Richard Feynman — "I don't believe in God. I don't believe in anything. I'm a scientist."
I don't believe in God. I don't believe in anything. I'm a scientist.
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More from Richard Feynman
"I don't like to be called 'Professor Feynman.' I like to be called 'Dick.'"
"I was never a very good student, and I always had trouble with math. I was always in the bottom of the class in math."
"Yeah, I took the door."
"Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there."
"I was brought up to believe that the only way to really understand something is to build it."
About Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
American theoretical physicist who shared the 1965 Nobel for QED, developed Feynman diagrams, and wrote the Feynman Lectures on Physics. Closely associated with Julian Schwinger (co-Nobelist for QED) and Murray Gell-Mann (Caltech rival and Eightfold-Way physicist). For an intellectual contrast, see Deepak Chopra, physician and quantum-mysticism author — Feynman's Caltech 'cargo cult science' commencement address is the precise template for what he saw as misuse of physics terminology — Chopra-style appropriation of quantum vocabulary for metaphysical claims is the canonical example of what Feynman called 'fooling yourself'.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
This quote expresses radical empiricism — belief should be reserved only for what can be tested and verified. Feynman is saying science requires suspending judgment where evidence is absent. It's not nihilism but intellectual honesty: a scientist's job is to question everything, including metaphysical claims. The statement rejects faith-based reasoning in favor of evidence-based inquiry, placing doubt itself as the foundation of scientific thinking.
Relevance to Richard Feynman
Feynman won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for developing quantum electrodynamics, the theory describing how light and matter interact at the subatomic level. Renowned for radical intellectual honesty, he championed genuine understanding over authority. During the Challenger disaster investigation, he defied NASA's institutional consensus to demonstrate the O-ring failure himself — embodying the exact principled skepticism this quote declares as his scientific identity.
The era
Feynman lived from 1918 to 1988, spanning the Manhattan Project, Cold War nuclear anxiety, and the space age. Mid-20th-century science achieved unprecedented power — splitting atoms, sending humans to the moon — while organized religion retained strong cultural authority. Public intellectuals increasingly debated science versus faith openly. Feynman's generation of physicists also carried moral weight after Hiroshima, making this defiant secular stance both timely and culturally provocative.
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