Hawking says there are no gods

[Darat]

This is definitely trolling!

There is no reason that I would be using the word "god" any differently to the way Hawking did but you insist that I have a non-definition of god that is different to Hawking's and you do so with all the fervor of a religious fundamentalist.

If you was using the word god like Hawking was and like the vast majority of all believers in a god then you would agree with his statement. You don't therefore you are talking about "something" other than what Hawking was.

 

[qayak]

So that experience (or your argument) convinced your parents, too?!

I have 6 older siblings. The first 3 say my parents were strong theists and say they went to church every week when we lived in Manitoba and Ontario. I remember a lot of things from Ontario were I lived from birth to age six but I do not remember going to church . . . ever. The two middle siblings said my parents believed but didn't care one way or the other. They recall going to church a few times. My youngest sister and I say my parents were atheists and we don't recall going to church except that one time when we lived in BC.

A few years ago my second oldest sister got in an argument with me over my mother's religious beliefs. My mother was French Canadian and raised Roman Catholic. She went to Catholic school until her final year when she went to public school where she met my father. My sister claimed my mother was very devout and her proof was my mother's rosary beads which she inherited after my mother died.

My argument was that my mother was upset when a priest visited her in the hospital and she sent him away. She also insisted the hospital remove her religion from her records so it couldn't happen again. She told me that the Catholic church had never done anything for her and she certainly didn't need them now. I also pointed out that my sister got my mother's rosary beads from the jewellery box on my mother dresser after she died. No self respecting Catholic is going into a hospital for cancer surgery, and cancer therapy, with only a 50% chance of survival without her rosary.

The evolution of my parent's beliefs or were they just saying what they thought each of us wanted to hear?

 

[JoeMorgue]

That still doesn't put the burden on me to define a god.

It does not. But it does allow people to dismiss (g)your claims that a "God exists." Arguing about it being worded "God doesn't exist" versus "There is no reason to seriously consider the existence of God" or some other weak-sauce passive voice nonsense is just meaningless semantics and argumentative stubbornness.

In any case, that is not what I am doing here. The situation is more akin to you saying that nobody has ever seen the inside of your garage but you have scientifically proven that it does not contain an (unspecified) elephant or a (unspecified) corvette. I don't have to define these things to challenge you on your "scientific method".

That's textbook God of the Gaps.

Nice scare quotes around "scientific method" as well.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

(portion only quoted)

No, it doesn't. Some do, Catholicism does not (not only since Vatican II, though that formalized the statement). What's critical is following one's conscience (I'm drastically oversimplifying and not getting into notions like Rahner's anonymous Christian or others re baptism of desire...).

Or to be more technical, how to reconcile necessity of baptism with salvation for the unbaptized (including unbelievers - save those baptized as infants or otherwise who were atheists or other non-Christians later...) is something that many, including the current and former pope, believe is theologically possible.

I should note, the Catholic catechism actually does refer to atheism as a sin, but in the same sentence notes that the circumstances, including behaviour of the faithful (i.e. how it helps make people atheist) mitigates the severity of the sin. There's also a separate discussion of unbaptized infants in another portion (they're technically atheist, right?). To quote one paragraph:

"2125 Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the virtue of religion.61 The imputability of this offense can be significantly diminished in virtue of the intentions and the circumstances. "Believers can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism. To the extent that they are careless about their instruction in the faith, or present its teaching falsely, or even fail in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion."62" (emphasis added)

To take an extreme, if someone was abused by a priest or because of all the stories coming out about it is driven away from Catholicism or Christianity or God, they've lost their faith not because of anything sinful they've done, but because of what others have done - not their fault.

One should also note Catholics are quite varied, they do not all agree on their beliefs. One need only compare Ratzinger with the current Pope to see stark differences in supposedly inerrant beliefs.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

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 really should stop paraphrasing Hawking. You've yet to get it right yet.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The point that was made in the OP was that the laws of nature appear to be fixed - at least Hawking thought so - so what role is there for a god? For example, how can an immaterial (supernatural) god influence events in the material world since there is no mechanism for it to do so? There is no 'god' force which an immaterial being can use to affect material objects - at least none has been proposed or tested.

How would a god cause a flood? By using gravity? In which case it must have mass and therefore be material, and we should be able to observe it - except that we can't.
Anyone who proposes such a thing would have to describe the mechanism, show how it works and how to test it. If there is a god but it has no way of interacting with the material world then it's not really a god in the way that people have understood and described, and would be totally irrelevant.

Exactly.

