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Chapter 11 - Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

Answering the Biggest Question of Them All

from Part II - Homo Religiosus: Reflections on God and Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2020

Michael Shermer
Affiliation:
Chapman University, California
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Summary

This article grew out of my February 2017 Scientific American column titled “Imagine No Universe,” eventually expanding into a feature-length cover story for Skeptic, necessarily an order of magnitude longer to nuance the many possible answers to the question. As readers will discover, far from a famine of scientific and philosophic answers to the question, we have a veritable feast to dine on. Which will turn out to be more or less supported by empirical research in both particle physics and cosmology remains to be seen – and it could be many decades to a century before we have a solid grasp of the problem – but do not succumb to the theists’ transcendental temptation to evoke God as an answer in the teeth of so many elegant explanations already on our plate.

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Chapter
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Giving the Devil his Due
Reflections of a Scientific Humanist
, pp. 110 - 126
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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