Hawking says there are no gods

[qayak]

Because it's not a scientific question.

You keep saying that but it just isn't true. it hasn't been since gods were invented and consistently debunked throughout human history.

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.

Please tell me THE science experiment that proved the Big Bang because i wanna do it. Well, there isn't ONE . . . there are thousands that all point to the Big Bang being true. Same with evolution.

That we can't point to THE experiment that debunks gods doesn't mean thousands haven't been done. Gods used to control thunder, and rain, and evil spirits, and . . . Thousands of experiments have shown that gods do not control these things.

Then science went after harder to detect claims like, "My god answers my prayers" or "If you go to Lourdes you will be cured" or "God made our video cameras work in complete darkness so we could film of Mother Teresa." No hands of gods detected.

So there are thousands upon thousands of experiments designed to detect gods and their actions and yet no god or god meddling has ever been found. If this were the Big Bang, or Evolution, and no evidence was ever found, or even if one piece of the puzzle was shown to be wrong, no one would be claiming it was true, or we just hadn't search for the right tea pot, circling the right planet, in the right solar system, in the right galaxy of our universe.

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".

You've fallen for the religious fallacy that gods are something special, outside our ability to understand and perceive. Religions and their followers just keep getting backed up until they find a statement that is unverifiable at the moment and then claim it as evidence that their god exists and you drank the Kool-Aid.

Remember a few years (decades) back when one of the pointy hats in Rome held a conference and agreed to say the Big Bang was true as long as science didn't look beyond that and then went on to claim that god was what caused the Big Bang? It was laughable. First he agreed to hide that god in the ultimate hiding spot, then demanded no one look in that hiding spot and for that agreement he would say that something that was true was true. Except science had already looked beyond that and his god wasn't hiding there.

 

[TragicMonkey]

You keep saying that but it just isn't true. it hasn't been since gods were invented and consistently debunked throughout human history.

Please provide an example of where a god's existence was scientifically debunked.

Please tell me THE science experiment that proved the Big Bang because i wanna do it. Well, there isn't ONE . . . there are thousands that all point to the Big Bang being true. Same with evolution.

You're claiming that science can prove the nonexistence of gods. How does the number of experiments run to prove something else affect that?

That we can't point to THE experiment that debunks gods doesn't mean thousands haven't been done. Gods used to control thunder, and rain, and evil spirits, and . . . Thousands of experiments have shown that gods do not control these things.
Then science went after harder to detect claims like, "My god answers my prayers" or "If you go to Lourdes you will be cured" or "God made our video cameras work in complete darkness so we could film of Mother Teresa." No hands of gods detected.

Shifting the goalposts. I never said we couldn't prove what caused thunder and rain. I said you can't scientifically prove the nonexistence of gods, not that you can't find scientific proof for alternate causes for some of their purported activities.

So there are thousands upon thousands of experiments designed to detect gods and their actions and yet no god or god meddling has ever been found. If this were the Big Bang, or Evolution, and no evidence was ever found, or even if one piece of the puzzle was shown to be wrong, no one would be claiming it was true, or we just hadn't search for the right tea pot, circling the right planet, in the right solar system, in the right galaxy of our universe.

Of course people would be claiming something's true based on no evidence, it happens all the time. It's happening right here, with people claiming they know something doesn't exist because they haven't found it. Rather than claiming they have no reason to suppose something does exist because they haven't found it. Which is, for the bajillionth time, different.

You've fallen for the religious fallacy that gods are something special, outside our ability to understand and perceive. Religions and their followers just keep getting backed up until they find a statement that is unverifiable at the moment and then claim it as evidence that their god exists and you drank the Kool-Aid.

I would have thought it fairly obvious by now, especially since I pointed it out specifically several times, that I don't believe in gods. My entire point, and this is repeating myself yet again, is that lack of scientific proof for a thing's existence is not scientific proof of its nonexistence.

Remember a few years (decades) back when one of the pointy hats in Rome held a conference and agreed to say the Big Bang was true as long as science didn't look beyond that and then went on to claim that god was what caused the Big Bang? It was laughable. First he agreed to hide that god in the ultimate hiding spot, then demanded no one look in that hiding spot and for that agreement he would say that something that was true was true. Except science had already looked beyond that and his god wasn't hiding there.

