Hawking says there are no gods

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Cheetah said:
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?
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I'm a biology purist. If good and bad isn't determined by nature/nurture, what is it determined by? A bunch of people discussing philosophy?

You could call philosophy a descriptive science, labeling and teasing out the nature/nurture outcomes of evolution.
 
David Mo said:
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.
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You are missing the whole point. There are no articles on the existence of gods because there is no evidence gods exist.

There are studies looking at the outcome of prayer and they show clearly that prayer has no effect on people if they don't know you are praying for them. It might have a questionable result if people know they are being prayed for.

The Cargo Cults are evidence of humans creating god beliefs in recent times. That says a lot about how god beliefs came about.

There are no gods, only god beliefs.
 
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Cheetah said:
I don't understand, how does that make it rational to believe Harry might be real?
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It's rational to recognize that Harry Potter's unreality is unproven.

How much effort you put into proving Harry Potter's unreality, and how much effort you put into justifying your belief one way or the other, is purely a question of what standard of evidence you wish to apply. That is completely separate from where the burden of proof lies in relation to the claim that Harry Potter is not real.

If you were to tell me "Harry Potter is not real", I'd happily agree with you. Not because you've successfully avoided a burden of proof (you haven't), but because neither of us thinks this claim requires a very high standard of evidence at all. Your burden of proof is already met, to both our satisfaction, right out of the box.

If you were to ask me to accept the claim "God is not real", on the same basis as the claim "Harry Potter is not real", fine. But we should still at least understand what that basis is. We still have to acknowledge that the claim has a burden of proof. We still have to establish what standard of evidence we're going to apply, and what evidence was produced to meet that standard.

Nobody bothers to examine the claim that Harry Potter isn't real, because nobody really gives a **** about that. We have the provenance of a fictional Harry Potter character, and that seems to satisfy just about everybody

On the other hand, a lot of people care a lot about the claim that god isn't real. So all the rational stuff that we don't feel the need to bother with, when it comes to Harry Potter claims, has to be bothered with when it comes to God claims.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I'm a biology purist. If good and bad isn't determined by nature/nurture, what is it determined by? A bunch of people discussing philosophy?

You could call philosophy a descriptive science, labeling and teasing out the nature/nurture outcomes of evolution.
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You don't seem to understand what good and bad is?!!

Good and bad are subjective and can't be tested for using science, because you can't observe good and bad.

Something can be natural, yet it can't be done using the scientific methodology.
You know gravity, right? Gravity can be observed and studied by science since it is objective. We even have the theory of gravity.
Your problem is that we don't have a scientific theory of good and bad. So when you notice that you ask yourself how that is? And the answer is that e.g. gravity is objective and good and bad are subjective.
You can't see, smell, taste, touch or hear good and bad.
There is no international scientific measurement standards for good and bad and there are no scientific measurement instruments to measure good and bad.

So if there is a scientific theory of good and bad, international scientific measurement standards for good and bad and scientific measurement instruments to measure good and bad please provide a link to them.

EDIT: Nor is there any objective philosophical system for good and bad, because they are subjective. All cases of good and bad are non-objective subjective cases of bias. There are no objective standard possible for good and bad.
 
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Tommy Jeppesen said:
I am prepared to be wrong, i.e. to have misunderstood the following quote, so here it goes:

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.
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The "we don't test the supernatural" and "science doesn't address the designer question", IMO (controversial I know), is an excuse to pussy-foot around god believers without offending them. The whole idea one can have those non-overlapping magisteria, faith based beliefs and scientific evidence based beliefs falls apart upon closer scrutiny.

For example, how can you say with a straight face that all these unsupportable beliefs on this side are woo, yet those unsupportable god beliefs over there are in a special category. Too many god believers to risk offending them?
 
The Sparrow said:
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.
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And I say, if it is undetectable, then it doesn't interact with the Universe and therefore it is irrelevant.

If said god does exist and say for example answers prayers, then that would be detectable. Yet we don't find prayers are answered.
 
psionl0 said:
Unlike J.K Rowling or Siegel/Shuster, nobody is saying "I made God up". (Even Russel didn't claim that his teapot was real).
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That's your distinction? :boggled:

Maybe because the person(s) who made up god beliefs aren't around so we can ask.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
The "we don't test the supernatural" and "science doesn't address the designer question", IMO (controversial I know), is an excuse to pussy-foot around god believers without offending them. The whole idea one can have those non-overlapping magisteria, faith based beliefs and scientific evidence based beliefs falls apart upon closer scrutiny.

For example, how can you say with a straight face that all these unsupportable beliefs on this side are woo, yet those unsupportable god beliefs over there are in a special category. Too many god believers to risk offending them?
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Here is a simple test: Can we observe that there are humans, which have non-scientific beliefs and act based on these beliefs?
If yes, is it then a fact of how reality works and is it in fact real? I.e. is it real that there are humans, which have non-scientific beliefs and act based on these beliefs?
So we have 2 sets of beliefs, scientific and non-scientific and they are not the same, so we have in fact 2 non-overlapping magisteria, because scientific based beliefs are not the only way to act.

