Hawking says there are no gods

[psionl0]

You have yet to address your mistaken version that science seeks proofs and now here you've said it again: "scientific ... proofs".

Name one.

If you can't then stop insulting me.

It's hard to find an example of a strawman assertion.

FYI the "scientific method" basically follows these steps: observe, hypothesize, test, evaluate, repeat . If the tests bear out the hypothesis then we can say that the hypothesis is "scientifically proved". Of course, we must always bear in mind that the tests could be flawed or a new observation could force us to throw out the entire hypothesis.

Since there is no test for the presence/absence of a god, the scientific method is not applicable and you need to do your reasoning on other grounds.

 

[GDon]

I know what Gould said, wrote and meant.

Your diversion doesn't change the facts, there is no 'other' reality that involves gods.

If you understand what Gould wrote, then what are you talking about when referencing 'other' realities?

How about Gould's example? What scientific tests would you run to examine the following: "Do we violate any moral codes when we use genetic technology to place a gene from one creature into the genome of another species?"

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It's hard to find an example of a strawman assertion.

A strawman? It's an exact quote.

Now you're clearly being dishonest.

You said scientific proofs. You've repeated "science proves" a half dozen times in this thread

Put up or shut up.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If you understand what Gould wrote, then what are you talking about when referencing 'other' realities?

How about Gould's example? What scientific tests would you run to examine the following: "Do we violate any moral codes when we use genetic technology to place a gene from one creature into the genome of another species?"

It's easy, I don't agree with him.

Excuse the snarky post but this sidetrack annoys me.

"Moral codes violated blah blah blah." That's a completely different discussion. Were I to have that discussion with you, I'd say it's ignorant to assert we shouldn't do X or Y because it's immoral. And it sounds like you'd argue, how can I determine if X or Y are moral. And I'd say it depends on the outcome and you'd say science can't resolve if the outcome is good or bad and blah blah blah on the discussion would go.

IMO, that is a meaningless discussion. It's a debate about a contrived problem, whether something is moral or not, good or bad, whatever. I have disdain for the waste of time I see a philosophical discussion as because for me, it's all biology and no philosophy.

This thread is not about the philosophy of gods. Even if you want to sit around contemplating how good/bad, right/wrong evil, ugly/beautiful, whatever is outside the realm of science, that doesn't mean one can or needs to plug god or supernatural or spiritual into that gap.

I don't divide reality into two sides, spiritual et al vs scientific reality. There's no magical thing that is morality or spirituality. There just isn't.

From my POV one can measure love, beauty, right/wrong, good/evil using the scientific method if you simply apply a scale and define what the scale measures. For example to define the measure of beauty one surveys a select human population and identifies the elements you are going to use to measure beauty.

That makes sense to me. But running around like chickens with no heads saying oh dear, science doesn't have items on a scale the way we can measure distance or temperature, let's go sit around and discuss the philosophy of beauty does not seem the least bit productive to me.

"Harrumpf, I say beauty is a thing outside of scientific measurement."

"So true Platy, we must never address beauty using the scientific process because science cannot measure beauty."

"But wise men, if one has something that is beautiful and something that is ugly, can we not make that determination?"

"No little one, we can't because science cannot measure beauty."

"But I can see it with my own eyes. Some may disagree but we can measure the percentage of those that agree or not and by what degree they differ."

"But little one, that is not scientific. We philosophers are the only ones that can discuss this problem and the scientific process cannot be applied."​

Can we get back to the discussion of Hawking's view there is no room for gods now and away from this BS that there is some magical reality outside the real universe?

 

[psionl0]

A strawman? It's an exact quote.

Now you're clearly being dishonest.

You said scientific proofs. You've repeated "science proves" a half dozen times in this thread

Put up or shut up.

You should have read the rest of the post that you quoted. It clarifies the term "scientifically proved" (it means proven using the scientific method).

 

[GDon]

IMO, that is a meaningless discussion. It's a debate about a contrived problem, whether something is moral or not, good or bad, whatever. I have disdain for the waste of time I see a philosophical discussion as because for me, it's all biology and no philosophy.

As a theist, I disagree, but I can respect an atheist who thinks that way.

 

[dann]

That is impossible. It is impossible to hold contradictory beliefs.
So you believe that I can do a contradictory thing. Okay.

If you never read Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, I can recommend it.

 

[David Mo]

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.

I don't know how you can say that the laws are fixed if you don't know these laws, May you explain this?

 

[Roboramma]

Oh yeah, that crap. I forgot some people use a different, useless definition for panspermia.


