Hawking says there are no gods

[Tommy Jeppesen]

If your figures are accurate, yes.




Not sure what communism has to do with it

There are atheists, who claim communism works and others that it don't. One side must be delusional. Communism can't work and don't work. That is a contradiction.

My point is that the only argument for the existence of god that passes an muster is that the existence cannot be disproved. My point is that this argument is just as applicable to the tooth fairy.

Or scientism, laissez faire capitalism and so on. There are a lot of things that people can believe in that amounts to contradictions for which one is delusional.

Really not sure why you mention the extinction thing. What on earth does that have to do with the price of fish?

Extinction: the state or process of being or becoming extinct. If 95% of adults are delusional, how come the human race has survived?

I'm really, really struggling with your point here. Why do you think the above is relevant?

You want a better world, right? If we removed all delusions, are you sure it would be a better world?

Again: So what?

Being delusional is natural and normal. Then why point it out? Why did you have to point it out?

True. People who don't believe in god can believe in other stuff that's nonsense, yes.

Yes, for strong versus soft atheism as per knowledge one of the sides is delusional. It amounts to a contradiction.

So?

Why did you have to point out that humans are delusional. It is natural and normal. What is your point?

Again, so what? I really, really don't get your point.

Why did you have to point out that humans are delusional? It is natural and normal. What is your point?

What makes you think I'm proposing anything. I'm just saying that believing in god, tooth fairies, monsters in ones closet or any other fiction is a deluded.

So is believing that science can do ethics versus can't do ethics.
How come you limited your collection to only a part of the delusions.

Still struggling with why on earth any of this is relevant.

Why did you have to point out that humans are delusional? It is natural and normal. What is your point?

I was just trying to point out the irrationality of believing in something on the basis that it can't be disproved.

So of those you listed can be disproved.

As an aside, it would be nice to lower the chances of people flying planes into buildings, strapping bombs on themselves and blowing up schoolchildren, abusing their offspring or doing any of the other things that cause massive harm in the name of their delusion.

While mostly relevant to religion, it is not limited to religion. How come you didn't mention that?

Why do you think I'm trying to make myself feel better? What gives you that impression?

Okay, so state your reason for pointing out something which is obvious. The vast majority of humans are delusional.

I'm sorry, I really don't get the point of your post at all.

1. How come you limited it to religion? It is e.g. also relevant for atheists.
2. How come you need to point out that it is delusional?
3. If it is problem, how come you haven't thought of a solution? Don't you care about other humans?

 

[psionl0]

So you did read them, yet every time you side-step my questions.

I could not get a straight answer form you, but I assume you don't consider every single piece of fiction ever written and every character therein to possibly exist until science can prove otherwise. That really would be nuts.

Why do you think there is a fundamental difference between god and any other fictional character?

I think you are the one besmirching science by not using your common sense. You seem to have double standards.

I have directly answered your question every single time. There is a difference between knowing that something is a work of fiction and surmising that it is.

This may not suit your prejudicial belief that everything you believe is fictional is the work of J.K. Rowling but this is a fact of life. There may be very good reasons for believing that gods are a work of fiction but being created by a well known writer of fiction is not one of them.

 

[psionl0]

The thread started where it started and then it has drifted to where it has drifted. This is habitual in these forums.

Yes, everybody wants to shift the debate onto grounds that they are more comfortable in dealing with. But we have tons of threads that already deal with this issue on those other grounds. We don't have to keep re-inventing the wheel.

The open post didn’t put the proposition “God doesn’t exist”. This is a simple negative existential sentence. The open post discussed the proposition “Science proves that God doesn’t exist”. This is an affirmative sentence about what science does. Now is Hawking (allegedly) that has to prove his affirmative sentence. You can see they are very different sentences and must be enfronted in different ways.

I have always focused on the question of whether Hawking proved anything about gods scientifically. It's not my fault that few people are comfortable in dealing with this question.

 

[3point14]

Extinction: the state or process of being or becoming extinct. If 95% of adults are delusional, how come the human race has survived?

I got this far, read the above and realised it wasn't worth continuing.

Thanks though.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I am so much philosopher as everyone in this forum. I don’t feel like some strange thing called “philosopher”. Don’t stick me labels, please.

I don’t care if my affirmation is subjective. I give reasons and I try to reach agreements. I am searching intersubjective propositions. In other cases I look for objective propositions supported by evidences. In both cases I search agreements by mean of common feelings or common reasons. In different ways.

Are you happy in being “subjective”? I am not. I am not happy in loneliness.

Those are not reasons. They are core non-rational beliefs about good or bad. You believe in some and not others.
Don't try to use rationality for something it can't do. Just like science has a limit, rationality has a limit.
That is my point.

Science has a limit, rationality has a limit, philosophy has a limit. In the end you have some beliefs(propositions) about good and bad for which you can't give proof, evidence and what not.
Nobody has ever in the record history of mankind made a universal system for good or bad.

