Hawking says there are no gods

[Skeptic Ginger]

Only the second statement is true. The first doesn't logically follow from the second.

There is overwhelming evidence all gods are fictional.
There is no evidence any real gods exist.


They are separate statements, the 2nd isn't following from the 1st.

What follows is the conclusion of the two pieces of evidence:

New POV: ask what explains god beliefs.
With no evidence of any real gods, one can conclude all gods are fiction and ignore the need to 'prove' there are no gods​

I expect it will be a while before a lot of people understand what the paradigm shift is all about.

You don't appear to understand why one can conclude all gods are mythical.
David Mo thinks he can dismiss the science he isn't as familiar with.
And a lot of people can't let go of the typical approach: prove it.

Me, OTOH, simply observed that I knew there weren't any real gods. It's a no brainer, IMO, given all the gods we accept as myths. It didn't make sense that anyone should have to 'prove' there were no gods in order to make the declarative statement: of course there are no real gods.

That's when it dawned on me there was nothing to prove any more than one had to prove invisible garage dragons weren't real. People were asking the wrong question.

 

[Diablo]

Oh for the love of Boston Baked Beans somebody, anybody make a non-word salad, non-special pleading argument for the existence for God (an argument for the existence not an an excuse why the arguments against aren't anything "well technically...") that wouldn't work equally as well for literally anything else.

Well, playing devil's advocate, you could say that most of the people who ever lived worshipped a god, or several gods. They were all different of course, but could be interpreted as attempts to define the one true god.

You could go further and say that the gods are coinciding, being solitary instead of many, and some of them sharing common elements.

Maybe sometime in the future there'll be a consensus about what the one true god really is.

 

[Garrison]

Even if it is logically impossible for a god to exist without having an effect on the universe, there is nothing to prevent a god choosing to conceal himself whenever a test is conducted or just simply not responding to a scientific test. That would explain why scientifically conducted prayer or tithing tests don't show anything other than random results.

No that would only be true for an omnipotent god. Also there would still be the obvious methods of statistical analysis of real world observations. If the believers in one particular god showed a significantly higher incidence of remission from disease, survival in disasters or winning the lottery that would certainly be indicative that there was some basis for believing in their god. This shouldn't be confused with the idea that religious belief in general might confer some psychological benefit to the believer.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

Maybe sometime in the future there'll be a consensus about what the one true god really is.

fiction

 

[dann]

NOT meaning this as an argument favoring "deity theory", for real, but...

Wasn't this fantasy/imagination back in the day?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomism#Antiquity

Yes, it was, and it still is. Did you actually read the article you link to?!

I was just noting what I see as a flaw in dann's method of dealing with deity claims.

What's the flaw?

 

[kellyb]

Yes, it was, and it still is. Did you actually read the article you link to?!

The main gist was this:

Democritus's argument for the existence of atoms hinged on the idea that it is impossible to keep dividing matter for infinity and that matter must therefore be made up of extremely tiny particles

What's the flaw?

Sometimes real things/entities/people are imagined to exist before they are proven/demonstrated to exist.

It's thus sometimes better to try to suss out if it does or does not actually exist in the real world, as opposed to just writing it off as fiction/imaginary right off the bat.

 

[Roboramma]

… and outside that framework is the realm of fantasy, whatever you can imagine, and that is exactly where you would expect to find gods … or goblins, or pixies or even Donald Duck and Homer Simpson.
Feel free to imagine that they are there, too.

Right, we have no way of knowing what exists outside of the framework of what we do understand, so any fantasies that we can imagine to exist there are equally unlikely to be true.

Which is what I was hinting at with my reference to Russell's teapot.

 

[Roboramma]

The main gist was this:







Sometimes real things/entities/people are imagined to exist before they are proven/demonstrated to exist.

It's thus sometimes better to try to suss out if it does or does not actually exist in the real world, as opposed to just writing it off as fiction/imaginary right off the bat.

Something I find interesting is that the question isn't really resolved yet. Is there a smallest unit of matter out of which everything is built? If so, it isn't what we call atoms, which are themselves composites of smaller particles/fields.

Are the particles of modern particle physics fundamental in the sense of not being made of smaller components? The truth is that we don't yet know, and there is some reason to think that the question itself may be flawed.

Here's Leonard Susskind talking about something related to this question that I found very interesting:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ-ElsvYKyo


Some quotes: "Houses are made of bricks and bricks are made of molecules, and no one in their right mind thinks that bricks are made of houses".
But...
"Is it really always true that we can tell which thing is more fundamental than which thing? I'm going to give you some examples of places in quantum theory in which we can no longer tell which thing is more fundamental than which thing."
I'm being a little lazy and he talks fast so that second quote may be off by a few words, but that's the gist. Anyway, it's all within the first few minutes of the video I linked.

