Hawking says there are no gods

[dann]

Exactly! "I need to look at the chair."

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

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.

THERE'S...NO...WRONG...UNLESS...YOU...BELIEVE...IN...WRONG

The same with how you understand knowledge, doesn't exist and what not. All of reality is neither objective as gravity nor objective as 2+2=11.
In the end you and I think differently for some accepts, but not all of reality and the joke is that we both can get away with it, albeit differently.

So wrong is what you make of and I do it differently, yet we are both parts in reality.

 

[JoeMorgue]

THERE'S...NO...WRONG...UNLESS...YOU...BELIEVE...IN...WRONG

The same with how you understand knowledge, doesn't exist and what not. All of reality is neither objective as gravity nor objective as 2+2=11.
In the end you and I think differently for some accepts, but not all of reality and the joke is that we both can get away with it, albeit differently.

So wrong is what you make of and I do it differently, yet we are both parts in reality.

Gibberish.

 

[Zambo]

Is anybody really suggesting there are gods? I do see religions, but gods?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Is anybody really suggesting there are gods? I do see religions, but gods?

That's the weirdest thing. The "YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THERE ARE NO GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU HAVE TO PHRASE IT PASSIVELY AND APOLOGETICALLY!" ranting doesn't come from religious people all that often. It's the coffee shop intellectuals who are for some reason really, really obsessed with how atheists word stuff and what category of atheist we are in.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

That's the weirdest thing. The "YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THERE ARE NO GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU HAVE TO PHRASE IT PASSIVELY AND APOLOGETICALLY!" ranting doesn't come from religious people all that often. It's the coffee shop intellectuals who are for some reason really, really obsessed with how atheists word stuff and what category of atheist we are in.

I don't believe in gods, nor do I believe that you to believe in gods to have a life, nor that you need to believe in gods to be a moral human.
Yet I have to believe like you, when it comes to how I am a atheist. I accept that you believe differently than me. I just don't accept your reasoning, because I can do it differently.

I don't have to believe that gods don't exist, I can believe it is unknown for a first unmoved mover creator god and then state that I don't believe in any gods regardless of sub-type.
Yet you have to use bold types and point out that you don't like it. Okay, I accept that you don't like it and I accept that you don't accept how I believe.
What more do you want? You are a libertarian, you should accept different person beliefs as long as they are personal.
I don't believe that your belief is wrong nor that your are wrong. I accept the difference.
I am not going to take away your ability to believe differently, yet you don't seem to accept my ability to believe differently.
If 80% of all atheists are strong/hard, how come that you can't respect the minority???

 

[psionl0]

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.

That is where you are wrong. Every single scientific theory has the rider "But I could be wrong" added to it. Nothing is sacred in science. New data frequently causes an entire rethink about even the most fundamental laws in science.

 

[Diablo]

That is where you are wrong. Every single scientific theory has the rider "But I could be wrong" added to it. Nothing is sacred in science. New data frequently causes an entire rethink about even the most fundamental laws in science.

My bold. I'm not saying that you're wrong, but when was the last time that happened?

It could be when the data showed that the rate of expansion of the universe was increasing, but they just plugged it with dark energy.

 

[kellyb]

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.

See, I wouldn't even call those "god ideas". More like a philosophy and "existential hypothesis" strongly held, or some thing like that. No deities are there, though, that I can see.

 

[JoeMorgue]

That is where you are wrong. Every single scientific theory has the rider "But I could be wrong" added to it. Nothing is sacred in science. New data frequently causes an entire rethink about even the most fundamental laws in science.

But we aren't expected to say it. We aren't expected to grovel and apologize for it.

"The sky is blue." It's not "The sky appears blue under our current understanding of optical nerve interaction with the 490–450 nm wavelength interval of the electromagnetic spectrum in the stratosphere and ionosphere but we could be wrong if everything we know is wrong and the universe really runs on magic."