Psion10 you should take note.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

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.

Oh I followed all that. I wasn't impressed with either side of the chair in the room debate.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

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.

So I don't know what the topic of my thread is?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Deism

Read more in the link


Here is a version of deism, which at least one human has believed in:
God created the world and only interacts after death. There are no miracles, revelations and what not.
You get to God through reason and looking at the natural world. There is nothing supernatural in the world. The supernatural is that God created the natural universe and after death (supernatural) you receive rewards and punishments in the next world (supernatural).

Your bias is showing, Darat.
It is possible to believe in a creator god, which only intervenes after death and there has been at least one such human to believe so. And further it is upon you to show that there is no such human currently.

Deist argument fails: if said god doesn't interact with the universe, no one would have any means of being aware of said god.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yes but a lot of people maintain a very narrow view of what "science" is and get set off bad if you apply it to anything that isn't beakers and labcoats.

I don't see how what people falsely believe about science is at all relevant.

The point is regardless of what you want to define what Jane Goodell did as, it most certainly wasn't "faith."

Pretty much what I said.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't think so, actually. People -- you too, unless I'm mistaken -- did present this argument. Likening all religions to Potter and cargo cults, and implying (perhaps actually saying outright, I can't recall, and can't be bothered to check back) that since Potter and cargo cults can be dismissed outright, so can all religions. That's a false analogy, an (implicit) argument based on a false equivalence.

Well that isn't the argument I made, just a misinterpreted version of it.

Potter doesn't have **** to do with it except as an example of a known fiction.

Cargo Cults are a demonstration of the prediction, all gods are human invented fiction. It's that last postulate, your hypothesis needs to make a prediction that you then observe.


I'll have to get back to the rest.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Pretty much what I said.

So you're disagreeing with me because I agreed with what you said.

Got it.

 

[Roboramma]

Then take the straw away then. Put some qualities, characteristics, determining factors, or anything else on "God" or else is it just "Something that could exist."

This is all nonsense. "God" isn't this incredibly nebulous and vague idea, people just pretend it is because "If you can't pin down what I'm talking about I can't be proven wrong" has become the go to tactic for the theists and their apologists.

The endless round robin of "Nuh-uh, that's not my God!" retorts and "No True Scottish God" argumentatives is nothing but a shell game.

The word god as a class needs to be broad enough to include any god, including, but not limited to, all those that people have actually believed in.

Any category that includes both Hanuman and Allah is going to be a very broad category, but it's exactly every member of that category that's being claimed not to exist.

 

[Roboramma]

That's textbook God of the Gaps.

Nice scare quotes around "scientific method" as well.

Once again, it's not. The problem with the God of the Gaps arguments is that they go from not knowing what's in the gap to claiming to know what's in the gap (a god).

That's very different from stopping at not knowing.

As I've said several times we can go on to say that any particular thing is very probably not in that gap. If someone says there's an elephant in the garage and they have nothing to justify that belief, we can say "well, probably not", and the more specific the claim the less probable it becomes. An elephant is less likely than an animal and a female elephant is less likely still.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Nor do scientists reject it.

How do you know that? Genetic science argues against panspermia.

He knows because scientists haven't rejected it and are still studying it. Don't see how genetic science could possibly argue against panspermia.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Continuing:

...
Right. And I'm saying religions don't fall into quite that category. (That is, I believe religions are fictions, but we can't reject them -- that is, some/many of them, and therefore religions in general -- quite as easily, and certainly not using the exact same reasoning, that we might for Hogwarts, or for cargo cults.)

You can say whatever you want, doesn't make it evidence supported.

I have no issue with the assertion religious mythology and novel fiction are qualitatively different. But both are fiction, nonetheless. You seem to want to put Cargo Cults, religious mythology, in the category of novel fiction. That's absurd. It certainly isn't a novel based story, it is god mythology in every way.

... People often ask this, rhetorically as it were. I think this is a valid question, one that comes with a very reasonable answer.

We've discussed this already, 3point14 and I, but since that was in a different thread, here's the gist of what I'd said there:

Yes, I agree this is a double standard. But no, I don't agree that simply pointing out that this is a double standard is a valid argument. I think, in this instance, the double standard is perfectly apt.

And you support this based on what? That you believe one and not the other?

You have already shown your mistake by not recognizing the Cargo cults as religious mythology.

...We treat religions differently than other fictions, simply because vast numbers of people believe in the former.

That holds no evidentiary weight.

