“Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.”

—  Isaac Newton

As quoted in Isaac Newton: Inventor, Scientist, and Teacher (1975) by John Hudson Tiner. "Atheism is so senseless" is a statement Newton made indeed in "A short Schem of the true Religion", but no source for the rest of this statement has been located prior to 1975. Part of this statement might originate as a summation of observations by Colin Maclaurin in his An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries (1750), Book III, Ch. 5 http://books.google.com.au/books?id=yS1PAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA307#q=%22wisdom%20of%20the%20author%22: "On the quantity of watter and density of the sun and planets" : "… the earth … those planets which are nearer the sun are found to be more dense, by which they are enabled to bear the greater heat of the sun. This is the result of our most subtle enquiries into nature, that all things are in the best situations, and disposed by perfect wisdom. If our earth was carried down into the orb of Mercury, our ocean would boil and soon be dissipated into vapour, and dry land would become uninhabitable. If the earth was carried to the orb of Saturn, the ocean would freeze at so great a distance from the sun, and the cold would soon put a period to the life of plants and animals. A much less variation of the earth's distance from the sun than this would depopulate the torrid zone if the earth came nearer the sun, and the temperate zones, if it was carried from the sun. A less heat at Jupiter's distance … might be as fatal … proves on every occasion, the wisdom of the author."
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British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern c… 1643–1727

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