From Duckduckgo:

From Wiki:

If one uses the first definition, why bother? Organic molecules are not replicating life forms. Organic molecules are not evidence of life throughout the Universe.

Panspermia refers to organisms, already considered living. It's stupid to talk about panspermia if all you mean are organic molecules from space. Changing the definition makes the word not a useful scientific term.

This crap came up before in another thread on panspermia. It's ignorant.

Everything I said can apply to the second definition.

 

[David Mo]

That highlighted sentence is a given. It doesn't need to be said.

Do you say it when you talk about evolution? "Nobody can say if some scientific revolution will change the scientific paradigm in the future."

About the Big Bang theory? "Nobody can say if some scientific revolution will change the scientific paradigm in the future."

About the existence of BigFoot or the Lochness monster? "Nobody can say if some scientific revolution will change the scientific paradigm in the future."


We don't use that caveat every time we repeat a well established scientific theory. Why the double standard of pointing it out when someone dares to say there are no gods?

The Big Bang is not a paradigm. Big Foot is much less so.
Change of paradigms doesn’t change well-established facts. For example, Kepler used Tycho Brahe’s tables of observations and Brahe was geocentrist. Change of paradigms change some fundamental laws that explain global facts and derivedative. What we are discussing now is about fundamental laws. Hawking supposes that these laws are fixed. This is an unjustified supposition that contradicts what we know about history of science.

It is a commonplace that science is not fixed and that many of our current knowledge can be replaced by new knowledge in the future. This is not a reason to believe in supernatural facts or pseudosciences. I am sure that Hawking knew this elemental datum. I am a little surprised that he spoke of some “fixed laws”. Perhaps we should discuss the original book instead of a recension.

 

[Chanakya]

Solipsism and skepticism are not that same, but they sort of meet in "I know that I know nothing". The difference is to me, how I treat "I exist". I don't treat that differently than "reality exists". I don't know either, but I believe in both.

Heh, so you go solipsizing (is that a verb?) even beyond actual solipsism?

Whether solipsism, or your particular brand 'extreme solipsism', thinking this way can be a good mental workout, I suppose, as well as kind of fun, once in a while: but are you saying you do this all the time?

The problem is that when we speak of a "we" that "we" is sometimes so broad that it includes all of humanity as a part of reality. And then we are back to everything.
Try something:
From here on out, always when on this forum, do this: Try to learn to spot when someone speaks for "we" as all of humanity as a part of reality or everything.
It happens a lot and makes sense. We are social animals after all, the problem is that all of reality/everything is not the same to everybody. That then becomes a problem if you claim an universal morality/ethics for all humans, "because I can decide what matters for all of us."
Try to learn to catch that one. It is very common. At least a significant amount of posters do that. They speak for everybody and everything.

Hell, I do sometimes, but I try to catch it.

I agree, this kind of over-generalization it might be wise to guard against, both in oneself and in others.

But I’m not sure I see the relevance of this in the context of what we were speaking of?

 

[Chanakya]

I think my response to you also responds to the others who quoted me.

I'm going to try to simplify theological and ontological concepts which you do not agree with the truth of

For someone who believes in a loving, just but also merciful God, it is God who decides who is "saved" to use that term. Not us. Now, people through their choices may ultimately exclude themselves from salvation, but that is an exercise of free will, not God being deliberately cruel. God wants all people to share in salvation but also respects the choices humans make. One reason Catholic teaching includes purgatory, which many other Christians find laughable, is that it's a serious attempt to reconcile an infinitely loving God with the existence of hell. Free will is part of it (someone choosing to do what they know is evil, even if they don't believe in God, is still knowingly choosing to do evil, and is culpable for that, even if not for their unbelief). The other way round, the Catholic church that some specific people are in heaven, but it doesn't deny others are, nor does it teach that any specific person is in hell. I think there's also a theory of some that hell exists, but is empty.

So re unbaptized infants, or simple unbelieving atheism (not rejection of a God one believes in!) it is a matter of entrusting their souls to a loving God (limbo was a theological theory, not dogma). Or a story from earlier this year, something like Pope Francis told a young boy that his dead father may be in heaven. He didn't say he was, he didn't say he wasn't, because it's God who decides.

Theodicy (reconciling the existence of evil and suffering with a loving God) is a separate thread, perhaps...

Only some aspects of faith are considered inerrant - popes are just as fallible as any person generally, including on moral teachings. It is taught/believed that the Cardinals in selecting a new pope are guided by the holy spirit, but the former Pope Benedict noted (when he was Cardinal Ratzinger I think) that just from looking at the behaviour of some historical popes, sometimes the guidance of God was ignored in choosing a new pope (I'm paraphrasing from memory).

Vatican II reaffirmed the primacy of the individual conscience (contrary to the notion that error has no rights). To oversimplify, one is morally obliged to follow one's conscience, even if it runs contrary to what the church says. It must be an informed conscience, one should not disagree lightly, but even if you end up excommunicated you're obliged to follow your conscience.

Also, sin is most severe (aka mortal) when it is made with full knowledge and appreciation of the consequences. An atheist by definition is incapable of such serious sin in terms of denying God, because they don't believe in God. Like I said before, it's not a choice. Someone can only knowingly reject God if they believe in God and understand the consequences. Which is inapplicable to an atheist. Because even if they understand what Christians (or for other religions, those religions) say, they don't believe it.

So someone who was angry and upset with God could reject God in a very serious way aware of the consequences, but not someone who didn't believe in God.

This presumes no wilful blindness, e.g. I can think of one atheist I knew who felt called from their secular university studies of comparative religion or something like that and ultimately became Catholic (which surprised their atheist friends!). If they had felt called and deliberately ignored that, they would have been more culpable because then it would have been rejection, not lack of belief.

Ah yes, purgatory. Of course. Sure, that reconciles it, I agree, kind of -- within the paradigm of Catholicism, that is, and provided you buy into that worldview in the first place.

And as for this empty-hell business: I thought I knew a bit about Catholics and Catholicism, but I’d never heard of this empty-hell business, ever.

Thanks for spelling all of that out, epeeist.

Question: Would you say this view is at all mainstream? The empty hell thing, I mean? Like I said, I’ve never heard mention of it before this.

 

[Chanakya]

This is off-topic so I will only make a quick remark, you are welcome to explore the topic and start another thread. That was astronomers looking at new-found organic molecules in meteorites (previously less complex organic molecules had been found). Either they made off-handed remarks or the news media reporting on the find added their own theories or both. The problem with the story was that there was no geneticist involve.

Welcome to the new science of overlapping specialties. An astro-biologist would probably have been a better source to be giving reporters a story about the new finding.

Regardless, they did not find multiple organisms or even replicating organic molecules in the meteorite. So it was not evidence of panspermia.

There was also some guy (in India I believe) who claimed red rain was evidence of panspermia. He found the red substance consisted of spores or something. The scientific consensus was the red rain was from an Earth source.


As for people still researching it, sure, there will always be room to look for lifeforms seeding 2nd and 3rd planets. But as for all kinds of spores or lifeforms buzzing around the Universe, there is no evidence of any such thing.

The Discovery Institute is still looking for irreducible complexity too, that doesn't mean most scientists haven't dismissed the hypothesis.

Thank you for that clarification. You may or may not be right, but you do seem to know more about that specific instance than I do.

You’re right, this subject can be better explored separately. Or at least read up on a bit.

Barring that, I take your point: I understand that you insist that that particular research has not yielded positive results (obviously, or we’d have seen it blazoned out in headlines!), and nor is this mainstream subject of research any more. At least that seems to be your (probably informed) opinion.

Fair enough. Pending further reading on this on my part, I’ll leave it at that.




That said, the details of that approach towards panspermia are no more than a pedantic side issue. You do understand my larger point, don’t you?

In as such as you’re researching some topic -- no matter what the actual topic -- you invest on the subject of your investigation a far greater precision than you would for other things.

Thus, if you’re looking at religion and the God question from the outside as it were (either because you’ve already conducted your personal research and now moved away from the subject, or simply because you are not interested in the subject at all), then you can look at the issue broadly; but if you’re interested in actually studying the issue, to see what core of truth (if any) it might have to offer, then you will tend to see these things with a far finer resolution.

You appreciate this larger point I was driving at, I hope? Given the context of the specific discussion where I’d said this?

 

[Chanakya]

(...) Numbers of believers doesn't mean a thing unless you are a social scientist. (...)

Numbers of believers can be relevant to why we might want to invest some subject with greater precision than others. Here’s three reasons why:

1. If you’re social scientist, sure. As both Darat and you point you.
   
   
2. If you care to engage with the people who do believe. I suppose you'll be likelier -- other things being equal -- to engage with someone if they belong to a huge group numbering billions, as opposed to being part of a group of one, or ten, or a hundred.
   
   
3. If you’re drawn to this subject, irrespective of any other reason.
   
   True, this last has nothing to do with large numbers, as you say. You may very well be drawn to a subject no one believes in at all. But it still is one (more) reason why you may want to look more closely at some subject than others.

(...) Soft atheism, hard atheism, blah blah blah...

I'm way past that. You are not addressing my paradigm shift, demonstrating why it is unsupportable. Once you've shifted, you can't argue the person back to pre-shift POV.

You’re over-generalizing when you say that last. I don't see how you can know that no one can be “argued back” from a stance such as yours. The best you can do is speak for yourself.

But I’m being pedantic, I guess, in pointing that out. I do take your larger point, absolutely.



I see now where you’re coming from, and why we’ve been speaking over each other.

You’re seeing this firmly from your personal perspective. While I’m seeing this from a perspective that isn’t necessarily mine alone (or yours alone), but what might be generally reasonable.



Sure, as far as your personal stance about this, and as it applies to yourself: I have no quarrel, no disagreement at all. How could I? What you believe or don’t believe, you personally, that is your business. Why would I want to argue you into some position, or argue you out of some position? I am very happy to leave people to whatever they choose to believe, as long as -- as I was saying to David Mo earlier upthread -- as long as they realize the subjectivity of their own belief, and as long as they don’t seek to invest their subjective opinion with a spurious objectivity that they then seek to proselytize. This would apply alike to theists and atheists, although obviously it is usually the former (the theists) who tend to go in for this sort of thing. But absolutely, I’d object to it when fellow atheists do it, too.

As far as your particular “paradigm shift”: I’m not demonstrating why it is unsupportable, because I’m not even saying it is “unsupportable”. Absolutely not! If you’ve yourself thought this out to your satisfaction, weighed things to your satisfaction, and arrived at a subjective conclusion that satisfies you: why on earth would I contest that purely personal conclusion?

 

[Chanakya]

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.

Functionally, yes.

And since we live our lives functionally, not within some hypothesis or some theory, therefore I do agree with you in general. But only functionally.

Because at the end of the day, if we really want to play that game, then what are we left with? The subjective. That and nothing else.

Yes, in some things we find more or less unanimous agreement from others. That would be the inter-subjective.

Beyond this, everything else is functional, utilitarian. We accept the simplest solution, the most parsimonious explanation, because it is expedient to do so.



Tommy likes to keep on bringing up Boltzmann brains as well as world-as-simulation ideas. We can’t disprove them. Although the exact opposite of parsimonious, nevertheless for all we know one of those ideas could be true. Why not?

Except: Even if those ideas were true, still, they add nothing to how we lead our lives. So we lead our live our lives as if those things simply aren’t true. That is why we take some things to be objective. And absolutely, that policy has served us very well.

So obviously, while functionally I agree with you, for all practical everyday purposes I agree with you -- I've said as much already -- but no, I don’t see that subjectivity -- to be more precise, the idea that everything is ultimately subjective -- is “unjustified”, other than on purely functional grounds.

 

[qayak]

Change of paradigms change some fundamental laws that explain global facts and derivedative. What we are discussing now is about fundamental laws. Hawking supposes that these laws are fixed. This is an unjustified supposition that contradicts what we know about history of science.

Change of paradigms doesn't change the laws, it just changes our ability to grasp the concept and understand the law. Hawking stated the laws are fixed. They either are or they are not but a paradigm shift doesn't change the law. The history of science does not contradict Hawking and adds nothing to the discussion.

 

[qayak]

Beyond this, everything else is functional, utilitarian. We accept the simplest solution, the most parsimonious explanation, because it is expedient to do so.

In general humans do but science, and scientists, don't. That's why "God done it!" isn't something you hear scientists saying.

 

[Diablo]

There are some serious gaps in what we know about how the universe works. Dark matter and dark energy which are just plugs to reflect the fact that the data doesn't fit the theory. The two great theories of relativity and quantum physics don't work together. We have the Standard Model but that isn't enough. Maybe there's room for other forces and the particles that carry them which could mimic the effects of a 'god'. It may be premature to say that the laws of the universe are fixed.

 

[Steve]

There are some serious gaps in what we know about how the universe works. Dark matter and dark energy which are just plugs to reflect the fact that the data doesn't fit the theory. The two great theories of relativity and quantum physics don't work together. We have the Standard Model but that isn't enough. Maybe there's room for other forces and the particles that carry them which could mimic the effects of a 'god'. It may be premature to say that the laws of the universe are fixed.

I think they are very likely fixed. We puny humans just do not know or understand them all yet. That we know what we do is really quite amazing.

 

[Diablo]

I think they are very likely fixed. We puny humans just do not know or understand them all yet. That we know what we do is really quite amazing.

When I said they were fixed, I meant that the ones we have described and documented were fixed.