# Do any physicists actually believe in God? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 8, 2003, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788 "2003-12-08T23:42:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/21 "2003-12-09T13:53:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Indefatigable \* > \*\*I know lots of scientists who are religious, physicists and cosmologists included. The nature of scientific logic is that you can’t disprove things, you can only prove them. \*\* 1) Proving something IS disproving something. 2) Science neither proves nor disproves. Sheesh. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/22 "2003-12-09T13:59:25Z")
A creationist biology major!?! That’s like a chemistry major who doesn’t believe in the existence of atoms! ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/23 "2003-12-09T14:08:07Z")
Conducting a straw poll of the other 8 people in my office (all astrophysicists) - most don’t believe in God. I do. I have my justifications, my reasonings, and I can reconcile my beliefs with what I do. ---
**Author:** ![OldBroad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ed655f/32.png) [@OldBroad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldBroad)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/24 "2003-12-09T15:10:50Z")
I’ve heard Stephen Hawking refer to God. ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/25 "2003-12-09T15:21:41Z")
Stephen Hawking is an agnostic/atheist. In my experince (though not huge, I have been a student at two different university physics departments in the UK - long story), some are religious (with there being no real bias towards any particular religion), but most aren’t religious in any way at all. ---
**Author:** ![yoyo3500](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/5daacb/32.png) [@yoyo3500](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyo3500)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/26 "2003-12-09T15:35:03Z")
There is a book called Genesis and the Big Bang: The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and the Bible by Dr. Gerald Schroeder, who has a PhD in Applied Physics from MIT. While I think the book isn’t flawless, it is interesting how he reconciles the six days of creation with a much older universe (older than the mainstream science world holds today!). Hope this adds to the content of this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![JS\_Princeton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JS\_Princeton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JS_Princeton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/27 "2003-12-09T15:39:08Z")
What is clear is that very few physicists (even of those who believe in God) are of the ilk to subscribe to religions that are fundamentalist in tenor or design, if not specifically in doctrine. While there are physicists I know who are Roman Catholics, for example, they launch into extreme apologetics trying to explain such concepts as the “resurrection of the body” that would make most theologians blush. In effect, if they were to be tried in a magesterium court, I think most physicists who claimed to “belong” to major religion would be found to be in error with regards to discussions of the way a “God” would interact with the physical universe. That’s just my WAG, though. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/28 "2003-12-09T15:45:24Z")
My physics “teaching assistant” in physics 101 (well, actually, it was physics 5, but nevermind) told us that he believes that there is a God, and that God said: “Let there be The Big Bang”. 'Course that was 20 years ago. I’m a computer geek myself, so that’s about as far as my knowledge of physicists’ beliefs goes… ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/29 "2003-12-09T15:54:01Z")
Xavier, you’re asking several different questions, and you don’t seem to realize that they are different questions. You first ask: \> Do any physicists actually believe in God? Yes, there are some physicists who believe in God. You also ask a completely different question: \> I just wanted to know whether the majority rule it out, out of \> hand. I don’t know what the majority believe. It would take a carefully done survey of the field to find out, and I suspect that most physicists would refuse to answer any such survey. They would consider their religious beliefs to be irrelevant to their work. You also ask a third question, which is again completely different from either of the first two: \> And whether any physicists have seriously argued for some \> acceptance of the possibility. What, in an ordinary article in a physics journal? I suspect that any such article would be summarily rejected for publication. The opinion of nearly all physicists, regardless of whether they believe in God or not, is that injecting religious debates into ordinary physics research is illegitimate. Nearly all physicists would say that if the truth of some physical statement depends on the existence or nonexistence of God, then it’s not acceptable physics. If the existence or nonexistence of God were to be an axiom in a physical theory, then there would be no possible way to get all physicists to agree about the truth of the theory. There’s a fourth question, which is whether physicists sometimes speculate whether what we presently know about the physical state of the universe proves or disproves the existence of God. Some do and some don’t. Most physicists probably would say that they can’t deduce anything about the existence or the qualities of God from their knowledge of physics. Indeed, most of them are probably bored by discussions of religious issues and would characterize anyone who tries to inject any religious issues into physics as somewhat of a tiresome crank. A few physicists believe that they can deduce the existence of God and the qualities of God from their knowledge of physics. A few physicists believe that they can deduce the nonexistence of God from their knowldege of physics. Neither of these last two groups would ever discuss their beliefs in an ordinary physics article, although some might discuss them in a popular book on physics with some philosophical pretensions. ---