Could you start by observing and base your claims on observations. There is more going on in human behavior than solely being based on science.
Here it is in the short version:
You: All behavior is based on science!
Me: No! That no is not based on science, it is based on the fact that I can believe, think and act differently that you.
 
theprestige said:
It's rational to recognize that Harry Potter's unreality is unproven.
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It is irrational to try to prove or disprove Harry Potter's unreality. Everybody knows that he's imaginary, a made-up character in a work of fiction. He is that, however. So is God, and so are the rest of the gods. They are characters that we make up - usually in painful situations where we've lost control, where we may even fear for our lives: in a foxhole, in a plane going down in flames, or in a hostage situation. I've mentioned this before in other threads where I also used the example of the deification of Harry Potter:
Carat, 11: "I was hoping that Harry Potter would come. I remembered that he had a cloak that made him invisible and he would come and wrap me in it, and we'd be invisible and we'd escape.”
(...)
"Nine-year-old Laima draws pictures of what she saw when she was held hostage:
"I found a little cross on the gym's floor. I kept it on me for all of the three days. It helped me to survive."
Beslan survivors: one year on (BBC, Sep. 1, 2005)
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You can use superheroes, too.
No wonder the Norse god of thunder was turned into a cartoon character ...
 
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Tommy Jeppesen said:
You don't seem to understand what good and bad is?!!

Good and bad are subjective and can't be tested for using science, because you can't observe good and bad.

Something can be natural, yet it can't be done using the scientific methodology.
You know gravity, right? Gravity can be observed and studied by science since it is objective. We even have the theory of gravity.
Your problem is that we don't have a scientific theory of good and bad. So when you notice that you ask yourself how that is? And the answer is that e.g. gravity is objective and good and bad are subjective.
You can't see, smell, taste, touch or hear good and bad.
There is no international scientific measurement standards for good and bad and there are no scientific measurement instruments to measure good and bad.

So if there is a scientific theory of good and bad, international scientific measurement standards for good and bad and scientific measurement instruments to measure good and bad please provide a link to them.

EDIT: Nor is there any objective philosophical system for good and bad, because they are subjective. All cases of good and bad are non-objective subjective cases of bias. There are no objective standard possible for good and bad.
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I understand science and value issues.

How does philosophy answer the same questions?

Whereas evolutionary biology can demonstrate how the brain determines good and bad. By observing the behavior of non-human primates, and studying certain brain injured people we can get to the basis of such valuation.

The mistake people make (again IMO controversial I know) is thinking one has to establish numeric values in order to measure something. Sometimes studies don't need exact measurements of some things. Rather we use comparisons. I can compare a culture, a group of people or whatever. The value doesn't have to be X on a scale of 1 to 10. It can be a study into what people are looking at when they find a painting beautiful or a face attractive.

There are studies looking at what the features are that make infants attractive. How beauty is influenced by the media and so on.

What does philosophizing about such things tell you?
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Here is a simple test: Can we observe that there are humans, which have non-scientific beliefs and act based on these beliefs?
If yes, is it then a fact of how reality works and is it in fact real? I.e. is it real that there are humans, which have non-scientific beliefs and act based on these beliefs?
So we have 2 sets of beliefs, scientific and non-scientific and they are not the same, so we have in fact 2 non-overlapping magisteria, because scientific based beliefs are not the only way to act.
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No. By that measure everyone's woo fits your sentences.

Tommy Jeppesen said:
Could you start by observing and base your claims on observations. There is more going on in human behavior than solely being based on science.
Here it is in the short version:
You: All behavior is based on science!
Me: No! That no is not based on science, it is based on the fact that I can believe, think and act differently that you.
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Behavior isn't based on science. One can use the scientific process to study behavior.

Whatever you believe is going on with people is still biological. There is no evidence of a magic man intervening.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I understand science and value issues.

How does philosophy answer the same questions?
...
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"Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not." - Protagoras
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I.e. all cases of good and bad are subjective, based on the processes in a given brain, and can't be done objectively.
All cases of good and bad are cases of subjective biases. That includes you, me and everybody else.
There are no objective good and bad.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
No. By that measure everyone's woo fits your sentences.

Behavior isn't based on science. One can use the scientific process to study behavior.

Whatever you believe is going on with people is still biological. There is no evidence of a magic man intervening.
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It doesn't matter whether it is woo, religion or what ever. It is natural and biologically based and thus it is a part of reality.

BTW Science is a behavior, which can be observed being used by some people, but not all humans. The scientific process is a behavior done by humans.
 
theprestige said:
There's really no need for a lot of things. For almost everyone, almost all the time, there's no need to know that the Earth is round, nor that it orbits the Sun.

There's no need to be a soft atheist. It is, however, the rational thing to do.
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3point14 said:
It follows then that the rational thing to do is to assert one's uncertainty regarding the non-existence of every other fictional character ever created by man.

Which is just absurd.
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Cheetah said:
How is it rational to seriously consider god to be real?


Anyone who seriously thinks Harry Potter might be real would be nuts.


Edit: Oops, same as ninja 3point14.
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No matter how many times 3point14, Cheetah, ynot, or myself say the same thing we can't seem to flush this silly thinking away. Just won't go past the "S" bend.:(
 
Thor 2 said:
No matter how many times 3point14, Cheetah, ynot, or myself say the same thing we can't seem to flush this silly thinking away. Just won't go past the "S" bend.:(
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Is it natural and biologically based that there are humans who use "silly thinking"? Is it a fact? Then how can it be wrong? It is as natural as gravity?!!
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
I.e. all cases of good and bad are subjective, based on the processes in a given brain, and can't be done objectively.
All cases of good and bad are cases of subjective biases. That includes you, me and everybody else.
There are no objective good and bad.
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I beg to differ. We study human behavior all the time. You want to use a good/bad measurement solely and I say what use is that?

The kind of research you don't believe can be done is typically measured using comparisons.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
It doesn't matter whether it is woo, religion or what ever. It is natural and biologically based and thus it is a part of reality.

BTW Science is a behavior, which can be observed being used by some people, but not all humans. The scientific process is a behavior done by humans.
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I think you are getting your terms conflated here and aren't making a lot of sense.

Yes, people exist that believe in all sorts of unsupportable things, including gods.

So?
 
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