Hawking says there are no gods

[Chanakya]

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).

Makes sense.

More broadly, my point was, or at least, my question was : It doesn't make sense to say things like "time began" at all.

 

[Cheetah]

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

I think not the "exist" so much as the "god(s)" in "Why do god(s) exist?". It should have been "the concept of god(s)".

 

[Cheetah]

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.

I have to disagree with you here.


We have also evolved to lie, cheat and steal as much as we have to be altruistic and cooperative.
Science can describe how tribes who cooperate better, are more altruistic and have fewer murders within the tribe are more successful.

Science can also describe how fiercer more violent and warlike tribes who murder more other tribes and steal their woman are more successful.


Everything we do, all of human nature, good and bad has evolved to give us a survival advantage.


We have to decide ourselves which evolved traits are "good" and "bad" in which situations, because evolutionarily speaking, they are all good.

 

[ynot]

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.

A default position that there is no god is a logical "starting position" that has nothing to do with proof, other than it's awaiting contrary proof. The onus of providing that proof is uniquely on those claiming "There is a god".

 

[psionl0]

A default position that there is no god is a logical "starting position" that has nothing to do with proof, other than it's awaiting contrary proof. The onus of providing that proof is uniquely on those claiming "There is a god".

Again with the philosophy.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think not the "exist" so much as the "god(s)" in "Why do god(s) exist?". It should have been "the concept of god(s)".

Yeah, there you go, settling on the same page.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I have to disagree with you here.

We have also evolved to lie, cheat and steal as much as we have to be altruistic and cooperative.
Science can describe how tribes who cooperate better, are more altruistic and have fewer murders within the tribe are more successful.

Science can also describe how fiercer more violent and warlike tribes who murder more other tribes and steal their woman are more successful.

Everything we do, all of human nature, good and bad has evolved to give us a survival advantage.

We have to decide ourselves which evolved traits are "good" and "bad" in which situations, because evolutionarily speaking, they are all good.

I'm not sure I get your issues here.

Regardless of all the human behaviors here, they are nature/nurture determined. Sitting around contemplating philosophy doesn't add anything to that discussion that biology doesn't more accurately address. IMO, of course.

 

[psionl0]

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.

I can only assume that you are referring to the "reductio ad absurdum" process. This is where you show that if your proposition is not true then it logically leads to contradictory conclusions.

I have never seen "reductio ad absurdum" work either way when it comes to the existence of a god and Hawking didn't start with "suppose there is a god . . . "

 

[Cheetah]

I'm not sure I get your issues here.

Regardless of all the human behaviors here, they are nature/nurture determined. Sitting around contemplating philosophy doesn't add anything to that discussion that biology doesn't more accurately address. IMO, of course.

I'm just saying you cannot equate evolutionary successful behaviour leading to great reproductive success with being good as in your murderer example. It is often absolutely horrible.
You need philosophy to decide between good and bad.


Totally off topic, but isn't lots of the legal system sort of based on philosophy?

 

[Roboramma]

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?

It may have begun at that point.

The quote from Hawking is, I'm assuming, in reference to his model which uses imaginary (as in square root of -1) time to deal with the singularity. Spacetime is curved. The simple way of thinking about it is that if you follow a path back toward the big bang and continue along a locally straight line in that direction, the line will curve such that it's going toward the present again. The analogy to their being nothing north of the north pole is pretty accurate.

So, it could be that this model is correct and "time began" (there some problems with that phrasing) at the big bang. But, as you say, we don't actually know.

From wikipedia:

In physical cosmology, imaginary time may be incorporated into certain models of the universe which are solutions to the equations of general relativity. In particular, imaginary time can help to smooth out gravitational singularities, where known physical laws break down, to remove the singularity and avoid such breakdowns (see Hartle–Hawking state). The Big Bang, for example, appears as a singularity in ordinary time but, when modelled with imaginary time, the singularity can be removed and the Big Bang functions like any other point in four-dimensional spacetime. Any boundary to spacetime is a form of singularity, where the smooth nature of spacetime breaks down. With all such singularities removed from the Universe it thus can have no boundary and Stephen Hawking has speculated that "the boundary condition to the Universe may be that it has no boundary".

However the unproven nature of the relationship between actual physical time and imaginary time incorporated into such models has raised criticisms.

 

[David Mo]

Oh dear, the thread's moving too fast for my allotted forum time. Sorry.

Do you want me to do a literature search on the history of god beliefs?

What evidence best explains god beliefs and what does it say about god beliefs?

Don't worry.I have the same problem.

I am not asking for "literature about beliefs in gods" (this is an issue for ethnology or psychology of religions). I am asking the positivists of this forum to provide scientific literature about gods' existence. Because if you say that science has a positive statement about an issue X it should be reflected in scientific literature.

But as I supposed, nobody is able to cite a single article of scientific literature about gods' existence (not about the beliefs in gods).

This disturbs so much the positivists of this forum that they intend to overlook my objection. They not even try to explain how is possible that a scientific subject has not any article published in a peer reviewed journal.

This shows again that they are not speaking of scienc but --this damned-- philosophy. However much they may resent it.

 

[David Mo]

Religions may be completely wrong about absolutely everything but they are interesting things to study!

I agree! And here science has a lot to say.

