Hawking says there are no gods

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not all facts are scientific facts.
It is not a scientific fact that I like philosophy. It can be explained using science, but that I like philosophy is not in itself a scientific fact.

You need to re-read my post. Nowhere did I say all facts are scientific facts.

And though all gods so far are fictional, it is also a scientific fact that some humans believe in gods.

So?

So you can't use science to show that is "wrong/bad/whatever", because that is "wrong/bad/whatever" is not a scientific fact. It is not objective as required by science, because it depends on you subjectively thinking it is "wrong/bad/whatever".

Whoa there Pardner, whatever are you on about?

Now it is a fact that you can think that and a fact that I don't think that; i.e. it is "wrong/bad/whatever" to believe in gods.

No one in this thread that I saw is making any kind of moral argument for or against god beliefs.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I read this full thread over the last few days. I'm surprised (from both sides) that it has gone on this long. Technically speaking, Hawking either saying outright (I know he didn't) or indirectly implying that there are no gods, or that we've disproven all gods is indeed imprecise and scientifically incorrect.

No one used the wording "disproving all gods" except to say that was a straw man.

An argument is made that one cannot prove the negative, that there are no gods because we cannot test for every possibility of gods.

But every claim of god that humans have ever made has been appropriately rejected due to lack of evidence supporting it. In practice, the difference between saying 'all claims of the existence of god have been rejected due to lack of evidence' and saying 'there are no gods' is trivially unimportant other than in some kind of thought exercise.

According to you maybe. I find it logical and significant.

Maybe you can address what I actually said.

There is overwhelming evidence gods are human made fiction.

There is zero evidence of any real gods.

We can draw a conclusion from those two statements which is a more precise conclusion than, we can't disprove the existence of gods.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Someone may not be able to prove using science that their spouse (or parents, or children, or other friends or family) love them. But merely because science can't prove that such love exists, doesn't mean it's not there.

Bad analogy. And it is off topic to discuss it.

 

[qayak]

I am an atheist in effect.
I just defend all beliefs, because of my belief in all humans.

I'm not sure what an "atheist in effect" is. You sound like you want to be a "progressive thinker" but haven't really thought things through and so come off as a religious apologist.

So the Saudi Prince believed a journalist should be tortured and killed, the people who carried out the deeds also believed that, and you will defend that belief. You wouldn't necessarily do what they did though, so while you defend them you believe that your morals are superior although you won't say that.

I make no bones about it, what they did was morally indefensible, and I not only don't defend it, I condemn it. My moral compass is far superior to theirs . . . period.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

I don't see anything here moving the discussion forward.

Try reading wikipedia.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No thank you.

 

[psionl0]

But to do this you ignore the other argument, all gods we know of are fictional human inventions and there is no evidence of any actual gods.

That is more scientific than the assertion magical gods could exist and no one can say they don't.

It might be all sorts of common sense but it is not scientific.

 

[psionl0]

If you are going to add a new piece, you need a new piece. You don't have one. There is no god piece, that was Hawking's message.

It didn't seem to bother you that the piece may not exist (and the person who said they have it was lying) when you thought that the puzzle was complete.

 

[Roboramma]

I don't see anything here moving the discussion forward.

There's nothing about panspermia that requires multiple origin of live events on earth. It that way it's just the same as local abiogenesis.

Even assuming we're talking about life on earth originating from panspermia, it could be so rare that only one such event took place on earth (just like that could be the case with abiogenesis). It could also be that once the life which is ancestral to us took hold, its evolution led to adaptation to Earth's environment to such an extent that future potential panspermia simply could not take hold (just as could be true of abiogenesis that took place after the origin of life).

I find local abiogenesis to be more likely than panspermia, but there's nothing about the tree of life that rules panspermia out, or even distinguishes it from abiogenesis, and the idea itself is certainly a scientific idea, just one that hasn't (yet?) got real support. That's the way that all ideas start, and while most will turn out to be false, we have to actually do the work to find out which.

 

[David Mo]

I think that is a bit unfair to Hawking. The quote in the OP is him talking about the origins of the universe, a subject used in discussions by theist apologists as pointing to an external creator. Hawking is an expert on the topic, so his views have weight. I think that some people think he rules out the existence of God or gods entirely, but he is limiting his view to one needed to explain the creation of the universe.