No, I don't recall any occasions when a scientific proof of the nonexistence of gods was demonstrated. Do you have a link to this evidence?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...


You've fallen for the religious fallacy that gods are something special, outside our ability to understand and perceive. Religions and their followers just keep getting backed up until they find a statement that is unverifiable at the moment and then claim it as evidence that their god exists and you drank the Kool-Aid.

Remember a few years (decades) back when one of the pointy hats in Rome held a conference and agreed to say the Big Bang was true as long as science didn't look beyond that and then went on to claim that god was what caused the Big Bang? It was laughable. First he agreed to hide that god in the ultimate hiding spot, then demanded no one look in that hiding spot and for that agreement he would say that something that was true was true. Except science had already looked beyond that and his god wasn't hiding there.

Wauw

You have just made all agnostics religious.

So I am going to prove your right. Here is the God I believe in:

First part: A Boltzmann Brain. If you read up on that, you will notice that scientists can't agree on the chances of you being a Boltzmann Brain. That is a case of epistemological skepticism and not solipsism. It is unknown what objective reality really is other than a case of das Ding an sich and you only have your subjective experiences. You know that there is something else than you (not solipsism), but you don't know what is other than being not you.

Part two: Since I don't want to be a Boltzmann Brain, I believe that the universe is fair(idealism) and thus we are in physical, natural universe as it appears to us all. But it is a case of a form of deism, because I attribute a non-physical attribute to the universe. It means that the universe has a sense of fairness and thus is a case of the non-physical.

Part three: Other than that, there is no Heaven, Hell or souls. We live in physical, natural universe and I am certain of that, because I makes me feel good. Theistic gods don't make me feel good, so they don't exist, because I say so. Further I admit that it is irrational to believe in something I don't have evidence for, but I don't care, because I don't believe in knowledge and evidence like most people do.

See! It is fun to believe and I enjoy pointing out that you don't know what objective reality really is other than being not you.

BTW Even if I am wrong, I don't care, because it works for me.

 

[dann]

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?

Yes, Pluto does exist - albeit not as a planet anymore!
And no, H.P. Lovecraft didn't make Pluto up. Pluto was already there. Lovecraft made up Yuggoth, an imaginary planet beyond the orbit of Neptune, yes, but not Pluto. It's possible (but not likely) that you can't tell them apart, but I am sure that most other people can:

Yuggoth... is a strange dark orb at the very rim of our solar system... There are mighty cities on Yuggoth—great tiers of terraced towers built of black stone... The sun shines there no brighter than a star, but the beings need no light. They have other subtler senses, and put no windows in their great houses and temples... The black rivers of pitch that flow under those mysterious cyclopean bridges—things built by some elder race extinct and forgotten before the beings came to Yuggoth from the ultimate voids—ought to be enough to make any man a Dante or Poe if he can keep sane long enough to tell what he has seen...
Yuggoth (Wikipedia)

(And you do know that planets existed before Lovecraft invented an imaginary one, don't you?)

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

Yes, it is. That's why Harry Potter doesn't exist outside of the imagination of J.K. Rowling and her readers. Boys, however, do exist, as do planets, so if you would like to claim that J.K. Rowling with her novels predicted the discovery of boys, and that Harry Potter is therefore not a figment of her imagination, you're welcome, but you're not right.

 

[Cheetah]

Yes, I am correct.

Yes, a fictional character can't be proven not to exist.

Why do you think assuming existence until proven otherwise is the correct scientific way as opposed to assume nonexistence until proven otherwise?
Especially in this day and age. It makes no sense to me.

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.

"Guts" is a figure of speech, meaning your feelings about something, including your emotions, it does not refer to your digestive organs.
I was just wondering if you feel the same about ALL fictitious characters. Would you be making the same argument if the thread was about the Flintstones.
I assume you would, psionl0 would not.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Why do you think assuming existence until proven otherwise is the correct scientific way as opposed to assume nonexistence until proven otherwise?
Especially in this day and age. It makes no sense to me.

I'm sure that makes no sense to him either. How can you read what he is writing and think he's saying that??

 

[dann]

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".