The problem is for you, what do you do with those who don't agree intersubjectively with you?
Answer that!!!

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I got this far, read the above and realised it wasn't worth continuing.

Thanks though.

So you don't want to answer, why you had to bring being delusional in to it?
How come?

 

[3point14]

So you don't want to answer, why you had to bring being delusional in to it?
How come?

Because I'm talking to someone who (I infer from the questions he asks) thinks that if something is detrimental or flat out wrong it leads to the extinction of the species.

I just can't deal with having to explain to an unwilling reader why that's wrong in so many ways. I have neither the energy or inclination to discuss things any further with you when you think that 'well we're not extinct yet' is a good argument.

I'm not up for a discussion involving that level of misunderstanding.


EDIT: I also suspect that you're somehow taking offence at my use of the term 'delusional' I'm sorry if it offends you (due to reasons of which I am unaware) but I'm not sorry I used the term. Fervently believing in the ridiculous is a delusion. I'm very happy with that statement.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Yes, everybody wants to shift the debate onto grounds that they are more comfortable in dealing with. But we have tons of threads that already deal with this issue on those other grounds. We don't have to keep re-inventing the wheel.


I have always focused on the question of whether Hawking proved anything about gods scientifically. It's not my fault that few people are comfortable in dealing with this question.

I don't know. I have a suspicion.
Look at western culture and consider the core values of enlightenment as relevant to not just this thread and not just this forum. You will find a % of westerns, who believe in effect in scientism. I.e. reason, logic and evidence(science) is all we need.

You are not allowed to point this out:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

And if you do, you are effectively by some but all posters given an non-reason, -logic and -evidence answer, which boils down to - "I don't like that. Stop doing it it."
The joke is that they apparently can't handle that there are limits to reason, logic and evidence(science).
In short there has never in the record history of mankind been made an universal, objective and rational methodology for answering all questions. This includes reason, logic and evidence and I know this, because I have checked. In the process I became a skeptic.

So we, westerns, replace God with Science. That is it.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Because I'm talking to someone who (I infer from the questions he asks) thinks that if something is detrimental or flat out wrong it leads to the extinction of the species.

I just can't deal with having to explain to an unwilling reader why that's wrong in so many ways. I have neither the energy or inclination to discuss things any further with you when you think that 'well we're not extinct yet' is a good argument.

I'm not up for a discussion involving that level of misunderstanding.


EDIT: I also suspect that you're somehow taking offence at my use of the term 'delusional' I'm sorry if it offends you (due to reasons of which I am unaware) but I'm not sorry I used the term. Fervently believing in the ridiculous is a delusion. I'm very happy with that statement.

So I did get an answer. It was about being happy.
Thank you for your answer.
Now you can ask yourself if it is rational to be happy about that?!!

 

[JoeMorgue]

What Hawkins did was create a world view that was, in his view, relatively complete enough to the point that there was no place for God in it.

Epistemologies are not on the hook to answer questions they no longer consider valid but people will just keep what if-ing them forever and think that makes them clever.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Obviously you are technically correct.

Yes, I am correct.

Maybe your standards of proof differ and you want to be 100% certain before committing.In my opinion that is not a rational position and also impractical in the real world. You can never get the 100% certainty even if you know you made up the fictional character yourself.

Are you arguing from a purely logical position to make your point, or do you truly think there is a possibility, however remote, some type of god or gods might exist? What does your gut tell you.
My gut says it can't prove it, but it's actually 100% sure all gods are made up.
It feels exactly the same about Harry etc.

I don't personally require to feel 100% certainty about anything. It doesn't upset me to not believe I have absolute certainty about this (or any) matter. I think other people do feel a need to be certain, so they get blurry with intellectual inquiry and fudge their findings a bit. Declaring, for instance, proof positive --scientific proof, no less! -- that there are no gods. Probably because of "gut feelings".

I have too much respect for science to use it improperly. My "guts" are digestive organs, they don't control my emotions, and my emotions don't determine the truth of how the universe operates. I don't believe there are gods because there's no compelling evidence for them. If evidence turns up, although I can't imagine what it would be like, I'd evaluate and reconsider. My belief or lack of belief in gods does not affect whether they actually exist or not, nor do my feelings.

 

[3point14]

So I did get an answer. It was about being happy.
Thank you for your answer.
Now you can ask yourself if it is rational to be happy about that?!!

I still have no idea whatsoever what your point is.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Two thousand years of constant failures to find an evidence that gods exist. I think it is more than sufficient.

What experiments were conducted in that timeframe? Do you agree with the methodology of those experiments? You have scientific evidence that no possible experimentation, with any amount of new technology currently unknown, could ever possibly find otherwise? That is quite a claim. I'd like to review your list of all future technological and scientific advancements that haven't occured yet, to see if I agree with your predictions of what they can and cannot find.