Often he is, but this is one time I don't think he is. The issue is that some people what to redefine the meaning of god (as he was using it) and then plug that into what he said and cry "Aha he was wrong!".

Hawking is wrong when he says; "If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed...". I don't accept it. This is a highly metaphysical statement. Nobody can say if some scientific revolution will change the scientific paradigm in the future. In addition I don't think that current laws explain everything about all the Universe. In reality I think the concept of Universe is a metaphysical one. The current knowledge about the known universe would be more appropriated.

I think that God's hypothesis is superfluous but this statement has to be ground on different basis. That is to say, on another concept of science less dogmatic.

 

[David Mo]

You know, actually I do agree with you that everything is subjective. If you choose to reason it out that way.

We choose to believe that some of what we subjectively perceive is objectively true. We do this because that is the easiest and simplest explanation -- Occams's Razor and all that -- but that is not to say that that is necessarily the only possible scenario, the only possible explanation.

So I believe you are right, you know!

Except: In our day-to-day lives, as well as our day-to-day gassing-away-on-forums (that is, at all times when we don't want to amuse ourselves with solipsism), it makes sense to see some things as objective, and some as subjective.

That is what I'd meant when I'd said to David Mo that I don't think everything is subjective.

All our knowledge of the world depends on perceptions. Every perception includes the feeling that we are geting a representation of a real world. Do I have any reason to doubt it? In specific cases, yes. As a general rule, no. Subjectivism is a metaphysical (unjustified) position.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

All our knowledge of the world depends on perceptions. Every perception includes the feeling that we are geting a representation of a real world. Do I have any reason to doubt it? In specific cases, yes. As a general rule, no. Subjectivism is a metaphysical (unjustified) position.

Perception
1.
the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.
"the normal limits to human perception"
2.
the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted.
"Hollywood's perception of the tastes of the American public"

You are using perception in both senses without realizing that they are different.
"A real world" is not known through the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.
You are using a positivistic rule for "real world", the problem is that your rule is as reality goes: "the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them" is itself an idealistic or notional idea.
Your rule is a case of subjectivism,which denies subjectivism.

Your problem is that "subjectivism is a metaphysical (unjustified) position" is itself a metaphysical position and that unjustified is subjective and dependent on your own rule, which is metaphysical.
Something is metaphysical, if it can't be known through observation, yet is known.
You know "subjectivism is a metaphysical (unjustified) position", because if you didn't, you couldn't talk about it, but you don't know it through physical observation.
You know it, because you think it. I think differently about the words "real world" and I use a different rule. And that is real.

...
Austin highlights the complexities proper to the uses of ‘real’ by observing that it is (i) a substantive-hungry word that often plays the role of (ii) adjuster-word, a word by means of which “other words are adjusted to meet the innumerable and unforeseeable demands of world upon language” (Austin 1962a, 73). Like ‘good,’ it is (iii) a dimension-word, that is, “the most general and comprehensive term in a whole group of terms of the same kind, terms that fulfil the same function” (Austin 1962a, 71): that is, ‘true,’ ‘proper,’ ‘genuine,’ ‘live,’ ‘natural,’ ‘authentic,’ as opposed to terms such as ‘Real,’ is also (iv) a word whose negative use “wears the trousers” (a trouser-word) (Austin 1962a, 70). ...

https://www.iep.utm.edu/austin/

The problem is that unjustified is a negative as ‘false,’ ‘artificial,’ ‘fake,’ ‘bogus,’ ‘synthetic,’ ‘toy,’ but also to nouns like ‘dream,’ ‘illusion,’ ‘mirage,’ ‘hallucination’, but it is real otherwise you couldn't use it.
"‘Real,’ is also (iv) a word whose negative use “wears the trousers” (a trouser-word)" is also the case of your use of "real world" - the real world is defined by what the non-real world is, i.e. "subjectivism is a metaphysical (unjustified) position". Your problem is that this is only real, because you think it. I.e. it is case of subjectivism.

I suggest you practice metacognition. Not that you need it to have a life, but that you need it if you want to say what reality really is.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I'm not sure what an "atheist in effect" is. You sound like you want to be a "progressive thinker" but haven't really thought things through and so come off as a religious apologist.

