Hawking says there are no gods

[JoeMorgue]

You can never win when the theist side has a bottomless bag of superpowers to draw from.

It's like when you were a kid playing superheros and there was always that one kid who just kept adding new powers to his superhero so he would never lose.

So God is all powerful except when he isn't, all knowing except when he isn't, can change reality except when he can't, has a divine plan except when he doesn't, "works in mysterious ways" which is just literally saying "I'm defining the concept as not making sense" and on top of all of that nobody arguing for his existence will define him.

And after all that the argument is we can't disprove that to a made up insane degree, so we're not saying he's therefore real but we're totally saying he's therefore real.

 

[Darat]

If the premise of this thread was "a god or gods exists" then it would be reasonable to demand "WHICH god?"

However, the theme of this thread was that a scientist ruled out ALL gods from the universe. So your philosophical objection is irrelevant.

You are going with the "something with some properties could exist" which isn't the definition of god that is in common use or used by those that believe in a god, so it's your own personal definition for the word god rather than one that is used by the rest of us.

 

[Diablo]

You just have to employ the escape hatch of 'god intervenes in undetectable ways', then in the style of Sye Ten Bruggencate (spits on the ground) come back with 'are you saying god would not have the power to do that?'

You can never win when the theist side has a bottomless bag of superpowers to draw from.

But that's not what Hawking said. He specifically referred to the laws of physics being fixed. If you want to change that you have to describe the new forces, identify which particles carry them, and show how they intereact.

 

[psionl0]

You are going with the "something with some properties could exist" which isn't the definition of god that is in common use or used by those that believe in a god, so it's your own personal definition for the word god rather than one that is used by the rest of us.

Are you serious??? How could you possibly get that from the post you quoted. Is your horse so high that you can't read the text?

 

[qayak]

You just have to employ the escape hatch of 'god intervenes in undetectable ways', then in the style of Sye Ten Bruggencate (spits on the ground) come back with 'are you saying god would not have the power to do that?'

Mostly they haven't thought it through. They haven't thought about the ramifications of god having this power and using it. That a god, or its actions, are undetectable means little. Any use of the power allows it to be detected through violations in the laws of the universe.

For example, a god puts a new planet into our solar system. If the planet interacts naturally we see it throwing our solar system out of its current balance. Obviously we detect the changes and ask, "How did that planet just appear because it can't happen like that anymore. That violates the laws." If the planet doesn't interact with our solar system we ask, "How did that planet just appear and why doesn't it interact with the bodies around it? That violates the laws."

Religions are reduced to invisible gods doing invisible things that have no effect on anything in the universe. Applying Occam's Razor to that you get "Gods don't exist."

 

[qayak]

So God is all powerful except when he isn't, all knowing except when he isn't, can change reality except when he can't, has a divine plan except when he doesn't, "works in mysterious ways" which is just literally saying "I'm defining the concept as not making sense" and on top of all of that nobody arguing for his existence will define him.

And after all that the argument is we can't disprove that to a made up insane degree, so we're not saying he's therefore real but we're totally saying he's therefore real.

Reminds me of my one and only time to Sunday school as a child. We heard the preacher tell us how you can't hide from god because he is all knowing and all seeing so even if you sin and no one sees you, god sees you and will punish you.

Then the kids went to the basement and had Sunday school where the teacher told us the story of Adam and Eve hiding from God in the Garden of Eden. Of course I had to say "Wait a minute! Didn't the guy upstairs say you can't hide from god?"

Teacher- "Mumble, mumble, mumble."

Me- "No, really, he said that. God sees everything."

Teacher- "MUMBLE, MUMBLE, MUMBLE!"

Me- "So . . . I can hide from god?"

Teacher- "Look, you little brat, it's not true! It's just a story!"

Me- "What? Did you tell my parents it wasn't true? Did you tell them before they put the money in the tray because I bet they wouldn't have paid."

And that was when I was asked to leave and sent out the door in the basement so that my parents didn't know their 8 year old had left the building. They didn't find me for about 5 hours because wandering through nature is a hell of a lot more interesting than sitting in a damp and dingy basement listening to stories with weak characters and terrible plot lines. We never went back to church again.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It became a requirement when it was claimed that all gods have the same status as Harry Potter in the fiction stakes.

I can't believe that I have to point out in a forum like this how stupid it is to say that gods are fictional because Harry Potter is fictional. It's like saying that one of the posters here is a "Nasty Woman" because Jack the Ripper was nasty.

Sounds like you and maybe whomever you are referring to don't understand the premise. Because what you've posted here is pure straw.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yeah she observed. She didn't just up and decide it by self realization.

I don't come close to getting what point you are making.

The scientific process is not only formulating and testing hypotheses.


Not sure if I'm answering posts twice. It appears I was not taken to the last post I had previously been on.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

As long as the argument is that there is absolutely no difference between an author who knows they are creating a work of fiction and somebody who believes they are telling the truth about a being this is exactly the argument as it was made.

You're just not keeping up. I suspect your belief in a god has left you with an impervious confirmation bias.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What evidence do you have that the authors of The Bible believed they were telling the truth about a being?

Even if they believed they were telling the truth, none of the authors were first hand witnesses or if they were, it's doubtful what they observed was actual evidence of gods.

For example a flood is not evidence of gods.

 

[psionl0]

Sounds like you and maybe whomever you are referring to don't understand the premise. Because what you've posted here is pure straw.

It seems that you have missed a few posts on the way. This diversion was about whether a character created by somebody who writes fiction for entertainment has the same status as one written about by somebody who believes in what they are writing about.