**Author:** ![myles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@myles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myles)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/30 "2003-12-09T17:25:09Z")
"Their “god”, he says, is really just “an abstract principle of order and harmony”, a set of mathematical equations. Weinberg questions then why they use the word “god” at all. He makes the rather profound point that “if language is to be of any use to us, then we ought to try and preserve the meaning of words, and ‘god’ historically has not meant the laws of nature.” from Stephen Hawking’s God [http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/intro/cosmohaw-frame.html](http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/intro/cosmohaw-frame.html) ---
**Author:** ![Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/2bfe46/32.png) [@Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xavier)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/31 "2003-12-09T17:27:03Z")
> [@](#): > > **Wendell Wagner** : Xavier, you’re asking several different questions, and you don’t seem to realize that they are different questions. You first ask: > > \> Do any physicists actually believe in God? > > Yes, there are some physicists who believe in God. I think you have misunderstood what I was talking about. I admit the title of the OP was misleading - it was meant to draw in more than describe. But if you read the OP thoroughly, you’ll realize that I’m not really asking about physicists “beliefs” (i.e. to what religion or tenets of life they adhere to), moreover I was trying to ascertain whether or not they attempt to “describe” the notion of a god in any sense pertaining to thier understanding of physics. In other words, do they make any _assumptions_ or not? I think here I am to appreciate **Chronos** answer best - the question is beyond the scope of physics and therefore they do not make any assumptions one way or the other. Seems simple enough - but for some reason my appetite for this never seems to dwindle. Maybe I’m a crank myself. ---
**Author:** ![Big\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e4f/32.png) [@Big\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_G)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/32 "2003-12-09T17:39:07Z")
Another example: “Modern Physics and Ancient Faith” by Dr. Stephen Barr, a particle physicist at the University of Delaware (Go Blue Hens!). I’ve not read it, so I can’t vouch for his arguments, but he discusses reconciling modern discoveries with the idea of a Creator God. G ---
**Author:** ![John\_Zahn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@John\_Zahn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Zahn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/33 "2003-12-09T18:20:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bbeaty \* > \*\*Didn’t New Scientist magazine do some kind of recent poll of physics workers? I recall that the results were fairly high, like 1/3 of the people responding said that they were religious. (But was that physicists? Or physical scientists including bio/chem etc.?) > > I recall that the CSICOP site had an article about this topic, and they found that the least religious scientists were the psychologists, not the physicists. \*\* It was probably a result of this article: [Leading Scientists still Reject God.](http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/sci_relig.htm) JZ ---
**Author:** ![Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/2bfe46/32.png) [@Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xavier)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/34 "2003-12-09T18:44:03Z")
> [@](#): > > **Ranchoth** : The OP specifies “God,” i.e. The Judeo-Christian deity, “God.” (Aka Yahweh, aka Jehovah) Ummmmmmmmmmm. This makes me cringe a little. I would rather that people didn’t directly think of it as “Judeo-Christian” (i.e. the belief-system of a particular type of faith), moreover the notion of a supreme being or _thing_ (for want of a better word). Of course there will be physicists that adhere to a particular faith or set of belief systems (I don’t even begin to dispute that), but that’s really not the issue here. ---
