Sad news – Victor Stenger has died

I was sad to read that Victor Stenger died during the week at the age of 79.

Victor was a prolific author, writing on science, religion and philosophy. He often dealt with difficult issues coming out of the religion-science debates and was always able to explain complex subjects very effectively for the layperson.

In his retirement, after a career in particle physics research, Stenger took to writing popular books in science, religion and philosophy and participating in the public discussion and debate of these issues. Although not as prominent as the people usually called the “New Atheists” he was one of that group. In fact he wrote a book  titled The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason. (See my review of this book at Defending science and reason).

Victor was also well-known for public debates with religious apologists like William Lane Craig and Hugh Ross. I believe his role in these were important because of his ability to explain particle and cosmological physics and thereby show how these apologists had been distorting the science. Readers interested in watching some of these debates will be able to find them on YouTube.

I suppose it is fitting that Victor Stenger was writing till the end. He died with one book waiting to be published – God and the Multiverse: Humanity’s Expanding View of the Cosmos.

Victor will be missed not only by his family and people who knew him, but also by many readers.

I urge interested readers to read one or more of his popular science book. Wikipedia lists the following –  all published by Prometheus Books:

• Not by Design
• Physics and Psychics
• The Unconscious Quantum
• Timeless Reality : Symmetry, Simplicity, and Multiple Universes
• Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe
• The Comprehensible Cosmos: Where Do the Laws of Physics Come From?
• God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
• Quantum Gods: Creation, Chaos, and the Search for Cosmic Consciousness
• The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason
• The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us
• God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion
• God and the Atom
• God and the Multiverse: Humanity’s Expanding View of the Cosmos

See also:
Victor Stenger, Physicist and Prolific Atheist Author, is Dead at 79
Victor Stenger has died.

The links below are to my own reviews of a few of Victor Stenger’s books:

• Quantum Gods
• Defending science and reason
• Science and the folly of faith

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