Hawking says there are no gods

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There is no need for a human to know what reality actually is for that human to have a life.
Thus all metaphysical and ontological claims are not a need, but a want. Some humans want an answer for which nobody can know this. Including you and your claim of "doesn't exist". That is an artifact of language and it means nothing, just like God, unless you believe in it.
I don't need "doesn't exist", but you do. And since that is ontology, you have a supernatural belief. "Doesn't exist" is not natural, it is metaphysics and thus supernatural.

I agree. No need. You can live praying God in a desert. You can live believing in Real Madrid and the lotery prize. You can live only for your family or your dog. You can live as a lizard that only needs a fly. It depends from the sense you need to give to your life. But if you like philosophy you are guided by curiosity and you need to know. And I think that philosophy is more useful to live that Real Madrid and et cetera. It helps me to avoid wasting my life chasing a mirage such as God, among other things.

God is an artifact. "God doesn't exist" is the constatation of a lack of evidence or a contradictory evidence. Don't mix epistemology with ontology.
 
Can we know for certain that some entity that could potentially be described as a god doesn't exist somewhere out of time/space/sight? No.

But do we have any evidence for the existence of gods, are there phenomena that require the existence of a god to explain? Also no.
And do we have evidence that (nearly) all gods that humans have ever believed in are human creations, used to explain the natural world, consolidate or gain power, promote in-group cohesion, and so on, rather than actual supernatural agents regularly interfering in our lives? I'd say there's plenty.

So sure, it's a provisional conclusion, and if anyone ever finds evidence, I'm willing to look at it and admit I was wrong if need be... but for now, I'm perfectly comfortable asserting that there are no gods, just like I don't feel the need to end everything I say with '...unless I'm actually just a figment of a butterfly's dream, that is'.
 
The same way we don't wait for someone to somehow prove that it is impossible for any version of anything that could be called a chair to be in a room with no chair and no place for a chair to be in it before just saying "There is no Chair."

If you walk into a room and you don't see a chair and there's no place in the room a chair could be hiding... at this point it becomes "There is no chair" without modifiers, exceptions, ass-coverings, escape clauses, or anything else. We don't go back and specifically try to redefine chair to still be "technically possible" within the room. We don't go "Okay but the question is still technically unanswerable.

Right now the universe is the room and God is the chair.

God is supposed to be the ultimate, most important force in the universe and people have literally dedicated their lives to proving him for thousands of years.

If God existed, we would know it beyond a shadow of a doubt by now. The existence of God would make "Is water wet?" look esoteric by comparison.

We've searched the room, looked behind every curtain, opened every drawer enough to know with intellectual honesty that there is not chair, to the point that both the people who insist there's a chair and the people who insist we keep arguing about whether or not there is a chair are getting a little annoying.


I understand your POV, but I have two objections to it.



First, this: Like I've said before, "God" is not so much a single thing like a chair, as a whole body of knowledge (or of fantasy), much like physics. I think you're making the same mistake that Pascal did with his infamous Wager, in confining yourself to one single set of God ideas: except his error is understandable, given his the relative narrower worldview he was exposed to.

Is Physics, as understood today, real? You cannot answer that question without looking into everything that the Physics of today has to offer. Basis that, you can say "Yes" or "No". Your answer can only be meaningful in as much as it is a summary of piecemeal evaluation of piecemeal elements of Physics.

Thus with God. There are so many God ideas extant. Sure, some of them, like the Abrahamic God, are very easily tossed out the window. There are others that are not that easily dealt with.



And my second objection: No, people haven't been properly looking for an acceptable 'proof' of God (colloquially speaking, in as much as science proves anything at all). To begin with, we've properly understood what really is acceptable proof, and what isn't, only recently (relatively speaking). Certainly not for "thousands of years".

And nor have we looked for evidence for all kinds of God. Not really.

Sure, if you're focusing only on the Abrahamic God of the Bible, then I agree with your sentiment. But there are more Gods than one!



That said, does one want to waste their days trying to find evidence for different chapters, one by one, from the huge fantastic 'Book of God'?

The answer to that can only ever be personal, and subjective.



No apology needed.


I have to disagree! (I love the undending nitpicking on this forum, and am doing my bit to add to that nitpicking, half in jest, when I say this!)

There's way too much pointless asshattery on the Internet. There is no reason why we cannot maintain the basic level of courtesy in online interactions, that we generally take for granted IRL.
 