This is the part where people pretend they are this apologetic about everything else even though they are provably not.

 

[Darat]

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





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 :




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.

Why are they all "god ideas"?

 

[Darat]

That is where you are wrong. Every single scientific theory has the rider "But I could be wrong" added to it. Nothing is sacred in science. New data frequently causes an entire rethink about even the most fundamental laws in science.

No rewrite of every single theory science has ever considered accurate will make a chair appear in the room.

 

[psionl0]

But we aren't expected to say it. We aren't expected to grovel and apologize for it.

Don't conflate science and religion. Science is totally rational. It makes no guarantees and it makes no apologies.

No rewrite of every single theory science has ever considered accurate will make a chair appear in the room.

Actually, according to quantum mechanics, there is a non-zero probability that this could happen. Sure, the probability is so ridiculously small that it isn't worth considering. However, this is what is supposed to be happening at the sub-atomic level.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Don't conflate science and religion. Science is totally rational. It makes no guarantees and it makes no apologies.

Oh we're back to "Science stay in your wheelhouse and don't you dare tell religion it's wrong."

I don't conflate science and religion. One is actually useful.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Actually, according to quantum mechanics, there is a non-zero probability that this could happen. Sure, the probability is so ridiculously small that it isn't worth considering. However, this is what is supposed to be happening at the sub-atomic level.

"Quantum mechanics" is not a magic word that means "Magic happens."

Do you drive your car into every wall you see on the off chance you might quantum tunnel through it? No you don't.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Oh we're back to "Science stay in your wheelhouse and don't you dare tell religion it's wrong."

I don't conflate science and religion. One is actually useful.

You can do as you like. But religion is not wrong according to science, because you can't observe right or wrong. Right and wrong are in your head.

Both science and religion are useful. E.g. you can use religion to get power and wealth and stop others from getting those. That is useful.
Not that I believe in that, but that is one way religion is useful.
Science is also useful. You can use it to develop more efficient ways of killing people.
Not that I believe in that, but that is one way science is useful.

Science doesn't tell you how to use scientific knowledge

https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12
And thus science can't tell you what is useful. You can't observe useful or useless. Useful and useless are in your head.

 

[Nonpareil]

You can do as you like. But religion is not wrong according to science

Yes, it is.

because you can't observe right or wrong.

Yes, you can. Unless you're referring to moral rights and wrongs rather than factual ones, in which case you're just going off on a completely irrelevant tangent.

Both science and religion are useful.

Many lies and false ideas are useful. That doesn't make them true.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...



Yes, you can. Unless you're referring to moral rights and wrongs rather than factual ones, in which case you're just going off on a completely irrelevant tangent.

...

But religion is a fact, so it can't be factually wrong. What you are saying, is that to you, religion is wrong, but that is a different wrong based on your thinking. Religion can't be wrong according to science, because it be observed. Religion can only be wrong according to science, if it couldn't be observed.
You are conflating wrong through observation with wrong based on thinking.
Wrong based on observation.
Wrong based on thinking.
Wrong based on emotions/feelings.
There are 3 kinds of wrong and religion is not wrong according to science. According to science religion is a human behavior and so it is a fact.

 

[Nonpareil]

Religion can't be wrong according to science, because it be observed. Religion can only be wrong according to science, if it couldn't be observed.

That isn't "right" or "wrong", Tommy. The words you are looking for are real and unreal.

They are not the same.

 

[JoeMorgue]

But religion is a fact, so it can't be factually wrong. What you are saying, is that to you, religion is wrong, but that is a different wrong based on your thinking. Religion can't be wrong according to science, because it be observed. Religion can only be wrong according to science, if it couldn't be observed.
You are conflating wrong through observation with wrong based on thinking.
Wrong based on observation.
Wrong based on thinking.
Wrong based on emotions/feelings.
There are 3 kinds of wrong and religion is not wrong according to science. According to science religion is a human behavior and so it is a fact.

Gibberish.