Hawking says there are no gods

Status
Not open for further replies.
Darat said:
Issac Newton is one of the very famous early scientists.
Click to expand...

Yep, and Newton:

Newton's view has been considered to be close to deism and several biographers and scholars labeled him as a deist who is strongly influenced by Christianity.[33][34][35][36] However, he differed from strict adherents of deism in that he invoked God as a special physical cause to keep the planets in orbits.[21] He warned against using the law of gravity to view the universe as a mere machine, like a great clock. He said:

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being. [...] This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called "Lord God" παντοκρατωρ [pantokratōr], or "Universal Ruler". [...] The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, [and] absolutely perfect.[6]

Opposition to godliness is atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.[37][38]
Click to expand...

And make a note for your diaries:

Over the years, a large amount of media attention and public interest has circulated regarding largely unknown and unpublished documents, evidently written by Isaac Newton, that indicate he believed the world could end in 2060. While Newton also had many other possible dates (e.g. 2034),[43] he did not believe that the end of the world would take place specifically in 2060.[44]
Click to expand...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton

Apparently, he believed this would be the prophesized 'second coming', rather than the end of the world.
 
Perhaps Newton refers to an evolution of consciousness? There are no "gods" in the way we think of "god". As time proceeds, knowledge advances, maybe we will see and appreciate the divinity of the process in becoming whatever it is that we will become.
 
Last edited:
David Mo said:
Are you saying that anthropology or medicine are as exact as physics? I think it is you which are ignorant o what science is!
It doesn't matter that you say you know a lot about science or that there were some scientists a long time ago that... Show what you know with names and quotes from scientific studies about God's existence. That's the point
Click to expand...

This is just a rerun of your same argument, you want someone to make an official look into Kilauea to see if Péle is in there. :sdl:

It's a contrived excuse to not admit the obvious, gods are fictional and there's no evidence any of them aren't.



For the record though, an example unrelated to your demands, anthropology created a pretty good record of human migration out of Africa based on culture and the evolution of language. When genetic science came along and human migration out of Africa was mapped genetically, the two maps were incredibly consistent, each reinforcing the conclusions of the other branches of science.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
This is just a rerun of your same argument, you want someone to make an official look into Kilauea to see if Péle is in there. :sdl:

It's a contrived excuse to not admit the obvious, gods are fictional and there's no evidence any of them aren't.



For the record though, an example unrelated to your demands, anthropology created a pretty good record of human migration out of Africa based on culture and the evolution of language. When genetic science came along and human migration out of Africa was mapped genetically, the two maps were incredibly consistent, each reinforcing the conclusions of the other branches of science.
Click to expand...

I don't know what's going on with you. I have repeated twenty times that I do not believe that gods exist.
I don't know what the study of migrations has to do with the existence of God.
 
David Mo said:
Newton was a believer? Did he make any scientific enquiry to show that God exists?
Click to expand...

I've just turned up my biography of Newton by James Glecik and it says:

"On his deathbed he refused the sacrament of the church."

So I guess no to the first question.
 
David Mo said:
Newton was a believer? Did he make any scientific enquiry to show that God exists?
Click to expand...

You don't understand, I get that.

It doesn't matter that you don't believe in gods, you continue to deny the obvious that there aren't any.

You insist on scientific studies about God's existence, like it's a mantra. When I ask what those studies would be you are insulted.

You don't get it that there are many scientific works on the mythology of gods and no evidence of any real gods and you dismiss valid science because you apparently have a naive definition that only half of science is real science.

That's poppycock.
 
Diablo said:
I've just turned up my biography of Newton by James Glecik and it says:

"On his deathbed he refused the sacrament of the church."

So I guess no to the first question.
Click to expand...
Newton was a believer, but one who rejected certain teachings, in favour of his own beliefs. From here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton

According to most scholars, Newton was Arian, not holding to Trinitarianism.[9][21][22] 'In Newton's eyes, worshipping Christ as God was idolatry, to him the fundamental sin'.[23] As well as being antitrinitarian, Newton allegedly rejected the orthodox doctrines of the immortal soul,[9] a personal devil and literal demons.​
 
Last edited:
GDon said:
Newton was a believer, but one who rejected certain teachings, in favour of his own beliefs. From here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton

According to most scholars, Newton was Arian, not holding to Trinitarianism.[9][21][22] 'In Newton's eyes, worshipping Christ as God was idolatry, to him the fundamental sin'.[23] As well as being antitrinitarian, Newton allegedly rejected the orthodox doctrines of the immortal soul,[9] a personal devil and literal demons.​
Click to expand...
And he was a vindictive, vainglorious (to be fair somewhat understandable ), nasty man. Which also has nothing to do with why I pointed him out to be a scientist whose scientific work started to undermine the belief in a god.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
It doesn't matter that you don't believe in gods, you continue to deny the obvious that there aren't any.
Click to expand...
You have stated many times that it is "obvious" there are no gods. However, constant repetition of this mantra does not make it a scientific argument.

According to you, it would be impossible for a god to conceal himself - whether from our 5 senses or from a scientific instrument. That would make him not a god.
 
A sub-natural god or immanent god can hide from detection by our senses,
but not from detection by an instrument. The god will continuously interact
with the world, changing it, making it look very different from a world without
a god. You really don't need a Zeus on Mount Olympus throwing out lightening
bolts, just shifting particles in the early universe will show up as difference from
the rest of the universe and easily detected by out instruments. Of course, it'll
take a lot of time before one can rule out all the alternative explanations.

A supernatural god or transcendent god cannot hide due to a fatal flaw,
they cannot exist. Every supernatural god contains within their definition
a contradiction. Can god create a stone greater than he can lift, for example.
I suspect in this case, the god performs an action in hiding from our senses
that alters the world in a detectible way and in removing the detectible bit the
god has to erase the original action of hiding, meaning the god self annihilates.
 
Re-defining "existence" to mean "detectable" in some manner doesn't rule out supernatural gods. Even if a god caused a change in the universe that has no apparent natural cause, the measuring instrument would have to be operating at the time this change happened otherwise there would be no confirmation. A god could easily avoid making his presence known if an appropriate scientific instrument were operating.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
You don't get it that there are many scientific works on the mythology of gods and no evidence of any real gods and you dismiss valid science because you apparently have a naive definition that only half of science is real science.
Click to expand...


I don't know why it's so difficult for (irreligious) people to understand, so let me return to my Donald Duck analogy:
You can study the character of Donald Duck: What are his/its personality traits as an imaginary, made-up cartoon character, how does he/it evolve over time, what is the ideology/-ies of the Duckville universe etc. You can do this more or less seriously:
Donaldism: Donaldistic research (Wikipedia).
South Nordic Academy of Donaldism.
(Not to be confused with the ongoing studies of the character of the POTUS, who is an extremely unreliable character but unfortunately not at all imaginary! (Of course, it would also be possible to study the idea of this Donald as it can be found in his fan base and their fan fiction, but the two things, the POTUS and the idea of the POTUS as it exists in the imagination of his fans, have very little in common.)

The least scientific way of dealing with Donald Duck would be to make the mistake of trying to prove that he/it is a cartoon character by looking at the real world, beyond fiction, and trying to find him/it or dismiss the possibility of his existence there.

Gods and other mythological creatures? Same thing!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom