Hawking says there are no gods

Status
Not open for further replies.
JoeMorgue said:
People applying "science" too liberally is hardly an issue I think we need this level of oversight brought to bear on.
Click to expand...

Is there a word for when a statement itself proves by its utterance the exact opposite of what it's saying? Because that's what just happened.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Is there a word for when a statement itself proves by its utterance the exact opposite of what it's saying? Because that's what just happened.
Click to expand...

Don't do that. I actually laid out my argument as fairly and honestly as I could. Don't give me a two sentence flippery to one statement.

You say, and expanded on this thoughtfully and clearly, that the issue for you is either a misuse or a overuse of science, bringing it to bear on topics it is not suited for.

I make zero apologies that to me this general argument sets off a small chamber orchestra's worth of bells & whistles but you do honestly seem to be coming at it from a different place then the bog standard "Your precious cold hard science can't answer this... therefore Woo" arguments and I'm interested to see what that is.
 
Last edited:
TragicMonkey said:
Appeal to authority and appeal to consensus works both ways: for millennia the most prominent intellectuals of the world agreed there was at least one god. The number of people believing in a thing, the number of people performing an experiment, the credentials of those people...none of those affect whether a thing exists or it doesn't. It might affect whether you believe it exists or not, but again, belief doesn't make a thing exist or not.

For the trillionth time, I'm not saying there is any reason to believe in gods. Do I need to bold that next time I'm forced to repeat it? I'm saying that not finding evidence of something is precisely and only that, it's not the same thing as saying you have proof that thing does not exist anywhere, in any form, previously conceptualized or not. "We have no reason to believe X" is completely and utterly sufficient in itself. You do not need to go beyond that and declare "therefore Not-X is proven!"
Click to expand...

I am not appealing to authority. Just the opposite. I am saying that if a brilliant team of mining engineers spend a century searching for gold inside a mountain and they don't find anything we have good reasons to think that there is no gold inside this mountain.

This conclusion is reinforced if, after a hundred years, the team begins to say that they are not really searching for gold but a strange invisible mineral.

I hope the parable is clear.

To say that human reason --and mining engineers-- is fallible is a triviality. But this is all we have and it usually works quite well. To rely in reason if we have not opposite indications is a good rule.

The failure to demonstrate the existence of gods is not the only bullet I have. I have more in the chamber.
 
Last edited:
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Well, you are not a skeptic, because you haven't checked for unknown as per das Ding an sich. And further you engage in magical thinking, because if you think that you have no reason as thinking there are no gods, will not decide if there are gods or not. That you don't believe in gods, doesn't cause there to be no god(s) of the cosmological creator kind.
Start by checking if you can known what objective reality really is other than being independent of you. You can't, because you have to trust the natural universe to be as it appears to you subjectively and not something else regardless of being a god or you being a Boltzmann Brain or a brain in a vat or what ever.

You don't control the universe, the universe controls you not matter what objective reality really is in itself, other than being the cause of you.
Be a skeptic and admit that there is limit to epistemology and that you need a core supposition, namely that the universe is fair!!!
All the reasoning you do take place inside a cognitive bubble (your "mind") and that is all you have. Indeed the "I" is sort of an illusion, which appears to work, but only if you believe in it.

"I am I" or "I exist" is a form of tautology, because it doesn't say how "I" exist; i.e. for a whole life or the brief moment of being a pure Boltzmann Brain. All Knowledge is a tautology for "now" and says nothing about the past or future or the rest of the universe. That is how solipsism fails in practice. I.e. the "I" is an tautology, because I have memories and experiences, is not something I have. It happens to "me" in a similar sense as your point of intentionality . The "I" of solipsism is to simple, the moment you check for happens, control and whether I have experiences or not. I don't have a life, a life happens to "I".
Click to expand...
I am not a (total)sceptic because a believe in total objectivity, the thing in itself or similar. I believe in degrees of objectivity or subjectivity. I am very sure that my car is blue and I believe so. I am not sure that my favourite team will win the Champions League but I believe so. I call objective the first and subjective the latter. Call them as you want, but they are two different level of certainty and this is what we need in order to walk in the world.