I'm not saying you have to believe in gods, or that there's any reason to believe in gods. I'm saying that you cannot declare that science has disproven them.

 

[TragicMonkey]

With that type of reasoning Evolution and The Big Bang aren't proved either. There maybe evidence that disproves them somewhere, sometime we just haven't found it yet.

Indeed. Proof, in the sense of absolute certain knowledge, is not something science provides. Proof, in the sense of scientific method, however, is something different. It says 'here is what we think, and why we think it, and we have no evidence to indicate it's not correct'.

I cannot fathom how so many purported fans of science can fail to grasp the difference between those two things, or why it seems to upset them so much that everyone else won't agree to conflate them.

 

[TragicMonkey]

My bad. I should, of course, have added: "... outside of fiction and religion.
Because there are gods, obviously, the same way that there is a Harry Potter. They are there alright, they just aren't real. And we know that. In the case of Harry Potter, we even know the woman who invented him. The ones who invented (the original versions of) the Christian God are long dead. However, that idea is reinvented, renewed and maintained on a regular basis by each and every Christian.
So there not only are gods, we also know what they are. And they are not of this world, i.e. outside of the imagination of believers.

By the way, this is the scientific, analytical, approach to deities, and it's not the same thing as trying to prove a negative. It's a question of dealing with the phenomenon that is actually there, and in the case of this specific phenomenon, it's a figment of imagination rather than non-existent.
So how do we know that the imaginary creatures that we make up aren't out there in the real world?
Because we made them up!
See the difference?

H.P. Lovecraft made up an additional planet in this solar system, beyond Neptune. Then they discovered Pluto. Does Pluto not exist, because H.P. Lovecraft made it up?

A thing either exists or it doesn't, and that is independent of what people think about it.

 

[psionl0]

I don't know. I have a suspicion.
Look at western culture and consider the core values of enlightenment as relevant to not just this thread and not just this forum. You will find a % of westerns, who believe in effect in scientism. I.e. reason, logic and evidence(science) is all we need.

You are not allowed to point this out:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

And if you do, you are effectively by some but all posters given an non-reason, -logic and -evidence answer, which boils down to - "I don't like that. Stop doing it it."
The joke is that they apparently can't handle that there are limits to reason, logic and evidence(science).
In short there has never in the record history of mankind been made an universal, objective and rational methodology for answering all questions. This includes reason, logic and evidence and I know this, because I have checked. In the process I became a skeptic.

So we, westerns, replace God with Science. That is it.

Are you accusing me of scientism?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

What Hawkins did was create a world view that was, in his view, relatively complete enough to the point that there was no place for God in it.

Epistemologies are not on the hook to answer questions they no longer consider valid but people will just keep what if-ing them forever and think that makes them clever.

The problem is the word "consider". (It is cognitive and takes place in a brain).
Consider this:
Take two humans, they hold contradictory epistemologies to the effect of known and non-known. That tells you, that there is in effect a limit to epistemology, because one of them is wrong(rationally), yet a part of the universe.

Now consider this:
Take of sets of contradictory beliefs humans hold, don't limit it so religion, woo and so on. Include politics, philosophy and science and so on.
Then ask yourself this: It appears that plus 95% of all humans are wrong(rationally), then could that mean that in effect, that all claims of a positive epistemology of known in the strong sense are wrong(rationally).

Further consider this:
Take two humans, they hold contradictory epistemologies to the effect of known and non-known. They are both certain. So that requires 2 kinds of fundamentally different certainty yet both have to be natural, biological, psychological and so on.

That is what make me an epistemological skeptic. I don't believe in knowledge as most people do, yet we are all a part of the universe, so something funny is going on. Maybe the answer is that most people are unaware of the limits of knowledge when it comes to metaphysics, logic, epistemology and so on and it is in the end connected to how the deal with the "contradiction" of certainty versus the unknown as a feeling.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Are you accusing me of scientism?

No, some of the other posters in this thread.

 

[TragicMonkey]

It's not the same case. In science the defence of the thesis designs an experiment that can give the values of false or true. This is what is asked of the defenders of the existence of God. Since they cannot design such an experiment, their thesis cannot be proven or refuted and is rejected as metaphysics. To say that it has a 50% probability is a pseudoscientific assertion. It simply has no meaning for science. It is empty, scientifically speaking.

Because it's not a scientific question. If science can't experiment or observe something then the scientific conclusion is "there's no evidence for this" and science moves on. There's nothing further for it to say. It is not scientific to extrapolate "therefore it doesn't exist". Science is done with that question, barring further additional information and evidence.

If you personally choose to disregard all things that science hasn't answered that's fine. But it's an intellectual mistake to conflate "science (and I) find nothing to indicate A, therefore Not-A is proven".

 

[psionl0]

No, some of the other posters in this thread.

Gotcha.