Hawking says there are no gods

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Darat said:
No that is not a claim of outside. It is a claim that there was nothing, then there was something.
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Evidence of nothing, please. You can't observe nothing, you always do something else that "nothing". When you say nothing, you are actually doing something; i.e. you say something, namely "nothing". "Nothing" doesn't exists as nothing, it exists as the idea of nothing.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
So where is nothing? How do you know nothing? Nothing is an artifact of language. It is the combination of "no" and "thing". Do as you tell everybody else, check the language!!!
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Given the meaning of nothing as Hawking used it there is no where, no when, it's like he was saying there was nothing then there was something.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Evidence of nothing, please. You can't observe nothing, you always do something else that "nothing". When you say nothing, you are actually doing something; i.e. you say something, namely "nothing". "Nothing" doesn't exists as nothing, it exists as the idea of nothing.
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Why would you think I have evidence for Hawking's claims?
 
kellyb said:
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.
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Darat said:
Why are they all "god ideas"?
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I can, offhand, think of four reasons why, as far as, for instance, Advaita:

  1. There are sizeable numbers of people who, when they think of "God", think of the Advaitic Brahman. So one reason would be self-definition, that is, how the adherents view their belief.
  2. These people not only believe this, but also venerate this idea of God, much like your garden variety theist venerates the God of the Bible.
  3. Advaita teaches a theology that "explains" creation.
  4. Advaitists lead their lives in consonance with the tenets of this belief -- which includes, for instance, meditation that is undertaken not so much for holistic health as for "realization" of this One God.


On the other hand, as kellyb very rightly points out, there are no deities in there.

If you choose to make that a necessary criterion for an ‘idea’ to qualify as a “God idea”, then sure, I agree, in that case these would not qualify not “god ideas”. If you choose to limit your definition of God to a deity, and what is more to a deity that actually fiddles with our world and with our lives -- in other words, if you choose to limit your definition of God to the simpler God ideas, like the Christian God, and the Gods atop Olympus, et al -- then, within that limited definition of "God", I’m perfectly fine with the hard atheist’s position.

These simplistic God ideas I would, absolutely, find it reasonable to be hard-atheistic about.
 
Chanakya said:
These simplistic God ideas I would, absolutely, find it reasonable to be hard-atheistic about.
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That's just changing the language to say the same thing again.

So now we're graciously allowed to be "Strong Atheist" as long as you agree about the specific God we're atheistic about.

If there's no chair in the room you aren't different levels of "achairist" about different hypothetical chairs that aren't in the room.

There's no invisible dragon in my garage. I don't have different levels of doubt about 3 toed or 4 toed invisible garage dragons nor do I have a different level of doubt about invisible garage dragons who's believers have not yet assigned a number of toes to.

This whole idea that God becomes more likely the less defined and non-vague he is baffles me. That's argumentative trickery, nothing else.

It's like the old "How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg?" Four. It still has four. You calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

If we walk into the room with no chair and I say "There's no chair" but you point at a lamp and go "It does because I'm calling that a chair!"... there's still no chair.

And this goes even further than that. We've walked into the room with no chair and you're arguing that maybe there is a chair because "Maybe at some point somebody somewhere did or could call one of the objects in this room a chair."

Words mean things.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
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This whole idea that God becomes more likely the less defined and non-vague he is baffles me. That's argumentative trickery, nothing else.

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Unmoved mover: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover
..."that there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world"...

That is one definition of a god.
It is a creator god.
 
If the universe is defined as everything that exists, isn't describing a god as "outside the universe" the same as saying it doesn't exist?
 
JoeMorgue said:
That's just changing the language to say the same thing again.
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I'm not aiming to express diverse viewpoints in every post. I was explaining my already-expressed viewpoints in terms of kellyb's post and Darat's question, both addressed to me.


So now we're graciously allowed to be "Strong Atheist" as long as you agree about the specific God we're atheistic about.
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In effect, and shorn of the dramatics, yes.

But you mustn't berate me for doing this. If you must apportion blame, then blame reason, blame rationality. It is rationality that dictates this, not me.

Also: nothing stops you from being a hard atheist as long as you're clear, along with the theist, that your POV is personal and subjective.

Further, nothing stops you from holding irrational views either. You're free to do that. Except if you do that, sometimes people might take the trouble to point that out to you.


If there's no chair in the room you aren't different levels of "achairist" about different hypothetical chairs that aren't in the room.

There's no invisible dragon in my garage. I don't have different levels of doubt about 3 toed or 4 toed invisible garage dragons nor do I have a different level of doubt about invisible garage dragons who's believers have not yet assigned a number of toes to.
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We've had this discussion already. Some issues end up getting more attention, as well as more precision, than others. Nor is this apparent double standard necessarily unreasonable.


This whole idea that God becomes more likely the less defined and non-vague he is baffles me. That's argumentative trickery, nothing else.
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I am not making that argument at all. "Likelihood" isn't part of what I have discussed thus far in this thread.


