Hawking says there are no gods

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Yeah. "Hawking was an atheist" is not a terribly interesting discussion on its own.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Tangent on whether nature is fixed in how it operates and that drifted to "free Will".
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I don't care about yours or anybody else's "Maybe there's a God because magic makes the universe not have rules when we're not looking" nonsense.

Any argument which is "Oh sure you're right... but only if we assume the universe doesn't run on dream logic" is admitting defeat while trying to wrap it in a creative writing exercise to save face.

"God might exist because we can't prove that literally every observable fact about the universe isn't an illusion" doesn't even rise to the level of mental masturbation, it's lying in bed fantasizing about mental masturbation.

I aware your word salad response.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
I don't care about yours or anybody else's "Maybe there's a God because magic makes the universe not have rules when we're not looking" nonsense.

Any argument which is "Oh sure you're right... but only if we assume the universe doesn't run on dream logic" is admitting defeat while trying to wrap in a creative writing exercise to save face.

"God might exist because we can't prove that literally every observable fact about the universe isn't an illusion" doesn't even rise to the level of mental masturbation, it's lying in bed fantasizing about mental masturbation.

I aware your word salad response.
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I don't believe in "free will". It goes against causation. Since you claim that same, you are now a woo believer and all the rest like me.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Okay. And?
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"I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science," Hawking, who died in March, wrote. "If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn't take long to ask: What role is there for God?"
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I.e. model dependent realism as a variant of anti-realism, instrumentalism and idealism:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-elusive-thoery-of-everything/
So hard versus soft realism as just with hard versus soft atheism.

I don't accept God, nor do I think that the universe is any different that it appears, but I don't know.

Now rant away. :)
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
I don't accept God, nor do I think that the universe is any different that it appears, but I don't know.
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The universe is often different than it appears: The sun appears to be rising in the east and setting in the west, for instance. The appearance of the universe in contrast to what it actually is is what makes science necessary.
 
JoeMorgue said:
You don't "appear to have free will."

You have an entire hemisphere of your brain to tell you that you have "free will" after the act. Neuroscience can show that the parts of your brain that initiate an action kick in before the decision making process does. You're "Free Will" happens after your mind has already initiated the action. So apparently not only do we have the magical ability to have actions without causes, it can time travel.
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You should read up on this:

It is worth noting that such experiments – so far – have dealt only with free will decisions made in short time frames (seconds) and may not have direct bearing on free will decisions made ("thoughtfully") by the subject over the course of many seconds, minutes, hours or longer. Scientists have also only so far studied extremely simple behaviors (e.g. moving a finger).
Neuroscience of free will (Wikipedia)
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"Free Will" isn't some magical genie that lives inside your head and makes you able to self cause your own actions from nothing. Natural, causative process in your physical brain happen and your mind creates a narrative where those things were "your" decisions.
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Actually, you have experiences, perceive, interpret, contemplate, consider, draw conclusions, make decisions, etc., using your physical brain and they all contribute to changing your physical brain as well. You may even persuade yourself that this is an illusion caused by physical processes, but you never actually seriously believe in it. It's a little like when god believers are convinced that God controls their destiny and yet decide to remain on the sidewalk instead of stepping out on the street, secure in the knowledge that their god will protect them.

And outside of creating a pointless Gap to shove God into, what does any of this have to do with Hawking's statement?
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I have no idea why you want to bring gods into this.
 
dann said:
The universe is often different than it appears: The sun appears to be rising in the east and setting in the west, for instance. The appearance of the universe in contrast to what it actually is is what makes science necessary.
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And here we go.
I used to simple language.

As to Philip K. Dick versus L. Ron Hubbard. Both are to simple. I don't believe in any one of them alone. I believe in a combination.

Here it is.
I can't think away the PC screen in front of me -> Philip K. Dick
I believe in "The inherent worth and dignity of every person" and that is true, because I believe in it -> L. Ron Hubbard

The trick is to figure out, when to apply one and not the other. Keep it simple, but not to simple.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
I believe in "The inherent worth and dignity of every person" and that is true, because I believe in it -> L. Ron Hubbard
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I think you got the wrong guy for your idea of inherent worth and dignity of every person if you think that's what Hubbard stands for.
 
JoeMorgue said:
*Looks at dann, looks at the title of the thread, looks back at dann, looks at the title of the thread.*
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OK, so since Hawking didn't have free will to decide what he was thinking, I guess something made his chair say so.
 
And see this is what always happens. Saying there isn't some magical "Fairy in my head" philosophical version of free will doesn't take away the practical, day to day sense of personal volition.