I think that gods doesn't exist with a similar level of confidence as I think my car is blue.
 
David Mo said:
This conclusion is reinforced if, after a hundred years, the team begins to say that they are not really searching for gold but a strange invisible mineral.

I hope the parable is clear.
Click to expand...

Of course it is.
You are saying that the engineers will realize that the Invisible Mineral was Friendship, and that they had it all long...

~~~ roll Credits ~~~
 
David Mo said:
I think that gods doesn't exist with a similar level of confidence as I think my car is blue.
Click to expand...


Zeus is just as real/unreal as Ulysses, Harry Potter and Yuggoth, i.e. much less real than Yogurt (unless we're talking about Yogurt - then their level of (un)reality is approximately the same!)
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Of course it is.
You are saying that the engineers will realize that the Invisible Mineral was Friendship, and that they had it all long...

~~~ roll Credits ~~~
Click to expand...

I have not given that interpretation. What I meant was that engineers who have clearly failed, instead of abandoning the search for what does not exist, take a leap forward. They try to justify their failure without recognizing that they have failed. This happens around cognitive dissonances and is a process that occurs in almost all religions and many secular ideologies. Of course, Love, the Whole, the Spirit, Force and other similar abstractions are usually habitual resources to escape cognitive dissonance. And they are clear indications that their gods do not exist. As this is constantly repeated, we can logically conclude that gods, in general, do not exist.
 
Hi all - and then here we have it.

David Mo said:
I am not a (total)sceptic because a believe in total objectivity, the thing in itself or similar. I believe in degrees of objectivity or subjectivity. I am very sure that my car is blue and I believe so. I am not sure that my favourite team will win the Champions League but I believe so. I call objective the first and subjective the latter. Call them as you want, but they are two different level of certainty and this is what we need in order to walk in the world.

I think that gods doesn't exist with a similar level of confidence as I think my car is blue.
Click to expand...

It is psychology, not hard science, nor philosophy or religion.
It is a question of personality in the sense of how you understand certainty and confidence.
The joke about certainty, as it is psychological, is that is cognitive and that it works in the following manners:

I demand/want/need certainty as certain proof/evidence/fact/truth for which I am positively certain that it is so, regardless of it being a positive (e.g. the universe is physical) or negative(e.g. there are no gods) and not uncertain between whether X is Y or X is not Y. I demand/want/need to be certain and don't accept uncertainty.

VERSUS

I accept uncertainty, when I can't get certainty between whether X is Y or X is not Y. When I check and find out that I can't be certain between whether X is Y or X is not Y, I am certain of the uncertainty. I don't need certainty in the positive concrete and exact sense, because I can accept uncertainty and be certain of that.
If I have checked and figured out that there is something I can't do, I certain of that.

Hi again all.
I am absolutely certain that the universe controls me and that I don't control the universe, so I can't control what the universe really is.
As for a Boltzmann Brain:
In physics thought experiments, a Boltzmann brain is a self-aware entity that arises due to extremely rare random fluctuations out of a state of thermodynamic equilibrium.
Click to expand...
The problem is that the "extremely rare random fluctuations" amount to begging the question. The reason we know that they are "extremely rare random fluctuations" is that we trust our senses and reasoning, but that is begging the question. You would get the same result, whether if you are in a fair universe or if you are a Boltzmann Brain for which the probability of fluctuations was different. That is the problem. it is unknown, because
you don't control the universe. The universe controls you and you can't control or know if you are in a fair universe or if you are a Boltzmann Brain, because reality appears to be the same.

Notice how trust, certainty and confidence connect.
So for gods, the cosmological creator gods are unknown, since they can cheat and trick you in to believing that you know that you are in a natural universe. You don't control the universe, the universe controls you and you don't know if there are cosmological creator gods or not. Just as it is not fair, if you are a Boltzmann Brain, gods don't have to fair or care about you.

The universe doesn't care for you and I. The only ones who can do that is you and I. And I care in that I think it matters to say that there are limits to science, certainty and confidence and if you care about telling how it actually is, then you do that.
So some of you are no different that some religious believers. You all have the same dogmatic certainty and confidence. You believe differently, but how you believe is the same functionally - with dogmatic certainty and confidence.