(I'm not able to open youtube on my computer so had to copy and paste this link from my phone, hopefully it works)

 

[psionl0]

I expect it will be a while before a lot of people understand what the paradigm shift changing the question is all about.

ftfy.

At the risk of being accused of another strawman argument, my guess is that you realized that the "absence of evidence proves absence" isn't working so you are trying the "why people believe in gods proves absence" argument instead.

Your "overwhelming evidence" amounts to people believed in a variety of gods in the past that are now believed to be non-existent. While very suggestive, it isn't a scientific proof.

 

[psionl0]

No that would only be true for an omnipotent god. Also there would still be the obvious methods of statistical analysis of real world observations. If the believers in one particular god showed a significantly higher incidence of remission from disease, survival in disasters or winning the lottery that would certainly be indicative that there was some basis for believing in their god. This shouldn't be confused with the idea that religious belief in general might confer some psychological benefit to the believer.

Why is the word "omnipotent" important? And why do you think that divine interventions can't be staged such that they appear to be random?

Many people do believe that God answers their prayers. However, if you subject their claims to scientific scrutiny, you will more than likely find much more mundane explanations for their answered prayers such as life style choices based on their belief.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

ftfy.

At the risk of being accused of another strawman argument, my guess is that you realized that the "absence of evidence proves absence" isn't working so you are trying the "why people believe in gods proves absence" argument instead.

Bull ****.

Your "overwhelming evidence" amounts to people believed in a variety of gods in the past that are now believed to be non-existent. While very suggestive, it isn't a scientific proof.

Absence of evidence is not a one size fits all blanket principle. People who spout it don't all understand the application.

And this has been addressed in the thread over and over.

Absence of evidence that one expects to be there is evidence of absence.

But I'm done with answering your posts. I've asked you over and over to quit misrepresenting my claims and you just keep on misrepresenting.

I'm going to put words in your mouth now. You don't even realize what you are doing and you aren't capable of understanding the principles here so you just keep fighting those windmills.

We're done here unless you want to properly address what I've said.

 

[ynot]

“Absence of Evidence” arguments are a crock.

Evidence of Absence is NOT Absence of Evidence.

Evidence of a hand being absent of a jellybean is evidence of no jellybean being contained in the hand.

Evidence of Earth being absent of species that it once contained is evidence Earth doesn’t contain those (extinct) species.

Evidence of the currently observable Universe being absent of any gods is evidence that the currently observable Universe doesn’t contain any gods.

 

[qayak]

Perhaps it means that gods are way tinier than atoms???

That's the god of the gaps argument and is a far cry from the gods of Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

 

[qayak]

Even if it is logically impossible for a god to exist without having an effect on the universe, there is nothing to prevent a god choosing to conceal himself whenever a test is conducted or just simply not responding to a scientific test. That would explain why scientifically conducted prayer or tithing tests don't show anything other than random results.

If God were to suddenly introduce a new planet into the solar system then as you say, that create significant changes to the solar system. So God isn't about to do anything so blatant unless there is a significant reason to do so. Ditto for producing changes in other parts of the universe that could (in time) be detected on Earth.

So god can't do anything. Fair enough. Any thoughts on why he is so afraid of us?

 

[kellyb]

So god can't do anything. Fair enough. Any thoughts on why he is so afraid of us?

The theory is that god hides from science/evidence-gathering because revealing Himself would remove the faith aspect of belief, if not free will itself.

It's theology, so don't bother with trying to make it actually make sense.

 

[qayak]

Well, playing devil's advocate . . .

We'll get to him after we sort out this god thing.

Maybe sometime in the future there'll be a consensus about what the one true god really is.

Does a consensus among humans make a god any more real, or is an actual god required for gods to be real?

 

[qayak]

The theory is that god hides from science/evidence-gathering because revealing Himself would remove the faith aspect of belief, if not free will itself.

If there is an omnipotent god as the Abrahamic tradition claims then you automatically do not have free will.

It's theology, so don't bother with trying to make it actually make sense.

It doesn't matter what label you put on it, if it doesn't make sense it's ********.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

“Absence of Evidence” arguments are a crock.

Evidence of Absence is NOT Absence of Evidence.

Evidence of a hand being absent of a jellybean is evidence of no jellybean being contained in the hand.

Evidence of Earth being absent of species that it once contained is evidence Earth doesn’t contain those (extinct) species.

Evidence of the currently observable Universe being absent of any gods is evidence that the currently observable Universe doesn’t contain any gods.

Important points!

Thank you.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The theory is that god hides from science/evidence-gathering because revealing Himself would remove the faith aspect of belief, if not free will itself.

It's theology, so don't bother with trying to make it actually make sense.

So free will requires one to not be a critical thinker?

 

[psionl0]

So god can't do anything. Fair enough. Any thoughts on why he is so afraid of us?

LOL as a strawman technique that was a piss poor effort.

As to why God would choose to not be seen, that's a theological question unrelated to Hawking's argument. However, I understand that the key word in this is "faith".