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Can we know for certain that some entity that could potentially be described as a god doesn't exist somewhere out of time/space/sight? No.

But do we have any evidence for the existence of gods, are there phenomena that require the existence of a god to explain? Also no.
And do we have evidence that (nearly) all gods that humans have ever believed in are human creations, used to explain the natural world, consolidate or gain power, promote in-group cohesion, and so on, rather than actual supernatural agents regularly interfering in our lives? I'd say there's plenty.

So sure, it's a provisional conclusion, and if anyone ever finds evidence, I'm willing to look at it and admit I was wrong if need be... but for now, I'm perfectly comfortable asserting that there are no gods, just like I don't feel the need to end everything I say with '...unless I'm actually just a figment of a butterfly's dream, that is'.

I just say I don't believe, because:
Can we know for certain that some entity that could potentially be described as a god doesn't exist somewhere out of time/space/sight? No.

I am a soft/weak atheist and I treat knowledge as a human behavior/process just like our ability to move around. Just as movement has limits, knowledge has limits, so I know I don't need to believe in gods, but I know nothing of a god out of time/space/sight, so I neither claim one or the other.
 
First, this: Like I've said before, "God" is not so much a single thing like a chair, as a whole body of knowledge (or of fantasy), much like physics. I think you're making the same mistake that Pascal did with his infamous Wager, in confining yourself to one single set of God ideas: except his error is understandable, given his the relative narrower worldview he was exposed to.

And I see it very, very definitely. God is not ill-defined or vague by accident but by design. It's intentional.

Again after thousands of years something that's at least sort of an agreed upon workman's definition of "God" is not less reasonable to expect then some hard, concrete evidence for his existence.

It's that the people with skin in the game have a strong motive to not do that.

Thus with God. There are so many God ideas extant. Sure, some of them, like the Abrahamic God, are very easily tossed out the window. There are others that are not that easily dealt with.

But herein lies the trap. No I can no more "disprove" a dishwater vague God of vague vaguness that maybe vaguely does vague things vaguely in a vague way but that God doesn't exist in arguments, he only exists in argumentatives.

Nobody worships a vague God of vague vagueness. You don't post a 5 paragraph defense of or apologetic excuses for Vaguey Vague Vague God. You don't go to church every Sunday to worship a Vague God Vaguely Vaguing. People don't fight and die over the belief that "Some vague thing that might be called God might be doing some vague things."

"But God is Vague" is an excuse, another "technically speaking" reason God can't be 100% across the board metaphysically, argumentatively, and philosophically disproven.

No not every God is the Abrahamic God, but nobody is actually functionally believing in Gods that are so vague they don't matter.

If God's this vague, nobody would bother taking it upon themselves to die defending some vague intellectual right to say he exists. If he isn't he can be disproved.

Many will argue there is grey area in there, but I will not.

An infinite nested loop of "Prove an undefined negative" and #NotMyGod is a game I do not wish to play.
 
Not what I meant at all. I referred to a multiplicity of God ideas; I don't see how you can parse that to mean "vague".

I'm not referring to theoretical God-ideas, but to actual God ideas that large number of people worship. Nothing remotely vague about them.

And -- to preempt further misunderstanding -- I'm not saying, myself, that any of those Gods exist. I'm saying that the search for all those Gods is far from as thoroughly completed as, say, the search for the God of thunder. And I was further saying, in response to SG, that the decision whether to look any more, is a purely subjective one.
 
Not what I meant at all. I referred to a multiplicity of God ideas; I don't see how you can parse that to mean "vague".

I'm not referring to theoretical God-ideas, but to actual God ideas that large number of people worship. Nothing remotely vague about them.

And -- to preempt further misunderstanding -- I'm not saying, myself, that any of those Gods exist. I'm saying that the search for all those Gods is far from as thoroughly completed as, say, the search for the God of thunder. And I was further saying, in response to SG, that the decision whether to look any more, is a purely subjective one.

Which version of "god" that people actually worship do you find difficult to deal with?
 
I just say I don't believe, because:
Can we know for certain that some entity that could potentially be described as a god doesn't exist somewhere out of time/space/sight? No.....
No. Not if you are looking for absolutes/proofs to apply to those sorts of things where science presumably doesn't go.

But think about. We (those of us who believe in the scientific process) know there are no gods, of course there aren't. Yet we allow believers in the myth to inject doubt into our thought processes despite there not being one shred of evidence that gods exist and despite the fact there is overwhelming evidence gods are fictional beings humans contrived.