What you quoted was in response to the following exchange:

And what is that supposed to prove? That ALL gods are the creation of authors of fiction?

Yes, in principle. What else are they supposed to be? It doesn't always have to be actual authors, but even the boy who turned Harry Potter into a god, got that character from a writer of fiction.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What a silly question. Do you expect me to prove that every contributor to the bible was genuine and not a fraud? I might as well expect you to read J.K. Rowling's mind and prove that she doesn't believe that Hogwarts is real.

You are looking at the wrong evidence.

Look instead at how many gods that people believed existed throughout history are clearly accepted today to not exist. Examples: Péle, Zeus, and so on.

Then look at the remaining gods people believe in today? Where is the evidence gods people believe in today are real, while none of those other gods turned out to be real?

And take a look at how many gods people believe in today that you dismiss as fictional. For example Krishna and Buddha. Where is the evidence your god belief is real while those other people's god beliefs are not?

Do you see a pattern? When one observes patterns in scientific examinations, one draws conclusions. Once you draw a conclusion you then look to see if that conclusions stands up by predicting an outcome. In the case of gods the prediction did stand up when observing the Cargo cults.

There's not much more needed to conclude all gods are fictional.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Because we acknowledge that we might be wrong about the species being extinct. We have been wrong about that.

And when new evidence supports a species is not extinct, we change that conclusion. We don't, however, say because we found one species still exists therefore no species can be declared extinct until we prove the negative.

Do you have any evidence of a god that isn't fictional so we can declare that god exists?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Well, I for one, would never say that we know extinct species don't exist as a blanket statement. It's obviously a statement that is likely to be proven wrong very shortly after I state it. What's the appeal to saying something stupid?

Really? You're that non-committal about T-rex being extinct? Think one is going to come back to life when we drop a bomb on Antarctica?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

As opposed to the assumption that ALL the authors were knowingly telling falsehoods?

I don't reject the possibility that self-aggrandizement and fraud characterized some of the biblical stories but if you are going to claim that ALL of them did it then the burden of proof is on you.

You are still fighting straw men.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It is one thing to know the physiological basis of morality and another to know if a statement is morally valid.

Being told that a part of my brain is activated when I see someone killed doesn't tell me if that's good or bad.

This is off-topic, time to move on. Do you or don't you need the Bible or some other religious text to tell you what is right or wrong?

Provide evidence that is the case.

The rest of the debate about morality is another topic and I have too many other things taking up my time at the moment.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm afraid I find the hard atheist's stance just as iffy as the theist's.

More than one poster, presumably hard atheists all, has brought up Harry Potter and cargo cults in this thread.

Think of a time, in the future, when somehow the details of who wrote these books is lost. All you have are these volumes, attributed to someone called J K Rowling, who might, for all we know, be fictional herself. And you have -- let's say -- large numbers of people who seem to believe the contents of these books are based on fact.

In such a scenario, surely a research into the provenance of these books would be a valid exercise? And surely soft a-Potterism, hard a-Potterism, and plain agnosticism would each be valid stances to adopt?

Further: might the goings-on in these books be actually based on some kind of occult practices and rituals practiced by these ancients of the 21st century? Surely that too would not be at all certain, and a valid subject for serious 'research'?

That Hogwarts and cargo cults and Scientology are very easily dismissed as fiction today have little to do with our dismissing the older, more complex religions as fiction.

(I'm not saying they're not fiction, the older religions. They are. At least, that is my opinion. But I don't think they're quite as obviously fictional as, say, cargo cults or Hogwarts. If that is the reasoning that leads us to our atheism, then I'm afraid we're being as irrational as the theist.)

You are arguing against the argument no one is making except the people arguing this straw man. Hogwarts was merely cited as an example of fiction just like invisible garage dragons (Sagan?) or invisible pink unicorns (author unknown?) that one makes no bother to disprove. Why treat god fiction differently than those other fictions? Why the double standard?

But that is not the evidence all gods are mythical. It is only an argument against the claim I must prove gods don't exist in order to make the case. No I do not need to prove such a thing as I have already presented overwhelming evidence gods are fictional beings.

BTW, older more complex religions is not an argument from evidence. And the provenance of the Bible is not mysterious. There certainly isn't evidence it was magically produced.

 

[psionl0]

You are looking at the wrong evidence.

Look instead at how many gods that people believed existed throughout history are clearly accepted today to not exist. Examples: Péle, Zeus, and so on.

No, you are looking at the wrong thread.

This is not about gods that you may or may not have mentioned are accepted to exist or to not exist. It is about whether such claims can be made on a scientific basis (the answer is "no").

And the peripheral issue was whether all of the biblical authors were J.K. Rowlings.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...So an atheist communist or fascist or Ayn Rand objectivist or racist are all rational?

This I agree with, you can be an atheist and a 9-11 CTer or anything else. Not believing in gods is no guarantee you are otherwise rational. Just like believing in gods doesn't mean you aren't rational about everything else.

...Most people get their morality from culture.

But science only supports that culture influences morality but it isn't the basis of it. Biology is.

 

[David Mo]

Unlike Tommy, I do not hold that everything is subjective. Absolutely not! But some things obviously are subjective. Simply because we might ourselves be certain of our own position does not render our assessment objective. And it may be wise to be clear which is which: after all, there is nothing wrong in holding beliefs that are based on subectivity, as long as one is clear about where one stands.

I agree but It is not the most usual case. The most usual case is that people sincerely affirm that their favourit football team is the best of the world. Objectively speaking. The only thing to do is to try to bring the debate to the ground of facts. If possible.