... Like I said in the post that you've quoted: Think of a post-apocalyptic world, where much of our knowledge has been wiped out, and some tattered copies of Rowling's works have survived. And large numbers of people start actually believing that all of that is based on truth.

How would you treat the Potter books, in that scenario? Surely one would be justified, in that scenario, in analyzing it in all earnestness, and painstakingly working out why it is (or isn't) 'true'.

It's equally possible some religious texts began as fiction. So what? People in the future build their god mythology based on a fictional book, it be comes religious mythology. I'm not seeing whatever significance you believe you are relating.

...But that stands to reason. Any claim you make, you must be prepared to defend. (Provided you care to be rational, that is.)

The fact that negatives are difficult to prove -- and sometimes impossible to prove -- does not take away the burden of proof. It only means that you must not make claims that you cannot back up.

Yeah well, I'm perfectly rational. It's useless to disprove gods that there is zero evidence for just because a lot of people believe. Of all the reasons, majority fantasy is one of the weakest.

Try shifting your paradigm otherwise we'll just be talking past each other.

You can say you don't agree with my premise, but trying to put it back into your unshifted POV is silly. You can't. It does not fit.

... You personally? Sure, I agree. If you don't wish to engage with this any further -- because you believe you've already presented overwhelming evidence against religions in general, or for any other reason -- then absolutely, you are under no compulsion. Sure, you don't need to prove anything unless you want to.

But if you make a statement basis something that you haven't backed up, then I'm afraid that won't be quite ... well, reasonable, rational. ...

There are two ways to approach the god hypothesis.

1) Prove they don't exist because someone said they do.

There is zero evidence gods exist. And there are many other fictional beings no one asks anyone to disprove when there is no evidence.

So ignore both of those premises and assert based on no evidence whatsoever that no one can prove gods don't exist, ergo they deserve some special pleading because so many people believe.​

Or,

2) What conclusions can you draw about god beliefs based on the evidence we do have?


That is what I asked and that is where I stand. Gods are fiction. Got one shred of evidence they aren't?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

With everything that actually exists and people want to argue for honestly, yes.

God is different. Not defining him isn't a bug, it's a feature.

God isn't the answer to a question no one asked or a question no one can answer, he's an answer to a question that can't be answered defined as a question that can't be answered. The second you clearly define God to even normal discussional level ceases to exist, which is why in modern times all effort from the theists and apologist has gone into making sure God stays Jello we can't nail to the wall.

This is why I bristle at theists and apologists comparing God to placeholder concepts like (to various degrees, often over simplified or outright misconstrued) gravity, dark matter, the "God Particle" and so forth.

The difference is everyone who's actually interested in those things wants there to be a concrete, real thing, process, or phenomenon to eventually plug into those concepts. We don't want them to stay vague fluid mysterious we can say whatever about. Nobody at MIT or Fermi Labs or CERN is content invoking "belief" about any of those things.

Dark Matter is something we currently can't define. It's a vague, generic placeholder term we use just so we can talk about it until such time as we come up with something better. It's not something we're defining as undefinable.

That's why Dark Matter is a "placeholder" and God is a "of the gaps." Because when people say "Oh I hope we learn more about Dark Matter" soon they aren't lying.

There is evidence of dark matter or we wouldn't be discussing it. It has gravity. It doesn't interact with light. It's not a place holder. It's a name for what evidence we have about its existence.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm beginning to suspect that I am being trolled here.

If Stephen Hawking wasn't required to define a god or gods before saying that there is no room in the universe for them then why do I need to do otherwise to take him to task?

Because I like you and think you are an honest debater:

It wouldn't matter what the definition was, no room is just that, no room.

Say you have a puzzle. And you solve that puzzle. Then someone comes along and says I have a piece of that puzzle that you need to solve it. But you have already solved it without that piece. So you conclude that piece was not needed and the person who says it was is wrong.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So you're disagreeing with me because I agreed with what you said.

Got it.

Does "pretty much what I said" sound like I am disagreeing with you?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

He knows because scientists haven't rejected it and are still studying it. Don't see how genetic science could possibly argue against panspermia.

I'm pretty sure panspermia is not on the differential of scientists that know what they are talking about. You could probably find a geologist or a meteorologist who wasn't aware the theory is passé.

If you don't understand how the genetic tree of life argues against multiple genetic origins then you need to brush up on the genetic family tree.

The Tree of Life Web Project is a good place to start. Notice there is a single emergence, not multiple emergences* from all that panspermia salting of the planet.

*There is an hypothesis that the original lifeforms spent a period of time exchanging DNA but that's not evidence of panspermia.