Alexander Rosenberg

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“When it comes to making life meaningful, what secular humanists hanker after is something they can't have and don't need. What they do need, if meaninglessness makes it impossible to get out of bed in the morning, is Prozac.”

“Science can explain why we value things, but the same goes for values we reject as wrong. That's why scientific explanations of what we value cannot justify those values or serve as a basis to enforce them on others. Since science is the only possible source of justification, if it doesn't work to justify values, nothing does.”

“If we can't have religion, we need a substitute that is as much like it as science can provide. Enter secular humanism, a doctrine, dare I say, "designed" to do this job. It hasn't worked (...) Scientism recognizes that the ambitions of the secular humanism are unattainable.”

“The parts of science that rule out theism are firmly fixed. Finally, it's not just probable that God doesn't exist. For scientism, it's as close to a sure thing as science can get.”

“When it comes to understanding the future, history is bunk (...) There is no place history is heading, except toward the maximum-entropy heat death of the universe.”

“Most advocates of the nonphysical self have been happy enough with the immortality payoff not to obsess about the incoherence it carries with it.”

“We have to acknowledge (to ourselves, at least) that many questions we want the "right" answers to just don't have any. These are the questions about the morality of stem-cell research or abortion or affirmative action or gay marriage or our obligations to future generations. Many enlightened people, including many scientists, think that reasonable people can eventually find the right answers to such questions. Alas, it will turn out that all anyone can really find are the answers that they like.”

“Biologists have a label for the neat tricks that enable living things to take care of the four Fs of survival—feeding, fighting, flight, and... reproducing. The label for these traits is "adaptation".”

“Biology is usually a lot more fun than physics. It's a lot easier to understand, and there's sex.”

“the answer to the persistent question, What is the purpose of the universe? is quite simply: There is none.”

“A hundred years ago, it became clear that most events at the level of the subatomic are random, uncaused, indeterministic quantum events—merely matters of probability. Locate an electron on one side of a steel barrier it doesn't have the energy to penetrate. There is some probability that the next time you detect it, the electron will be on the other side of the barrier it can't penetrate. But there are no facts about the electron that explain why sometimes it does this and sometimes it doesn't. At the basement level of reality, there are just probabilities.”

“Why is there anything at all? or as the question is famously put, Why is there something rather than nothing? Physics, especially quantum physics, shows that the correct answer to this question is: No reason, no reason at all.”

“Physics is by no means "finished". But the part of it that explains almost everything in the universe—including us—is finished, and much of it has been finished for a century or more. This includes the physics that we are going to need. Nothing at the unsettled frontiers of physics challenges the parts we're going to make use of. What's more, the physics we need is easy to understand, certainly far easier than quantum mechanics, general relativity, or string theory.”

“If you are going to be scientistic, you will have to be comfortable with a certain amount of nihilism.”

“Here is a list of some of the questions and their short answers (...) The interesting thing is to recognize how totally unavoidable they are, provided you place your confidence in science to provide the answers”