 

[David Mo]

That leaves open the possibility that future research might be able to detect more than he could with technological and theoretical advances. I'd hate to be the one to announce an official disproving of gods the day before the god-detector was invented and found some!

I don't know what can be the scientific bases of a "gods detector". Can you give an idea of it? How can work a detector of a "cosmic consciousness"?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Don't worry.I have the same problem.

I am not asking for "literature about beliefs in gods" (this is an issue for ethnology or psychology of religions). I am asking the positivists of this forum to provide scientific literature about gods' existence. Because if you say that science has a positive statement about an issue X it should be reflected in scientific literature.

But as I supposed, nobody is able to cite a single article of scientific literature about gods' existence (not about the beliefs in gods).

This disturbs so much the positivists of this forum that they intend to overlook my objection. They not even try to explain how is possible that a scientific subject has not any article published in a peer reviewed journal.
This shows again that they are not speaking of science but --this damned-- philosophy. However much they may resent it.

I am prepared to be wrong, i.e. to have misunderstood the following quote, so here it goes:

Science doesn't draw conclusions about supernatural explanations.

Do gods exist? Do supernatural entities intervene in human affairs? These questions may be important, but science won't help you answer them. Questions that deal with supernatural explanations are, by definition, beyond the realm of nature — and hence, also beyond the realm of what can be studied by science. For many, such questions are matters of personal faith and spirituality.

https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

As far as I can tell it is from a site manned by scientists and thus is relevant to the OP.
At least one scientist(Hawking) claims it is possible to determine if gods exist or not.
Versus
At least one scientist(the site) claims it is possible to determine if gods exist or not.

To me that is a contradiction. Now no one of the positivists(strong atheists) seem to be willing to tackle it.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I don't know what can be the scientific bases of a "gods detector". Can you give an idea of it? How can work a detector of a "cosmic consciousness"?

I don't know either. I'm presuming that if anything divine exists it can't be detected by technological means. The only way to prove that assumption wrong is to find a way to do it. Or, if there's an afterlife involving the divine, we'll each find out when we die, but that's not an experiment I'm eager to make yet.

 

[theprestige]

A default position that there is no god is a logical "starting position" that has nothing to do with proof, other than it's awaiting contrary proof. The onus of providing that proof is uniquely on those claiming "There is a god".

No.

The null hypothesis is a tool for testing claims. It is a useful "default" position for that purpose.

"There is no god" isn't an a priori default position. It's a claim that needs to be tested.

 

[The Sparrow]

No.

The null hypothesis is a tool for testing claims. It is a useful "default" position for that purpose.

"There is no god" isn't an a priori default position. It's a claim that needs to be tested.

How would one test and prove this? Even if we managed to "look" everywhere, all the "god" side will do is claim that god is undetectable.

 

[The Sparrow]

What's not to understand? I am not making a claim either way.

Even if we accept that the universe can spring into existence without the need of a god, that doesn't prove that no god was involved in its creation.

It's simple logic. The truth or falsity of a conditional statement says nothing about the truth or falsity of its converse.

P ==> Q doesn't mean that ~P ==> ~Q

IF a god is needed to create the universe THEN God created the universe.
IF no god is needed to create the universe THEN ???

I'm sorry. I woke up at 4 this morning and I realized I still am having trouble with this.

IF a god is needed to create the universe THEN God created the universe.
I am ok with this.

IF no god is needed to create the universe THEN ???


This is the one I am having trouble with. It is incomplete and carefully worded in a troubling way.



It should say
IF no god did not is needed to create the universe THEN ???

In your version it seems you are making it sound like hawking is allowing that the universe could have been created either without god, or with god (presumably invisibly). Or perhaps that sometimes universes are created by god, but they can also come into existence on their own.
Hawking is not saying god's role is "optional". He is saying that definitely god did not have a role in creating this universe.

You are also not including God's necessary attributes.
God, by definition (in abrahamic religions at least) has the attribute of "created the universe"

How do you reconcile the definition of God as 'created the universe' with the fact (assuming it is true and according to hawking) of "the universe was not created by god".

Please be patient with me if I am making a logic error. I am trying to learn and improve my skills.

 

[Crossbow]

How would one test and prove this? Even if we managed to "look" everywhere, all the "god" side will do is claim that god is undetectable.

You are quite correct.

It impossible to completely prove that god does not exist. Therefore, the best that we can do is state that according to the all of the data that we have, that there is simply not any objective evidence which shows that a god (or gods) does indeed exist.

Your posting also shows the one really great thing about religion which is that religion can mean whatever one wants their religion to mean.

 

[psionl0]

I'm sorry. I woke up at 4 this morning and I realized I still am having trouble with this.

IF a god is needed to create the universe THEN God created the universe.
I am ok with this.

IF no god is needed to create the universe THEN ???


This is the one I am having trouble with. It is incomplete and carefully worded in a troubling way.

I'm sorry, I guess I was too subtle.

The converse of "IF a god is needed to create the universe THEN God created the universe" is "IF a god is NOT needed to create the universe THEN God DID NOT CREATE the universe".

The second statement does not logically follow from the first. It may well be true but you can't use the converse to prove it.

(BTW your rewording of the first part of the statement does not make it the logical negation of that statement).