Why are so many theoretical physicists atheists

What if our brains aren't even complex enough to understand the universe? People seem to think we are capable of learning anything.

because physicists are people that are at least somewhat obsessed with real answers and empirical evidence.

believing a lot of what religion subscribes to means you have to rely on believing men (prophets) that say they've spoken to god.

this is already a problem in my mind, add to that most of these prophets become extremely powerful in their own lives, leaders of nations (moses, mohammed) and shape the lives of countless people, and it makes sense to me why someone would want to pretend they're super special and know something the masses do not.

There's nothing wrong with them. They just have a better understanding of how the world REALLY works than you do.

Isn't it obvious?

Scientists believe, as is required of them, only what is provable by science. And,even then, what can be proven time after time, under laboratory conditions.

God (not religion, the two have nothing in common), is not provable.

Hence, it is hardly remarkable that scientists have no belief in God.

That isn't to say that a scientist can't believe in God (even if the existence of God cannot be proven by scientific techniques), it's just his "dark side".

Only 11%% of people think this is a valid question? What a spoiled, rotten bunch of fools inhabit our pampered society today; where everyone takes for granted not only this vastly beautiful and incomprehensible world we live in, but also feels justified to attribute it all to chaos and nihilism...they don't even bother to leave comments, because they know I'd skewer them. I know it's the 'cool' road to walk - denying an intelligent designer of any kind - but that doesn't make it any less of a pathetic argument. There are some real egoistic pricks who claim that each scientific discovery makes it even more clear that there is no 'creator' entity, but I say the opposite is true! With each new discovery we make, the universe just explodes into ever more vast and incomprehensible dimensions. It floors the scientists who devote themselves to study it - the human genome, for example, has proven to be but the tip of the iceberg in understanding life. It apalls me that so many people seem to think we've got it 'all figured out' and can rest on their atheistic laurels just because some 19th century naturalist who spent a few years on the Galapagos islands discovered evolution. You privileged little babies are going to have to suck up to the truth...you haven't been absolved of anything because this man wrote 'On the Origin of Species' 100 years ago. Your privileged post-modern mentalities are as transparent as the Vatican bishops' dark-age mindframes were during the Crusades. We have a long way to go before we can sit back and act so smug about the universe we live in, people.

Don't you get it that what is discovered is not the end of it. And each advance slowly but surely reduces any argument for some supernatural being. So, logically, its likely that future discoveries will completely remove any possible input made by a supernatural entity.

I think it's this:
The term "god" means to be satisfied without understanding the world. Scientists want to understand the unknown, they can't satisfy by something like "magic" or "god"...

OP, you are brilliant

I don't believe that it is so much that we are atheists, as I feel like we don't focus on aspects of reality that we cannot conduct experiments on. If there were some way that we could conduct scientific experiments on deities, then you better believe we would! Faith and science are a complicated relationship: for example, Einstein had "faith" in his laws, though until they were confirmed by other scientific observations (ie. gravitational lensing), they could not be accepted as true. Faith in the unknown can be a powerful catalyst, though the scientific method is a physicists' bible. If man is created in his creator's image, then we are fulfilling his dream. Otherwise, most physicists are not concerned with theology, and nearly dismiss it as something that cannot currently be tested. When theologians become more involved in investing their riches into creation "LHC's" or Hubble telescopes, I doubt the scientific community will take them seriously as desiring truths, other than faith.

Science is all about finding verifiable evidence, and rather than showing that any construct which has complexity needs an inventor, it instead shows that phenomenon in our world have reasonable naturalistic roots, and that no inventor(s) are needed.

What one calls complexity another may call a jumbled mess, it is presumptuous to believe that a creator would make a universe that is overwhelmingly complex, when engineers on earth would strive for a simpler design, which lacks unnesecary complications.

Also, as an example of a similar argument- any person could say that biological systems are extraordinarily complicated, and that evolution has guided us to too perfect a place to have not been guided by a creator, but that idea alone does not give any credence to their claim, and in no way should a person believe it to be true if no evidence points towards it.

To say that the universe is complicated is also a presumptuous remark, complicated too whom? What if there were a species in our galaxy who possesed an intellect which put ours to shame, what if they proposed that the universe was so simple and elegant a concept that it must have a creator. This would give no credence to their remark, as the designs simplicity would just be their view on the matter.

eurgh fuck this... its only possible to have debates such as this in person......im faaaaaaaaaaaar to lazy and apathetic to read through all that tripe..

Ok, I see where you're coming from. I think the thing of it is that people are kinds caught up in the thinking like what you've seen above, jumping to assuming any thoughts of the sort would seem to imply religious extremism.