So the Saudi Prince believed a journalist should be tortured and killed, the people who carried out the deeds also believed that, and you will defend that belief. You wouldn't necessarily do what they did though, so while you defend them you believe that your morals are superior although you won't say that.

I make no bones about it, what they did was morally indefensible, and I not only don't defend it, I condemn it. My moral compass is far superior to theirs . . . period.

That is not science! That is dogmatic, because of ". . . period". I know it works for you, but it doesn't work for me. That is a case of moral and cognitive relativism.

 

[MikeG]

Hawking is wrong when he says; "If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed...". I don't accept it. This is a highly metaphysical statement. Nobody can say if some scientific revolution will change the scientific paradigm in the future.................

You just let slip a fundamental misunderstanding. If this is what you based all your opinions on, then your opinions are groundless.

Hawking says the laws of nature are fixed. He DID NOT say that our understanding of those laws is correct, or that they are fixed. You have assumed the latter in your response, and you are flat out wrong.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

You just let slip a fundamental misunderstanding. If this is what you based all your opinions on, then your opinions are groundless.

Hawking says the laws of nature are fixed. He DID NOT say that our understanding of those laws is correct, or that they are fixed. You have assumed the latter in your response, and you are flat out wrong.

That is not science, that is one of the core assumptions you need to believe in to do science. I have no problem with as long as you admit it is a belief.

If you accept that the laws of nature are fixed, there are no gods. I don't accept that you have to accept this to have a life. We can observe that there are other beliefs.
When we then compare different beliefs, we use morality, aesthetics and what is useful. None of these can be answered by science:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

 

[qayak]

That is not science! That is dogmatic, because of ". . . period". I know it works for you, but it doesn't work for me. That is a case of moral and cognitive relativism.

Ahhhhh . . . I see. You are caught at a point where your moral values have no value because they tell you nothing in relation to the world you live in. So you can't condemn an evil act because it was morally acceptable for the perpetrator.

 

[qayak]

That is not science, that is one of the core assumptions you need to believe in to do science. I have no problem with as long as you admit it is a belief.

If you accept that the laws of nature are fixed, there are no gods. I don't accept that you have to accept this to have a life. We can observe that there are other beliefs.
When we then compare different beliefs, we use morality, aesthetics and what is useful. None of these can be answered by science:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

"Other beliefs" mean nothing. It's like Hawking saying "2+2=4" and your response being "Others believe it is 3, 5, or 56. 4 is no more valid than those beliefs."

You simply pooh pooh everything to get to this meaningless point in your beliefs. Show better evidence than Hawking to support his statement if you want your statement to mean anything. Thus far there is no evidence to show the laws aren't fixed so yours is merely a belief of ignorance. Which is a pretty common thing with beliefs.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is a problem, to the point of being a thought terminating cliche, across a dozen topics right now... giving almost God-like power to the simple ability to articulate a thought. This idea that something has to be some manner of or some degree of true just because somebody somewhere constructed a coherent sentence out of it.

THAT MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Or as video game critic Yahtzee once put it:

You want to hear something crazy? (Censored) (censored) Labrador swimming up the Nile.
You want to hear something crazy but coherent? Julia Roberts was once hospitalized for swallowing an entire vole.
You want to hear something crazy but coherent and true? Driver: San Francisco might wind up in my Top 5 of the year.

 

[epeeist]

Bad analogy. And it is off topic to discuss it.

I thought it was on-topic, the point I was making was that science can't prove or disprove things outside of science, including re the link another poster provided, making judgments about art or morality etc., not something pure science can (or should) do.

But, sticking to science (not even math and incompleteness, in which sufficiently complex systems must have things that are true but unprovable), science is really about disproving things, not proving them. Even laws regarding gravitation etc. are only in a sense observably true (within the limits of what we've observed) and believed to be universally true (with possible exceptions for e.g. during big bang, if that's the model one believes in, origin and separation of e.g. time, strong and weak nuclear force, etc.).

Hmm, perhaps I should reread Hawking's Brief History of Time before commenting further...

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It might be all sorts of common sense but it is not scientific.

It didn't seem to bother you that the piece may not exist (and the person who said they have it was lying) when you thought that the puzzle was complete.

I don't understand either of these posts.