If you take all the things that we actually do know about gods, how gods come into being and how they evolve, that would be the scientific way to deal with the question.
Do gods exist? is not a scientific question. What are the gods that do exist? would be a better one. Science can observe and study gods, and when they do, they come up with something like this (I think; I haven't read it!): The Evolution of Gods (Goodreads)

ETA: This particular book may not be worth reading:

I'm an atheist, and have been looking for a book on this subject for awhile now and was excited when I found this. HOWEVER, this book is an abysmal read. It's a conglomeration of short, poorly structured sentences which makes it appear like a high school book report.
(Amazon comment)

But you get my drift, I hope ...

 

[dann]

Yes, a fictional character can't be proven not to exist.

But it can be proven as what it exists, and it usually isn't difficult at all: as fiction! It's implied in the statement: "a fictional character."

 

[TragicMonkey]

Why do you think assuming existence until proven otherwise is the correct scientific way as opposed to assume nonexistence until proven otherwise?
Especially in this day and age. It makes no sense to me.

I'm not assuming existence until proven otherwise. That is not a necessary assumption just because existence hasn't been proven. It makes no sense to you because you insist that you must know whether a thing exists or not, and conclude therefore anything you don't have proof of must necessarily not exist. That isn't how reality works. If you have no proof of something existing you certainly shouldn't believe it exists, but you also shouldn't assume you have proof it does not exist.

"Guts" is a figure of speech, meaning your feelings about something, including your emotions, it does not refer to your digestive organs.
I was just wondering if you feel the same about ALL fictitious characters. Would you be making the same argument if the thread was about the Flintstones.
I assume you would, psionl0 would not.

And again, feelings don't come into it. That which is, is, regardless of what I feel about it. I do not need to assume things that I cannot know just because it makes me feel more comfortable. I cannot prove gods do not exist. I do not believe in gods. I do not feel any sort of angst or conflict between these two positions, and I certainly don't need to "resolve" any such conflict.

 

[TragicMonkey]

If you take all the things that we actually do know about gods, how gods come into being and how they evolve, that would be the scientific way to deal with the question.

We don't know anything about gods. We have a series of claims about them, which appear to be untestable.

Do gods exist? is not a scientific question.

I entirely agree. Which is why I'm perplexed so many people claim they have a scientific answer to it.

What are the gods that do exist? would be a better one. Science can observe and study gods, and when they do, they come up with something like this (I think; I haven't read it!): The Evolution of Gods (Goodreads)

ETA: This particular book may not be worth reading:


But you get my drift, I hope ...

Science can observe and study gods? The things we have no evidence that even exist?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

But it can be proven as what it exists, and it usually isn't difficult at all: as fiction! It's implied in the statement: "a fictional character."

You understand science! Then explain this:

Astronomer William Keel explains:

The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists.
William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis. ISBN 978-3-540-72534-3.. p. 2.

How come a scientist writes this?

 

[dann]

We don't know anything about gods. We have a series of claims about them, which appear to be untestable.

Those claims constitute what gods are. The claims can be studied. We know everything worth knowing about gods: that people invent them and why people invent them. The science of religion is the study of gods.

I entirely agree. Which is why I'm perplexed so many people claim they have a scientific answer to it.

Science can observe and study gods? The things we have no evidence that even exist?

We have plenty of evidence of what gods are. The gods have even been classified: List of deities (Wikipedia) Science analyzes that evidence.
As a short introduction, the first page of Marx' critique of religion sums it up quite well: A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction

Science can study Harry Potter, too, even though he also doesn't exist in the real world outside of people's imagination, but I don't know if the studies are any good:
Heteronormative Heroism and Queering the School Story in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series
The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter
Females and Harry Potter

 

[dann]

You understand science!

The science of cosmology?! Don't flatter me! I don't have the math skills to understand cosmology beyond Neil deGrasse Tyson's Cosmos series and similar popularized versions.

Then explain this:

How come a scientist writes this?

He seems to be making the assumption that the laws of physics will be the same if you go to another galaxy, even one at the other 'end' of the universe. Even scientific cosmologists seem to get to a point where science hasn't (yet) answered all their questions, and that is when they usually begin to philosophize:

What existed before the big bang?
Stephen Hawking Says He Knows What Happened Before the Big Bang

 

[Thor 2]

There is overwhelming evidence people make up god beliefs (i.e. human generated fiction).