For god knows ;) what reason, we must disprove this one thing, that no gods exist. If we don't then we must accept all these apologies from critical thinkers with that proverbial god belief blind spot. Faith-based, spiritual, non overlapping magisteria, whichever name fits the apology du jour, apply it to escape confronting what is so obviously fiction masquerading as some separate but equal truth.

According to Dr Plait, I'm a dick for stating this POV. Oh well.
 
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... No I can no more "disprove" a dishwater vague God of vague vaguness that maybe vaguely does vague things vaguely in a vague way but that God doesn't exist in arguments, he only exists in argumentatives.
I like that description and the rest of your post.
 
I just say I don't believe, because:
Can we know for certain that some entity that could potentially be described as a god doesn't exist somewhere out of time/space/sight? No.

I am a soft/weak atheist and I treat knowledge as a human behavior/process just like our ability to move around. Just as movement has limits, knowledge has limits, so I know I don't need to believe in gods, but I know nothing of a god out of time/space/sight, so I neither claim one or the other.

Can we know for certain that some entity that could potentially be described as the Fairy Queen doesn't live in an unaccesible cave somewhere in the world? No.

Does have the existence of God the same degree of evidence of the Fairy Queen? Yes.

Is it worth to waste a minute discussing what the Fairy Queen wants of us? No.

Don't I believe in the Fairy Queen or I believe that the Fairy Queen doesn't exist? I believe that the Fairy Queen doesn't exist. And you?

(What an obsession with total certainty!)
 
Can we know for certain that some entity that could potentially be described as the Fairy Queen doesn't live in an unaccesible cave somewhere in the world? No.

Does have the existence of God the same degree of evidence of the Fairy Queen? Yes.

Is it worth to waste a minute discussing what the Fairy Queen wants of us? No.

Don't I believe in the Fairy Queen or I believe that the Fairy Queen doesn't exist? I believe that the Fairy Queen doesn't exist. And you?

(What an obsession with total certainty!)

You and I don't no agree on what philosophy is, yet you talk with certainty of what philosophy is:
Philosophy, (from Greek, by way of Latin, philosophia, “love of wisdom”) the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy
Notice the "or". You could replace it with an "and/or", but either way it is a point of uncertainty in one sense and certainty in another. To you philosophy is different that to me and that is where we end.

I am driven by not judging other humans and their thinking in any sense of wrong and that is not just morality/ethics.
To you, you can show that religion is wrong. I don't believe in wrong or truth, because I consider these words redundant.
So you are certain truth matters. To me that is a belief and I believe differently.
So learn to spot your own certainty before you criticize me for being certain.
 
Which version of "god" that people actually worship do you find difficult to deal with?


Hello, kellyb.

No, none of this is in the least “difficult to deal with”.



However, not all God ideas can -- as I was pointing out to JoeMorgue -- be dealt with in the exact same way. Different God ideas call for different ways to deal with them.

Some, like the God of Thunder, are easily disproved (in as much, that is, as science can ‘prove’ or ‘disprove’ anything). Some others, like the Abrahamic God of the Bible, are less easily disproved, but nevertheless, with some effort, it is possible to show up their flaws. For Gods like these, hard atheism is a perfectly reasonable position to hold.

There are other God ideas, like the Advaitin Brahman, for instance (which holds out a simulation-theory kind of scenario -- or perhaps you can think of it as a Berkeley-ish idealism, although these ideas predate Berkeley by at least a millennium, perhaps more), or, to take another example, the alleged Theravadin jhanic experiences and ‘levels’ of existence (which latter isn’t exactly a God, but it’s religious nevertheless, and points out supramundane, supranormal states of being, hence my preference for the term “God ideas” over “God” plain and simple), that cannot, as far as I can see, be disproved at all. Not directly.

But yes, given that no objective evidence is available that support these ideas, soft atheism is a perfectly valid response to these ideas (even as hard atheism is simply not valid in these cases, not if one wishes to be reasonable and rational).



In other words, soft atheism is, given what we know today of the multiplicity of actual God ideas as well as the evidence for them, always a valid stance. While hard atheism, although valid for certain God ideas, is not a valid stance for some others: so that hard atheism, generally speaking and as it applies to God ideas in general, is not a valid position to hold. As a general stance that would apply to all known God ideas, then, soft atheism is reasonable, while hard atheism isn’t.



