Hawking says there are no gods

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Everytime Tommy gets argued into a corner or called on his antics he runs and hides behind pretending he doesn't understand the difference between reality and conceptual ideas.
 
Chanakya said:
You're wrong. Objectively wrong.

There are plenty of atheists who do say these things.

Are they mistaken in thinking and saying these things? That is a separate question.

To weigh in on that question, you'll have to do more that present your unsupported ipse dixt opinion.
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No. I am correct. People who say the things in the paragraph I hilited are not atheists, even if they think they are. The statements in that paragraph assume the existence of a god to be judged "innocent", or "not guilty". This is completely contradictory to atheism. It has nothing to do with opinion. It is a fact. No atheist would accept the existence of a god to be judged.
 
Steve said:
No. I am correct. People who say the things in the paragraph I hilited are not atheists, even if they think they are. The statements in that paragraph assume the existence of a god to be judged "innocent", or "not guilty". This is completely contradictory to atheism. It has nothing to do with opinion. It is a fact. No atheist would accept the existence of a god to be judged.
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I think he/she was using the "innocent vs not guilty" thing as a kind of metaphor for hard vs soft atheism?
 
kellyb said:
I think he/she was using the "innocent vs not guilty" thing as a kind of metaphor for hard vs soft atheism?
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Okay? At a certain point metaphors just become lies.

If you "metaphor" it enough up becomes down, black becomes white, and Chicago Deep Dish becomes the superior pizza.

But up is up, black is black, and Chicago Deep Dish isn't a pizza, it's tomato soup in a bread bowl.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Okay? At a certain point metaphors just become lies.

If you "metaphor" it enough up becomes down, black becomes white, and Chicago Deep Dish becomes the superior pizza.

But up is up, black is black, and Chicago Deep Dish isn't a pizza, it's tomato soup in a bread bowl.
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I was just saying that I think there's a good chance Steve was misreading the post.

While it's an imperfect analogy, I do think there's a difference between "virtual proof" and "reasonably strong evidence", which is, I think, the distinction Chanakya was attempting to make.
 
And going right back to my very first, root point... we don't have to make that distinction in any other discussion.
 
JoeMorgue said:
And going right back to my very first, root point... we don't have to make that distinction in any other discussion.
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When I discuss medical science with people interested in it, "strength of the evidence" is a common sub-topic. The literature is generally written to emphasize the nuances of the uncertainties, too, often taking up the bulk of the "discussion" section under "potential weaknesses".
 
kellyb said:
I think he/she was using the "innocent vs not guilty" thing as a kind of metaphor for hard vs soft atheism?
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Yes, I know that. It is still wrong. I have no time for hard vs soft atheism arguments. A person is either an atheist or they are not. There is no middle ground.
 
Steve said:
Yes, I know that. It is still wrong. I have no time for hard vs soft atheism arguments. A person is either an atheist or they are not. There is no middle ground.
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I have a friend who's actually kind of in the middle. She says she "seriously suspects" there "might" be some sort of god, but she doesn't exactly actively believe in one, either.

eta:
I put the probability of there being some sort of deity out there at around .2%. I put "brain in a vat" theory at .1%. There are some people who put both at literally 0%.
 
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David Mo said:
This is not exact. See Oxford dictionary and search in Google Scholar. You will see how the word "proof" or "prove" is also applied in natural sciences and others. Try with "proofs second law", for example.
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I get no returns for "proofs second law". Second law of what?

I'm guessing though that you are confusing mathematical applications to cosmology with whether one proves things like how the Earth's crustal plates move. How do you distinguish between absolutely obviously certain facts (stomach acid causes ulcers) and really really really absolute facts (H-pylori causes ulcers)?

I know it's intuitively wrong to think the Earth orbiting the Sun isn't an absolute fact. In science one does need to work with things that are, for all intents and purposes, facts. It's not an issue even calling things a scientific fact. But in terms of the scientific process, there are no proven facts.

Here's an explanation from someone other than myself:
One of the most common misconceptions concerns the so-called “scientific proofs.” Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a scientific proof.
Proofs exist only in mathematics and logic, not in science. Mathematics and logic are both closed, self-contained systems of propositions, whereas science is empirical and deals with nature as it exists. The primary criterion and standard of evaluation of scientific theory is evidence, not proof. All else equal (such as internal logical consistency and parsimony), scientists prefer theories for which there is more and better evidence to theories for which there is less and worse evidence. Proofs are not the currency of science.

Proofs have two features that do not exist in science: They are final, and they are binary. Once a theorem is proven, it will forever be true and there will be nothing in the future that will threaten its status as a proven theorem (unless a flaw is discovered in the proof). Apart from a discovery of an error, a proven theorem will forever and always be a proven theorem.

In contrast, all scientific knowledge is tentative and provisional, and nothing is final. There is no such thing as final proven knowledge in science. The currently accepted theory of a phenomenon is simply the best explanation for it among all available alternatives.
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Further, proofs, like pregnancy, are binary; a mathematical proposition is either proven (in which case it becomes a theorem) or not (in which case it remains a conjecture until it is proven). There is nothing in between. A theorem cannot be kind of proven or almost proven. These are the same as unproven.

In contrast, there is no such binary evaluation of scientific theories. Scientific theories are neither absolutely false nor absolutely true.
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Can Science Prove Anything? - What Proof Means in Science
When I say that all scientific theories are unprovable, I'm referencing the ideas of famed philosopher of science Karl Popper, who is well known for discussing the idea that a scientific idea must be falsifiable. In other words, there has to be some way (in principle, if not in actual practice) that you could have an outcome which contradicts a scientific idea.
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kellyb said:
I have a friend who's actually kind of in the middle. She says she "seriously suspects" there "might" be some sort of god, but she doesn't exactly actively believe in one, either.

eta:
I put the probability of there being some sort of deity out there at around .2%. I put "brain in a vat" theory at .1%. There are some people who put both at literally 0%.
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You must find yourself in situations where you have to put some percentage point on every esoteric concept that crosses any fool's damn mind a lot more than the average.
 
psionl0 said:
Classic appeal to authority. Hawking may be a great scientist but he is no philosopher. Yet many are being sucked in.
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How exactly are "philosophers" vetted?

It really does just seem like you're one of those people who thinks you can swoop into any discussion, declare it under "philosophy" and say anything at all and have it be right.

Yeah Hawking isn't a philosopher. He's actually said stuff that was useful and meant stuff.
 
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David Mo said:
In short, you cannot present any scientific article that deals with the subject of God's existence. Instead, you extend the concept of science to such an extent that even a comment in this forum could be science. That's not serious. Science is perfectible. That is clear. But it has a precise method for perfecting itself. Not opinions about the existence of God.
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Can you present a scientific study showing every single living organism on Earth, past and present, evolved? Of course not.

But we have no problem developing the theory of evolution.

You don't need a scientific paper that shows every single god belief on Earth, past and present is a myth in order to say the theory is correct that god beliefs are fiction.

Demonstrate this claim is wrong: The evidence is overwhelming that all god beliefs are human generated myths.

You need one god belief that isn't. I get it some of you don't like my using the word, 'all'. At what point do you say, we've seen enough genomes to say all life on earth evolved? At what point are you going to notice all god beliefs are myths?
Next year? In a hundred years? When all god beliefs die out except one?

As long as you start with the default position that gods exist, you need to prove they don't.

I say pshaw. There is no reason to start with the default position gods actually exist when all the evidence we have is that only god beliefs exist.
 
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