But I always wondered if it has something to do with how mysterious our own consciousness still is. That somewhere in the primordial stew, some matter began to understand itself and thus took up the role of "designer" in a way. Jurassic park moment, "life will find a way." lawl. Cant believe I quoted that

ChunkyBongo,I personally belive that you are right.Thank you for your valid argument against Atheism.

believing in a god or something equal has always helped people to explain things they could not understand. most of this stuff is related to physics (fire, water, the moon, the sun, nature at all, things like that).

if you clearly have better answers, more reliable answers, than a religion to questions like "why does the sun go up and down" and u can understand the answer rather than BELIEF IN the answer why should u belief in god.

moreover believing in god has nothing to do with believing in a religion. religions imho have just been "Invented" be people to empower themselves and to control others. if u think about that u'll see that Im right.

i dont want this post to become endless as the topic would intend but all in all its better to not belief in something than beeing for example a catholic/ protestant and not follow the ten commandments.

Yeah, I guess it was kind of circular. I just don't understand what kind of proof would be needed to show whether the universe had a designer or not, and how we would go about studying such a designer. No matter how complex things like quantum mechanics are, I still don't see how that can be used as proof that they didn't arise naturally.

Also, science really doesn't allow for supernatural theories, which is generally why intelligent design isn't taken seriously. Theories have to be falsifiable and such, and no one as yet has figured out a way to prove that, for example, life was not designed to look exactly as if it had evolved.

Science and religion are not opposed to each other. Scientists are not actively against religion. Science says how the natural world works, religion, how the supernatural one does.

Nothing we can find scientifically can be used as proof for or against any kind of supernatural deity, who would be by definition outside our universe.

To answer the actual question, I'm not really sure why theoretical physicists tend to be atheists. Maybe atheists are drawn to the profession more than religious people. If they believe that this universe is all there is, then maybe they would want to study it more.

I fail to see your parallel between the idea of an intelligence other than/greater than that of Homo Sapiens and 'Fairytale theories.' That's not scientific thinking on your part at all.

Scientific method takes proposals/hypotheses that are plausible and empirically tests them to either prove or disprove them, without any kind of prejudice other than variables within the experiment and what the experiment suggests.

In Charles Darwin's day, they knew nothing of the cytoplasm of a cell, much less about quantum mechanics (which I suspect you aren't especially familiar with yourself).

More and more highly respected researchers at top institutions are coming out and openly stating that with our current knowledge of life and the nature of physics, it is statistically IMPOSSIBLE for an underlying 'intelligence' to be ruled out, as the current trend among scientists has been ever since Darwin.

As to the nature of what this 'intelligence' itself may be, that is another line of questioning altogether...

Why do so many philosophers think they know everything when majoring in that in the first place only guarantees unemployment??

You make some good points. To be honest, society today is governed by sociological pressures as it has been for all of recorded history . Theoretical physicists are not immune to these forces. Since the dawning of the age of enlightenment, the concept of God has increasingly been ridiculed. Some of the ridicule was well deserved, but the norm still stands today. Scientists are in an ongoing battle against the forces of faith. It is their job to rigorously hold hypothesis up to the glaring light of proof. This at it's core is contrary to religion that operates on articles of faith. To scientists, such an approach is lazy and they will be the last to give credibility to an institution they have been fighting for hundreds of years. This struggle has given rise to the social pressures of others in their field to discount religion as well. We see this every day in science. Today we find many subjects in science taboo. Take global warming. It has become professional suicide to question the notion that human activity is causing climate change. Scientists know better than to be caught up in that politically charged debate so honest challenges will never be seriously be considered. Then there was the book, The Bell Curve that postulated there are genetic differences between people of color and whites. The authors were castigated and black-balled even before their theories could be peer reviewed. I remember in the 70's all the sociologists claimed children of divorced parents do as well or even better than those of intact homes, obviously not wanting to challenge the progressive ideas of the sexual revolution even though there was mountains of evidence that these children were being harmed. It wasn't until the post Regan era that these ideas began to see the light of day. Take also the UFO phenomena. There are volumes of credible evidence that they exist and the evidence is overwhelming, but nobody in the scientific community will touch this with a 10 foot pole for fear of ridicule. Scientists are just like everyone else. They want to be taken seriously and admired. They are reluctant to do anything to be labeled as "that guy". Therefore, even though there is ample evidence of intelligent design, few if any in the community are willing to be an outsider and challenge their colleagues. They have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Understanding that allows you as a citizen to put scientific research in it's proper place and understand that it is not the pristine establishment they would lead you to believe. It, like politics is driven and heavily influenced by the dominant society. Unfortunately that leaves us holding the bag. We cannot look to scientists for truth, only their opinion colored by the forces that write their checks.