**Author:** ![CADOp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5e925/32.png) [@CADOp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CADOp)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/35 "2003-12-09T19:54:01Z")
> [@](#): > > Neither of these last two groups would ever discuss their beliefs in an ordinary physics article, although some might discuss them in a popular book on physics with some philosophical pretensions. Heh, was that a jibe at Hawking, by any chance? You make a good point. There’s a fair number of physicists who lean one way or the other, but even when they do, they typically like to keep it out of their official work. Books, on the other hand, are a different story. Hawking has a lengthy discussion in one of his books about the strong and weak anthropic principle and how it pertains to the possiblity of God. His argument is basically that it’s possible that the universe is kind of like a 5 (or more)-dimensional sphere that has no need for a moment of creation, but only an “arrow of time”. Having no need to be created, it has no need of a creator, either. He then presents several weak anthropic arguments\* to explain why there should be an arrow of time. You can tell he leans towards the atheistic side, but he still gives it a reaonsably fair treatment. He ultimately concludes that even if you can dream up a finite universe that has no beginning or end, that you can never really explain why such a universe exists at all, or why it should just happen to be arranged in such a way that it was finite but boundless. He’s very up-front about not wanting to use the strong anthropic principle at all, and that he’s somewhat ambivalent about using the weak form either, because both are somewhat theistic. I’d put him in the category of an agnostic who would like to be an atheist some day if it doesn’t involve too much of a logical stretch. He describes himself as a positivist, which is more or less just another way of saying utilitarian. \*In case you’re wondering, the anthropic principle goes a little like this: The universe is full of many constants like the strength of the gravitational, electromagnetic, and nuclear forces, the rate of expansion of the very early universe, even the distance of the earth to the sun, all of which fit within an infinitessimal range of values that allows for _any_ imaginable kind of life to exist, and within an even smaller range of values that allows human life to exist. The strong form of the argument is that the conditions of the universe _must_ allow for life. The weak form of the anthropic principle states that the universe could have any condition, but the only universe we can observe is the one we’re in, which obviously has to have met those conditions or else we wouldn’t be here observing it. The anthropic principle extends to more than just the value of universal constants. It also pertains to things like the distance of the earth to the sun, the size and age of the sun, the location of the solar system within our galaxy, etc. The vast majority of planets are probably completely unsuitable for organic life for one reason or another. ---
**Author:** ![SlowMindThinking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@SlowMindThinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlowMindThinking)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/36 "2003-12-09T21:08:38Z")
I read an article once describing the results of a study of religious beliefs and physicists. I believe it was in Physics Today, which is the monthly mag put out by either the American Physical Society or the American Institute of Physics - I can never keep them straight. (One is the umbrella org for the other, I think.) At any rate, something like 90% of physicists do not believe in any sort of god. Period. Less than 5% believe in anything resembling a Judeo-Christian-Muslim God. The percentages get more extreme at the AAAS level, which is the best of the best. Interestingly, around the 1900’s, most physicists believed in some sort of god. Most biologists did not. Since then, things have reversed. While I was in graduate school (physics), admitting a belief in God was akin to admitting you couldn’t drive a car - occassionally there were understandable reasons but mostly you were admitting you were an idiot. Most physicists, however, were willing to cede, when pressed, that of course physics can not answer the ultimate “why”: “Why is there anything at all?” (And to be honest, I’ve always thought the Copenhagen interpretation of QM implies the existence of a God-like being, else nothing actually exists, but what this physicist believes is another story.) Chronos’ statement is the logical conclusion of these discussions, and has become the standard answer. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/37 "2003-12-10T01:00:22Z")
Xavier writes: \> But if you read the OP thoroughly . . . I read the OP thoroughly, and it was clear to me that you were trying to ask several questions simultaneously and that you didn’t understand the difference between those questions. \> . . . I was trying to ascertain whether or not they attempt \> to “describe” the notion of a god in any sense pertaining to \> thier understanding of physics. This is another question, and it’s again completely different from the questions that you asked in the OP. What would it even mean to “describe the notion of a god” in some way relevant to physics? Do you mean whether they try to ascertain the physical characteristics of God? What is God’s density, his viscosity, his electrical charge, his velocity, etc.? What relevance do any of the standard questions and techniques of physics have to any of the standard questions about God? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/38 "2003-12-10T01:10:05Z")