And I was further pointing out to Skeptic Ginger that her decision/conclusion that there is to be no further enquiry about God ideas basis her evaluation of such God ideas as she might have studied, while perfectly valid, is a purely subjective and personal decision. If she imagines that this pronouncement of hers is objectively valid, just because she herself finds it agreeable, then she is simply conflating the subjective with the objective (an error that theists are very commonly given to, but evidently some atheists also fall prey to this kind of foggy thinking).
 
So we're just going to get "But (this) God (or even some hypothetical God that nobody actually believes in or worships) might be different..." for everything we say.

Again I have no desire to get lectured on my intellectual failings because I can't provide absolute proof that a conveniently undefined entity doesn't exist.

There's no chair in the room, but I can't prove the non-existence of a non-defined hypothetical chair that nobody actually think exists so I can't just go "There's no chair in the room."

And hell we can't even get a straight answer on what this hypothetical "Other type of God" is. We're basically being told "Make up a God you can't argue against to prove yourself wrong so I don't have to do it."

So please keep the discussion limited to actual concepts of God that actual people believe in in the actual world.
 
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These aren't instances of some "hypothetical God that nobody actually believes or worships", as I keep pointing out. I don't know how I can get this obvious point across, when my very clearly expressed statements keep on being glossed over.

And yes, you can't make claims that you cannot back up. Not if you wish to be seen as rational.

On the other hand -- as I've said before, more than once -- that's far from giving a free pass to all kinds of "woo". Soft atheism can be just as firm as hard atheism.
 
I already have, two random examples that came to mind, in the post that you've replied to a few minutes back. (At least, I assume that is what you were responding to, although you did not quote me.)
 
Those were just the word "God" slapped on concepts so vague as to be meaningless.

That can't be "disproved" because they are empty hollow shells of nothing.

So now the goalposts have moved from "Disprove God" to "Disprove any concept that anyone has ever slapped the label of God on."

There's no chair in the room but you're arguing that floor counts as a chair because you can sit on it and not asking me to prove there's no floor before saying there's no chair.
 
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Those were just the word "God" slapped on concepts so vague as to be meaningless.


Gods above! These concepts are not remotely "vague"!


That can't be "disproved" because they are empty hollow shells of nothing.

So now the goalposts have moved from "Disprove God" to "Disprove any concept that anyone has ever slapped the label of God on."


Of the two examples I provided, one clearly predates Christianity by half a millennium, while the other is arguably contemporaneous to Christianity. I don't see how you can possibly think of these ideas as "moving goalposts".

A far better analogy would be 'multiple goalposts', if you're looking at the whole universe of God ideas. As I keep saying repeatedly.

As for "disprov(ing) any concept that anyone has ever slapped the label of God on", well, that is exactly what my last two posts were about. If you can disprove some idea (within the limits of what science can prove or disprove, that goes without saying), then your hard atheism is reasonable, else it isn't.

Soft atheism -- refusing to accept a proposition in the absence of evidence, without actually actively disproving the proposition -- is perfectly valid in these cases.

And -- I'm repeating myself, but perhaps I should say this one last time -- your soft atheism can be just as firm, and just as determined, as you care to make it. You needn't worry about whole packs of "Woo" sneaking in behind your back and running up and biting you, simply because soft atheism is reasonable and hard atheism isn't!



Edited to respond to your edit :

you're arguing that floor counts as a chair because you can sit on it and not asking me to prove there's no floor before saying there's no chair.


Nope. I'm introducing you to recliners, and sofas, and divans, and ottomans, and lazyboys. Just because these are different from the chairs you are accustomed to seeing does not make them either imaginary or vague.
 
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The Soft/Hard atheism distinction is anti-intellectual, apologetic nonsense.

All you're doing is making up excuse after excuse as to why it's wrong to just go "God doesn't exist" without slapping some kind of "But I could be wrong" modifier on it, excuses that could apply to literally anything else but oddly enough nobody ever thinks to put on anything else.

God isn't special because he's poorly defined, broadly labeled, and special pleaded.

There's no chair in the goddamn room. I'm not going to go down your list proving a recliner doesn't exist in the room, then proving that dining room chair doesn't exist, then proving that bean bag chair doesn't exist, then proving that a chair that only one person ever used once back in the 20,000 BC doesn't exist, then proving that the floor which you call a chair because you sit on it doesn't exist, then prove that no hypothetical object that could ever be called a chair doesn't exist before you graciously allow me to be a "Hard Achairist" instead of a "Soft Achairist or Chairnostic" about the whole thing.

THERE'S... NO... CHAIR.
 
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