We aren't reduced to choosing between "I can magically make stuff happen in my head without causes" and "I'm gonna drive the wrong way down the interstate at rush hour but it's not my fault because I don't have free will."
 
dann said:
I think you got the wrong guy for your idea of inherent worth and dignity of every person if you think that's what Hubbard stands for.
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Back to earlier in the thread, where you gave the 2 quotes to me.

In my words: Some things are true, because you believe in them and there is no objective truth, yet it is real as e.g. morality is real. Hence: I believe in "The inherent worth and dignity of every person" and that is true, because I believe in it.
I have to believe in some form of morality. That is the way some human brains work, if they are at certain cognitive level.

Where as for Phillip K. Dick: Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
When you stop believing in free will, it goes away. I have found that I don't have to believe in free will, gods, woo, CT, authoritarian objective political ideologies and that I have a mind.
I do have ideas of good and bad and those are beliefs.
 
JoeMorgue said:
And see this is what always happens. Saying there isn't some magical "Fairy in my head" philosophical version of free will doesn't take away the practical, day to day sense of personal volition.

We aren't reduced to choosing between "I can magically make stuff happen in my head without causes" and "I'm gonna drive the wrong way down the interstate at rush hour but it's not my fault because I don't have free will."
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Joke:
A thief comes before a judge and says he is innocent, because he has no free will. The judge answers that neither has she, so she will sentence him to prison.

Now that is not the same as being responsible for ones actions. Being responsible is a social construct, based on how we rate the ability to understand reality; i.e. criminally insane.
 
GDon said:
Grrrr! It's like fingers on a chalkboard. We've gone over this before. What you are doing is THEOLOGY. How do YOU know that God doesn't want to have on-going revelation? What you seem to be saying is that God -- which you don't believe in -- should behave in a certain way that He is not currently behaving in, or that Catholic belief isn't correct in expressing that God's wish. But how do you know? And how do you validate what is 'consistent' or not? What are you measuring against? Reality?


Okay. So what is the RIGHT view that Catholics should have, and how would you evaluate that? You are basically saying "on this topic God should not use on-going revelation."

THEOLOGY, THEOLOGY, THEOLOGY.


THEOLOGY! "This is what God should do!"


THEOLOGY! "This is how God should judge!"


Let me add some depth. You are an Australian, in a country where few people, even Christian believers, care much about the Bible. That includes pre-atheist you (IIRC from our previous conversations.) You become an atheist (no problem with that), get on the internet, and then... hey, presto! You become obsessed with framing the Bible as the centre-piece of Christianity! I've come across others like you. The Internet has a weird proselyting effect on newly minted atheists.

Now, if you want to highlight two ideas within Catholicism and show that they are inconsistent and contradictory, then more power to you. No problem with that at all. But to ignore Catholic teachings, to say that their teachings are inconsistent with what a God (which you don't believe exists) should REALLY do is THEOLOGY.

If someone wants to do theology, that's great. If I have a common theological belief with someone, I'm happy to discuss it. But if you don't believe in God in the first place, it is pointless to do theology. Because there is no reference to validate against.

To get an idea of what I mean: explain to me how you would validate Catholic's belief in Limbo, such that you know it is the CORRECT belief? By 'correct', I mean 'conforming to what you think is true' or 'conforming to how God SHOULD be'. I will predict with 100% certainty that your answer will involve theology rather than science or logic.
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What a great way to argue. You just dismiss all my arguments and shout THEOLOGY really, really loud and persistently, with the implication that I can't do theology, because I don't believe in the god I am analysing the behaviour of.

This is just a cop out as I am sure you know, because instead of doing THEOLOGY, I am just illustrating why belief in the god in question is absurd, because it is completely inconsistent with the concept of an all knowing, all powerful god, believers believe in.

Nothing unique in my approach at all. You will see it being used by Dennits, Dawkins, Harris, and the late Hitchens among others. No I am not a "newly minted atheist", stamped out in the shadow of these guys either. I have been arguing this way for a lot longer than that - with some success I might add.

I started this discussion with epeeist, (a Catholic), as I recall until you jumped in boots and all, flailing about with your ineffective rebuttals. Haven't managed to detect any consistent direction you are headed in this, and I have detected a certain vagueness in your own theological identity, from previous discussions.
 
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Thor 2 said:
What a great way to argue. You just dismiss all my arguments and shout THEOLOGY really, really loud and persistently, with the implication that I can't do theology, because I don't believe in the god I am analysing the behaviour of.
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This argument is as old as time, defining belief in God as being an expert in him.
 
dann said:
The universe is often different than it appears: The sun appears to be rising in the east and setting in the west, for instance. The appearance of the universe in contrast to what it actually is is what makes science necessary.
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Do you believe there must be some element of truth to evolutionary psychology, even if the science is still in its infancy and the data probably mostly extremely flawed at this point?
 
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