CADOp writes: \> Heh, was that a jibe at Hawking, by any chance? Not particularly. Pontificating about the religious and philosophical implications of physics is a pretty standard element of certain sorts of popular, somewhat discursive books written by physicists for general audiences. The problem is that the discussions of religious and philosophical issues in those books are mostly worthless. A physicist is no more qualified to write about the philosophical implications of physics than is anyone else who has a general understanding of the ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/39 "2003-12-10T01:17:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Xavier \* > \*\*Ummmmmmmmmmm. This makes me cringe a little. I would rather that people didn’t directly think of it as “Judeo-Christian” (i.e. the belief-system of a particular type of faith), moreover the notion of a supreme being or _thing_ (for want of a better word). Of course there will be physicists that adhere to a particular faith or set of belief systems (I don’t even begin to dispute that), but that’s really not the issue here. \*\* What do you mean? You asked if there are any physicists who believed in a supreme being commonly known as “God.” I noted the possibility that there could be some physicists who _are_ religious, but who _don’t_ believe in a single, supreme, “God.” ---
**Author:** ![Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/2bfe46/32.png) [@Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xavier)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788/40 "2003-12-10T20:25:02Z")
> [@](#): > > **Wendell Wagner** : I read the OP thoroughly, and it was clear to me that you were trying to ask several questions simultaneously and that you didn’t understand the difference between those questions. In your post, you quoted me with: > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by **Xavier** _: > > \> Do any physicists actually believe in God? To which your reply was: > [@](#): > > Xavier, you’re asking several different questions, and you don’t seem to realize that they are different questions… > > Yes, there are some physicists who believe in God. In my second post, I answered you with: > [@](#): > > I admit the title of the OP was misleading - it was meant to draw in more than describe. But if you read the OP thoroughly, you’ll realize that I’m not really asking about physicists “beliefs” (i.e. to what religion or tenets of life they adhere to), moreover I was trying to ascertain whether or not they attempt to “describe” the notion of a god in any sense pertaining to thier understanding of physics. In other words, do they make any assumptions or not? Thus, your answer of “Yes, there are some physicists who believe in God” is not relevant. It answers the title of the OP, which I admit was _misleading_ (read post), but not the OP itself. So that in and of itself was not actually a question. In the OP I attempted to establish this when I said: > [@](#): > > I know that a lot of people will say, **“well, belief is belief and no-one is going to ridicule them”**. Okay fine. But I mean do any physicists ever seriously take into consideration the possibility that there may actually be a God, some sort of being or thing that governs and/or creates the laws of nature? > > **Aside from beliefs I mean**. Actual skeptical analysis (or somewhat “rational” thinking) where they would admit to the possibility of it? Emphasis mine. So that’s why I said you had misunderstood my post, and not read it carefully. If you were not sure about this you had only to ask. > [@](#): > > **Wendell Wagner** : This is another question, and it’s again completely different from the questions that you asked in the OP. What would it even mean to “describe the notion of a god” in some way relevant to physics? I thought that this question was implied throughout the entire OP. It may of not been expressed to your liking, but once again, if you were murky on this subject, you had only to ask. From my OP: > [@](#): > > Aside from beliefs I mean. Actual skeptical analysis (or somewhat “rational” thinking) where they would admit to the possibility of it? I’m curious to know, what exactly did that mean to you? If it was not pertaining to physics, why the heck would I be using physicists? I mean I did say: > [@](#): > > I use physicists because they are the guys that study nature at the most fundamental level. So now let’s take it altogether. Excluding thier personal beliefs. Only taking into account the skeptical analysis given thier depth of knowledge in physics, would they ever consider the _possibility_ of the existence of God? Let’s be crazy for a second and say that they would. Then its not hard to see the small stretch we have to make; would they be able to _describe_ this “God” with relevance to thier understanding of physics? Of course then you ask: > [@](#): > > What relevance do any of the standard questions and techniques of physics have to any of the standard questions about God? Which comes back to **Chronos** point itself. The damn thing’s beyond physics. The physics community makes no assumptions about it one way or the other. It doesn’t satisfy me (lust for power and all that) but it’s the sensible answer. Incidentally, you keep saying, > [@](#): > > it was clear to me that you were trying to ask several questions simultaneously and that you didn’t understand the difference between those questions. The post should be read as a whole, not in pieces. Yes I did not split the question(s) into groupings as I did not really feel the need to, but I assure you I fully understand what I was asking for. For example, I realize I was moving from the assumptions made by the physics community in general, to those individual physicists who have attempted to argue for the existence of a god in physical terms. But I trusted everyone to be able to identify this, and so I didn’t think it a problem. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-physicists-actually-believe-in-god/217788.md?page=3)