You have certainty and confidence in that you are not a Boltzmann Brain, therefore you are not.
A certain kind of religious believer have certainty and confidence in that there is a god, therefore there is one.
The content is different, but the functionality is the same.
 
Last edited:
I don't think the Believers are gonna be satisfied with Hawking saying there are no God.

I don't think even if the Pope himself said that there is no God, most God believers would accept that.

Belief is a complex thing. It goes deep deep down inside the individual's psyche. It's a deeply emotional attachment to an idea. True believers, believe no matter what.
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
I don't think the Believers are gonna be satisfied with Hawking saying there are no God.
Click to expand...

In the passage quoted in the OP, Hawkings does not say there is no God. He says that his investigation of the physical universe has raised in his mind the question of whether a god is necessary to existence. We infer from context that the question is rhetorical, and that he's actually saying that he sees no reason why a god would be necessary, based on what he's learned.

This is subtly but importantly different from saying that there is no god.
 
theprestige said:
In the passage quoted in the OP, Hawkings does not say there is no God. He says that his investigation of the physical universe has raised in his mind the question of whether a god is necessary to existence. We infer from context that the question is rhetorical, and that he's actually saying that he sees no reason why a god would be necessary, based on what he's learned.

This is subtly but importantly different from saying that there is no god.
Click to expand...

In the same article he is also quoted saying that there is no possibility of a creator:

"We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in," Hawking wrote. "For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in."

This argument will do little to persuade theistic believers, but that was never Hawking's intent. As a scientist with a near-religious devotion to understanding the cosmos, Hawking sought to "know the mind of God" by learning everything he could about the self-sufficient universe around us. While his view of the universe might render a divine creator and the laws of nature incompatible, it still leaves ample space for faith, hope, wonder and, especially, gratitude.

"We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe," Hawking concludes the first chapter of his final book, "and for that I am extremely grateful."
Click to expand...
 
Is that quote from Hawking real, Roborama? If so, I find it a shame that he misrepresented science in his final book.
 
Roboramma said:
In the same article he is also quoted saying that there is no possibility of a creator:
Click to expand...
Hawking is not actually saying that. He is saying that that there is no possibility of a creator who existed in time, "because there is no time for a creator to have existed in". Theists don't propose that there was a creator who existed in time.

"We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe," Hawking concludes the first chapter of his final book, "and for that I am extremely grateful."
Click to expand...
I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I wonder to whom Hawking is grateful? As Sarek says to his wife in Star Trek, "One does not thank logic, Amanda."
 
It is possible to be simply, generally thankful, grateful, without necessarily being grateful to someone. Have you never felt this way? This former is far more satisfying than the feeling of being beholden to someone.

I suppose when a theist feels this way, they would offer their thanks to God, as well as attribute the beauty of this ... feeling, again to God.
 
Last edited:
psionl0 said:
I have quoted the relevant sentence often enough to show that it isn't a lie.
Click to expand...
That's crap. Science is not about "proving' anything and there is no way Hawking doesn't know that. Quit repeating the lie or cite the quote exactly that you are referring to.


psionl0 said:
So you want to change the scientific method because it doesn't unreservedly support your beliefs?
Click to expand...
So you didn't understand my point.
 
psionl0 said:
You are trying to conflate an intended fiction with an intended fact. This is illogical.

Your reasoning is:
IF something is fictional THEN no evidence can be found for it.
No evidence of a god can be found THEREFORE God is fictional (and it is exactly the Harry Potter scenario).

You know the age old fallacy:
ALL cats have 4 legs
My DOG has 4 legs
. . . . . . . . . . ...
Click to expand...
Like I said, you don't understand the point. It's hard to have a discussion with someone that isn't grasping the concepts.

Psion:"IF something is fictional THEN no evidence can be found for it."

No, that is not the argument at all. Try debating the argument without changing it to your straw man.

We observe people writing and making up fictional gods.
Let that sink in before you move on.

We don't observe any stories about any real gods and we don't see any evidence of any real gods.
What does that lead you to conclude?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom