean another way of looking at it is that maybe without God those things would have killed us already? I don’t know. I just look out at space and can’t imagine it has no purpose. But then that’s me. I mean I have no purpose and yet I can’t imagine why a bunch of big rocks in the sky have no purpose. Sometimes I think I don’t think as much as I think I do.

Peace.

-Trident

 

[JohnMPhilomena]

Albert Einstein believed in God. One of his famous quotes is “God does not play dice with the universe.” In other words, what appears to be random is really part of God’s plan.

Think about the Big Bang theory. In my mind it requires God to initiate it.

In the instant between nothing and everything is the Big Bang. Imagine all the matter of the universe created at that one instant. The Big Bang theory says at time zero all the matter of the universe existed in an infinitely small, infinitely dense point.

Infinitely small. Think about that. Smaller than a spec of dust. Smaller than an electron. Nothing.

Infinitely dense. All the mass of the universe compressed to that infinitely small volume. Everything.

So in that instant between nothing and everything, God created the heavens and earth. “Let there be light”.

“Before the world began, the Word was there. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was there with God in the beginning. Everything was made through him and nothing was made without him.”

Peace,
John Marie Philomena

 

[Sarcelle]

I think many scientists are atheists because they don’t know enough about theology. They feel theology conflicts with science, when in fact, the two are quite complementary. I’ve found many scientists to be very narrow minded and focused on their specialty only. They are geniuses, but only in the area of science and math.

I am surprised at the clinical psychologists, though. I would have thought more of them would be believers.

Some of the students in the college where I teach claim to be atheists. They have to take some religion classes because they are required, though. They are very belligerent in class and just slide by, sometimes with a D- (a C if they are receiving financial aid). They won’t TRY to understand theology.

A good solid grounding in philosophy is what is lacking in most science education curriculums nowadays. It should be brought back.

By the way, hasn’t theology been called the queen of the sciences?