According to Helge Kragh, "There can be little doubt that the discussions among Hoyle, Gold, and Bondi, which led to a tentative formulation of the steady-state theory in 1947, were colored negatively by the views expounded by Whittaker, Milne, and other religious scientists. The three steady-state pioneers were atheists and either hostile or indifferent to organized religion ... Although the motives behind the steady-state moder were not ... antireligious, it must surely have added to their satisfaction that it was possible to design a universe in which there allegedly was no room for a Creator." Helge Kragh, Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Universe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 253.