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Address at the Conference on Cosmic Design, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C. (April 1999) <br class="br">This comment is modified in a later article derived from these talks:<br>:Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham. Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.<br>:* "A Designer Universe?" at PhysLink.com http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm

“There is one constant that seems to be fine tuned…and that is dark energy.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

The Atheism Tapes (2004)
Context: There is one constant that seems to be fine tuned... and that is dark energy.

“Putting God ahead of humanity is a terrible thing.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

The Atheism Tapes (2004)
Context: Many people do simply awful things out of sincere religious belief, not using religion as a cover the way that Saddam Hussein may have done, but really because they believe that this is what God wants them to do, going all the way back to Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac because God told him to do that. Putting God ahead of humanity is a terrible thing.

“Now I realise that many people don't believe in that any more who call themselves Muslims or Jews or Christians, but that is the traditional God and he's a terrible character. I don't like him.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

The Atheism Tapes (2004)
Context: Maybe at the very bottom of it... I really don't like God. You know, it's silly to say I don't like God because I don't believe in God, but in the same sense that I don't like Iago, or the Reverend Slope or any of the other villains of literature, the god of traditional Judaism and Christianity and Islam seems to me a terrible character. He's a god who will... who obsessed the degree to which people worship him and anxious to punish with the most awful torments those who don't worship him in the right way. Now I realise that many people don't believe in that any more who call themselves Muslims or Jews or Christians, but that is the traditional God and he's a terrible character. I don't like him.

“It is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

The Atheism Tapes (2004)
Context: I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it... and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.

“Maybe at the very bottom of it… I really don't like God.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist