Hawking says there are no gods

[Skeptic Ginger]

Since anyone can just define god so as to be unobservable (either all the time or only when anyone is looking) the question "Does god exist?" is stupid.
No person in their right mind would insist that [insert fictional character] is real since no concrete evidence fan be found for it's non existence.


But there is a question I think science can answer:

Why do god(s) exist?

Two options:

1. They are real - Since proving the non-existence of a god is impossible and all evidence for it's existence has been negative I'll let you reach your own conclusion on this option (just make it rational ).
2. They are made up - This one has been conclusively answered. Seeking to explain the functioning of the natural world is part and parcel of human nature. Giving these explanations agency, is also part and parcel of human nature. We are social animals, that is how we instinctively interpret the world. We constantly perceive agency, even in inanimate objects we know possess none.

Given the above, in my mind there is only one rational explanation.

Very good except I take issue with 'exist' in your post. However, we are mostly on the same page.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Rousseau believed in God; Descartes believed in God; Newton believed in God; Antony Flew believed in God and so on.

I have not ever seen any scientific experiment that shows that they are wrong. I have philosophical reasons to think they are wrong. Dawkins has philosophical reasons, Russell had philosophical reasons; Sam Harris has philosophical reasons... Perhaps you know an article that shows that God doesn't exist published in a peer reviewed scientific journal. It would be a great surprise.

Your link doesn't work.

Again, you're just not looking in the right place.

As for great minds from the past, really, that's what you are going with?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Is killing someone wrong? What is the scientific basis for your answer?

It's the way most brains are hardwired, evolving over the hundreds of thousands of years. We've been evolving because non-murderers are more likely to reproduce. Not all genetic murder genes have been purged from the human population and the brain sees going to war differently from murder.

And nurture can muck with the wires.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That doesn't sound very scientific: prove a thing exists before we devise an experiment to prove it exists. You're relying on the unprovability of deity, which is what you're arguing against .

Nice cherry picking.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not really, it's simple saying "show us the evidence ". If someone tells me they have a way of predicting the lottery I'll say "show me the evidence" before I believe them it's the same for the gods the religious folk believe in. Once the evidence is shown then we have something to discuss but until the evidence is presented we have nothing to discuss. Don't forget many of the religious do believe they have evidence and are usually more than willing to share that evidence.

And you don't need to prove they can't predict the lottery just because someone said they can.

 

[Roboramma]

From *my* limited understanding about physics, I have to say : Is any of this, about time and everything, actually true?

Can you be a little more specific about what you mean by "any of this, about time and everything"?

We have a very good cosmological model, the big bang, which predicts, for instance, the proportions of hydrogen to helium (and other elements) in the universe, and that prediction has been shown to be very accurate.

There were some issues with it, for instance the smoothness of the universe from regions that were outside of each other's light cone and thus didn't have time to interact. Inflation has given us a good explanation that can deal with some of those problems.

Based on our current understanding it's possible to build consistent models in which there is no time before the big bang. But there are other models, also consistent with what we know, in which there is a time before the big bang.

The real issue is that we don't yet have a theory of quantum gravity (though there is a lot of work being done and real interesting breakthroughs being made), and our current theories simply break down at t=0. We need better theories to get beyond our current understanding.

So, we know a lot about cosmology, but there is a lot that we don't know, and this includes whether or not the question "what happened before t=0" is a meaningful question. It's entirely possible that it's not, but it's also possible that it is, based on current physics and cosmology.

This is cosmology, the exact inverse of QM (at least in terms of magnitude). Is it actually supposed to provide explanations, as far as time for instance, or is this also only about math and predictions (but not explanations as such)?

Physics and cosmology can provide answers to specific questions. Whether or not those are "explanations" is a more philosophical question, I suppose.

QM certainly does apply to cosmology by the way. For instance the slight density variations that became galaxies were originally quantum fluctuations.

 

[qayak]

And what does philosophy have to do with blow up dolls???
Remember no emotions. No - I don't like philosophy.
Without any emotions what does philosophy have to do with blow up dolls???

Nothing, why do you think it does?

I'm pretty sure your confusion would be alleviated if you were to put your emotions back in your purse and reread my post to get a full understanding.

 

[qayak]

Come off it! It's the first statement of yours in the post I quoted: "The universe didn't have a creator so . . . ".

Yes, but that wasn't an assumption as you claimed it was. It is a conclusion based on a set of facts.

Hawking started off with a similar premise: "I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science,"

And he didn't assume there was no god that set the universe in motion, either. He can to a conclusion based on facts.

That seems to be more your problem. Even if I assume that you understand quantum mechanics, you are still unaware of the limitations of our current scientific knowledge.

I do not understand QM, no one really does. Hawking's argument isn't based on QM, and to be fair I am just agreeing with his conclusion based on those facts. There is no time in a singularity, before the Big Bang there was only a singularity, therefore there was no time before the singularity. Gods do not exist because there was no time for them to exist in. Nothing we know, or think we know, existed.

 

[ynot]

Whatever is "out" there or "in" us exists whether we believe it or not. Until we can reach our toes as infants we are unaware that we have toes.

Yep. Getting to know what reality is by exploring reality is far better than merely believing fantasies of reality.

 

[psionl0]

Yep. Brain-wanking for egotistical pleasure.

You have used the term "brain wanking" several times now. Could you please define it?

You make thinking sound somehow dirty.

 

[psionl0]

Yes, but that wasn't an assumption as you claimed it was. It is a conclusion based on a set of facts.

No, it is a conclusion based on a set of assumptions one of which is that there are no gods.

In "A Brief History of Time" Hawking pointed out that General Relativity can't be applied to a singularity. However, QM formulas are Newtonian based so they can't predict the things that GR does. (For example, QM can't predict the "spin" of an electron without applying some relativistic corrections). He appears to have cherry picked aspects of different theories to come up with his conclusion. This means that he would have to have started with the premise that there is no god to do so.

 

[ynot]

You have used the term "brain wanking" several times now. Could you please define it?

You make thinking sound somehow dirty.

Philosophy is akin to clitical thinking (cunninglinguist)

 

[ynot]

No, it is a conclusion based on a set of assumptions one of which is that there are no gods.

"There IS a god" requires proof that there IS one.

"There IS NO god" is a default position awaiting contradictory proof.

"There MIGHT be a god" doesn't prove "There IS one".

Can you see how that works?

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

You see? If this is the amount of arguing and nitpicking over the subject of "God" and whether or not one can disprove it that's happening amongst atheists, and we don't seem to get anywhere; imagine how unlikely it will be to reach a verdict when this same tireless back and forth philosophical-semantic arguing takes place between an Atheist and a Theist.

It's amazing how powerful the subject of God is. It's like, here's this word that's pretty much meaningless. It can basically mean anything we want it to mean. And thus, a whole Universe of arguing in circles for eternity opens up for us humans.

 

[ynot]

You see? If this is the amount of arguing and nitpicking over the subject of "God" and whether or not one can disprove it that's happening amongst atheists, and we don't seem to get anywhere; imagine how unlikely it will be to reach a verdict when this same tireless back and forth philosophical-semantic arguing takes place between an Atheist and a Theist.

Provide a list of participating theist members and a list of participating atheist members. Don't know why you seem to think all participating members are atheists.

 

[Chanakya]

Can you be a little more specific

Well, take time. Both cosmology and relativity speak of time in ways that are counter-intuitive and, frankly, beyond my comprehension. Like time stopping or starting, for instance. It is my understanding that QM theories merely describe the math. They make accurate predictions, so they are 'right': but they do not purport to make sense as explanations. At least that is what the Copenhagen Interpretation apparently says. I was wondering if that same non-explanation idea might apply to these weird theories about time in cosmology, for instance.

our current theories simply break down at t=0. We need better theories

That kind of answers my question. You're saying, time doesn't actually stop (or begin), we just don't know what happens beyond these limits. Right?

QM certainly does apply to cosmology by the way.

Yeah, back when everything was tiny. I get that. So, for t=0, only math, and not "explanation"?

 

[Chanakya]

So that, in plain language : It is not right to say, as many do, that time began with the Big Bang. More correct to say we don't know what happened before that, that's all.

Is that correct?

 

[psionl0]

"There IS a god" requires proof that there IS one.

"There IS NO god" is a default position awaiting contradictory proof.

"There MIGHT be a god" doesn't prove "There IS one".

Can you see how that works?

That may be true from a philosophical point of view. It is a long way from saying that there is scientific proof that there is no god.

 

[psionl0]

So that, in plain language : It is not right to say, as many do, that time began with the Big Bang. More correct to say we don't know what happened before that, that's all.

Is that correct?

I would go further. We don't have a model of the big bang so we don't even know if time began at that point (nor how many other dimensions came to exist at that event).

 

[Chanakya]

Actually, ynot and psion10, re. that last exchange of yours : I don't think that's quite right. I may be wrong here, but far as I see, 'there's no God' is NOT the default. Not in general.

It's just that, when you set out to prove that there's a God, then -- and only then -- your null hypothesis would be no God.

True, negatives can't be proved. But that doesn't take away the burden of proof. It only means you mustn't claim what you can't prove.

Hence soft atheism, generally speaking.