It's like the old "How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg?" Four. It still has four. You calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

If we walk into the room with no chair and I say "There's no chair" but you point at a lamp and go "It does because I'm calling that a chair!"... there's still no chair.

And this goes even further than that. We've walked into the room with no chair and you're arguing that maybe there is a chair because "Maybe at some point somebody somewhere did or could call one of the objects in this room a chair."

Words mean things.
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You do realize that the diverse God ideas I've mentioned -- and others that I've hinted at and not actually discussed -- aren't things I've made up myself, don't you? They're actual God-ideas, that actual people actually believe and actually venerate.

As for words meaning things, sure. Some words have more meanings than you appear to have been familiar with thus far. There's a big difference between learning new words as well as hitherto unfamiliar meanings of some word, and making up words or making up meanings for words.
 
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psionl0 said:
The same one that establishes that all swans are white? Maybe there is no such test and we can't settle the matter scientifically.
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So your argument is the existence of an invisible dragon in my garage is still an open question and "There is no dragon in my garage" is too dogmatic of a statement?
 
Chanakya said:
We've had this discussion already. Some issues end up getting more attention, as well as more precision, than others. Nor is this apparent double standard necessarily unreasonable.
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Yes that's what Special Pleading is. And it's bad argumentatives.

"God is special and different because we define him as special and different therefore we have to argue about him in a special and different way which proves he is special and different so the definition is valid."

It's the pure, distilled, resin of "a bad double standard."
 
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Myriad said:
If the universe is defined as everything that exists, isn't describing a god as "outside the universe" the same as saying it doesn't exist?
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A definition doesn't cause anything other that how a word is used.
You don't say something into existence nor non-existence other than words.
You are sort of anthropomorphizing by the way you use words.

I define Myriad to mean non-existence. It means that you don't exist. See how easy it is to define, say and mean.
The usage of words is not the same as if the words are about facts.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Yes that's what Special Pleading is. And it's bad argumentatives. (...)
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Nope. Absolutely NOT.

Do you have a ping pong ball (or, say, a spent bullet case) lying around in your home?

If your life depended on this question -- in a court case, for instance, or in the course of a criminal investigation -- then you're sure to vest a great deal more care in both the search for the said ball or bullet, as well as how you express your answer, than you would if I casually asked you this.

Different circumstances sometimes demand different levels of precision. That isn't always unreasonable -- although sometimes it can be.


As for what the special circumstances are when it comes to the God question: We've had this discussion already, and it would be tedious to repeat it. You could simply go back and look it up. Or, if you're serious about wanting to know this all over again from me, and ask me, then I'll be happy to oblige when I have more time.
 
Chanakya said:
Different circumstances sometimes demand different levels of precision. That isn't always unreasonable -- although sometimes it can be.
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Yes and "I really, really, really want this to be true so I'm going to keep the conversation going by special pleading and adding excuses and exceptions and clauses so I never have to drop my end of the rope and just admit I'm wrong" has its needle planted firmly in the "unreasonable side."
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
A definition doesn't cause anything other that how a word is used.
You don't say something into existence nor non-existence other than words.
You are sort of anthropomorphizing by the way you use words.

I define Myriad to mean non-existence. It means that you don't exist. See how easy it is to define, say and mean.
The usage of words is not the same as if the words are about facts.
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But "everything that exists" is the prevailing definition of "universe" and always has been.

When you suggest a god might live "outside the universe," what variant definition of "universe" are you using? You want to make that definition clear, in order to make your suggestion meaningful, don't you? A god might exist outside of what, exactly?
 
JoeMorgue said:
Yes and "I really, really, really want this to be true so I'm going to keep the conversation going by special pleading and adding excuses and exceptions and clauses so I never have to drop my end of the rope and just admit I'm wrong" has its needle planted firmly in the "unreasonable side."
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Sometimes the truth is, that you can't know the truth. Unknowable is freighting to some people, but still a fact.
Falsifiable and falsification amount to that you must admit, that is not so, as you predict.
I would like to know what the universe actually is, but I can't. I am just honest.
If human mobility has a limit, have you check for reason, logic, evidence and knowledge?
 
JoeMorgue said:
Yes and "I really, really, really want this to be true so I'm going to keep the conversation going by special pleading and adding excuses and exceptions and clauses so I never have to drop my end of the rope and just admit I'm wrong" has its needle planted firmly in the "unreasonable side."
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I agree fully with that sentiment.

Except: That isn't an argument I've made. Nor was it the motivation behind such arguments as I've actually made here.

So I have to ask you: What was the point of what you've said there?

Again: If you only wish to point out, generally and apparently without context, how some theists desperately keep shifting goalposts to somehow be able to save their God from the onslaught of reason and rationality, then I agree with you that that is plain unreasonable.
 
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