Which does not affect whether gods exist or not. Belief in gods doesn't make them more likely to exist, nor does it make them less likely to exist. A thing exists or not regardless of what people think of it.

I'm with Ginger here. Given man's proven ability to invent gods the case in favour of the existence of any given god is severely compromised. How do you go with:

Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Demeter, Dionysus, Hades, Helios, Hephaestus, Hera,Hermes, Hestia, Persephone, Poseidon, Selene, Zeus,Bacchus, Bellona, Ceres,Cupid, Diana, Faunus, Flora, Janus, Juno, Jupiter, Lares, Libintia, Maia, Mars, Mercury, Minerva, Mithras, Neptune, Ops, Pales, Pluto, Pomona, Proserpine, Saturn, Venus, Vertumnus, Vesta, Vulcan ------

Just to name some from one bundle.

 

[qayak]

You're claiming that science can prove the nonexistence of gods. How does the number of experiments run to prove something else affect that?

The same way they tested the Big Bang. Science works like this: Scientists look at an idea and work out what the consequences of something happening are. They then set out to find evidence of those consequences. if they don't find the evidence the idea is debunked.

One of the consequences of rain gods is that they create rain. Science eliminated all rain gods as soon as they figured out what natural mechanism causes rain. They eliminated all thunder gods when they figured out what caused thunder, etc.,etc., etc. Gods have been debunked since shortly after people started inventing gods. The current batch of Abrahamic gods are a little more complex in that they are claimed to have done many things. Science has shown you don't need a god for any of those things.

The only attribute of gods that science is having any trouble with is their apparent ability to hide so very well.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Again don't use the word "Science" it just sets people off for some reason.

An intellectual framework that doesn't include:

- Falsefiability
- Repeatable results
- Methodologies to reduce factors/segregate factors so you can determine which factors are causing which results.

Is no better than random guessing.

 

[David Mo]

Those are not reasons. They are core non-rational beliefs about good or bad. You believe in some and not others.

Tommy, Tommy, you don't listen to me. I'm not saying that you can prove moral principles like you can prove that tomorrow there will be an eclipse. I call that statement objective. Morality doesn't work that way. If you want to call moral principles subjective, do so. But that hides an important characteristic of those principles. They can be shared. They demand to be shared. And the more shared they are, the more effective they are. Because morality is a collective task. And that is why reason has an important function in morality. It helps to share principles and consequences.

So you cannot say that morality is a matter of subjectivity. That's hiding how it actually works.

 

[dann]

Again don't use the word "Science" it just sets people off for some reason.

An intellectual framework that doesn't include:

- Falsefiability
- Repeatable results
- Methodologies to reduce factors/segregate factors so you can determine which factors are causing which results.

Is no better than random guessing.

We know that we are dealing with fiction so there isn't much to falsify, no test to repeat. So when you're analyzing gods, it comes very close to literary analysis. If you find a new Dead-Sea-Scroll fragment, you discuss how it fits in with the theories based on the rest. Since gods are a phenomenon of human consciousness, you may place people in MR scanners to find out which areas of their brains light up when they imagine gods or are shown images of other people's perceptions of gods. You can look at the circumstances that make people believe in gods and compare them with the circumstances where they won't. You can do surveys and in-depth interviews with those who believe in gods. And with those who don't.

 

[David Mo]

What experiments were conducted in that timeframe? Do you agree with the methodology of those experiments?

Because it's not a scientific question. (...)

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".

It seems that you have answered to yourself.

I agree, the existence of gods is not a scientific subject even if science can refute many religious myths.

But I was not speaking of science. Almost all religions have look for proves of the existence and power of its god. They were generally miracles but also rational demonstrations. You know, the famous Aquinas’ five ways, Anselm’s ontological argument and so on. Reason, included science, has debunked them one after other to the point that now the learned Christians recognize that they don’t really demonstrate anything. This has obliged them to change the concept of god. The Father is no more the bearded elder with fury attacks and the most difficult biblical passages become “allegorical”.

This continuous failure and rectifications are a strong argument against the existence of gods. Philosophical argument, of course.

 

[David Mo]

My question is the same yet: If science proves that gods don't exist where is the scientific bibliography about the issue? No answer.

Don't you understand that if a subject is scientific it will be presented to the scientific community in scientific books and papers? Where are they?