Hawking says there are no gods

[Darat]

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.

I'll try when I get back from feeding my invisible, pink dragon in my garage.

Just to note I have no evidence my invisible, pink dragon exists and I have to cleanup the uneaten food every day but I've no scientific evidence my invisible, pink dragon isn't in my garage, even though I don't have a garage.

 

[Darat]

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.

All you are trying to do is find a gap in which you can say "therefore god". What we do know is that the vast majority of people who claim to believe in a god do not believe in a god that fits your definition of god.

 

[David Mo]

How could Adam and Eve (essentially innocent, naive, new-born adult/babies) possibly know they were being good or evil when they hadn't yet been "punished" with the knowledge of good and evil? Silly as punishing a toddler for peeing in it's nappies. Just as well that god dork is just a fantasy myth.

This is not scientific evidence that gods don't exist. This is just what common sense says about a pious legend. This would be recognised by many Catholics without difficulty.

 

[Darat]

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.

As anyone who has followed fans fighting over their particular choice of what is canon or not you can probably find a fan that believes pretty much anything. Which is why I'd rather deal with what the IP rights holder claims is canon so for example the RCC is very clear that their god intervenes in the real world in such a way that we can all see his interventions.

 

[psionl0]

It all revolves around Adam and Eve choosing to disobey god and eat the forbidden fruit.

There may be a morality (and consequences) associated with the choices you make but that is a separate issue and not part of the concept of free will.

 

[psionl0]

All you are trying to do is find a gap in which you can say "therefore god".

No, I am merely showing that the "scientific" arguments against the existence of a god are deficient. I am not drawing a conclusion.

What we do know is that the vast majority of people who claim to believe in a god do not believe in a god that fits your definition of god.

So what is the correct "definition of god"?

 

[Darat]

I have evidence that gods don't exist. I have not scientific evidence that gods don't exist. If you have some you should present it.

The photos, the videos, the human exploration of every inch of Mount Olympus.

 

[Darat]

No, I am merely showing that the "scientific" arguments against the existence of a god are deficient. I am not drawing a conclusion.


So what is the correct "definition of god"?

There isn't one.

 

[psionl0]

There isn't one.

If you don't have a definition of a god then you can't rule in or out attributes that a god might have.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

The photos, the videos, the human exploration of every inch of Mount Olympus.

The fallacy of the excluded middle:
It is known that there is at least one god.
It is known that there are no gods.

The excluded middle is that it is unknown for at least one god.

Now the game always ends here: In practice there is no way to tell, if there is a creator god, which either doesn't interfere in the universe after creation or hides/cheats, when doing interference, therefore such a god is meaningless; i.e. there is no reason to believe in such a god and such a god makes no difference.

The problem is that the conclusion after the "therefore" doesn't follow and it introduces psychology; i.e. no reason to believe.
Reason: Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, establishing and verifying facts, applying logic, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.
The cornerstone is justifying and it is very simple.
You and I use different justification for how we view the human existence and experience and I don't have to justify my beliefs to you.
My beliefs work for me and that is all I need. The same goes for you.

Further as back to such a creator god. The belief in a such a god can make a difference for a human.
Now your end problem is this:
For 2 different contradictory beliefs for which both beliefs work, you apply a meta-belief: You should only believe with evidence. The problem is that this can be falsified, because it can be observed that is possible to believe without evidence and such a belief can lead to further behavior.

We always end here: It is a fact that that a belief without evidence can lead to further behavior as long as the following behavior is possible.

And all that happens in threads like this is something I have learned from you:
Someone will answer: It is wrong, stupid, meaningless, pointless, irrelevant, gibberish and so on. But you taught me well, because I know that it is incomplete, because it is: It is A to me. That is the joke! They leave out that it is meaningless to them. But it is not meaningless for a religious person to believe something.
So the joke is this: What is meaningless to me, is meaningless to everybody else. But that is not the case, because if you remove me and rewrite it to this, it works in all cases: What is meaningless to someone, is meaningless to everybody else.
But that works for everybody as someone, but that is clearly not the case, because you know that if something is meaningless to me, it doesn't follow that is meaningless to you.
Now you just have to learn to apply that in reverse or not. Because you are not me and I am not you.

 

[Darat]

If you don't have a definition of a god then you can't rule in or out attributes that a god might have.

I never said that definitions (note the plural) do not exist.

 

[dann]

The fallacy of the excluded middle:
It is known that there is at least one god.
It is known that there are no gods.

The excluded middle is that it is unknown for at least one god.

Astrology says that our destinies are determined by the constellations that the planets move through.
Science says that it's bollocks.
So the excluded middle must be somewhere in between, I guess. The constellations of the planets influence our destinies to some extent, right?!

 

[Darat]

The fallacy of the excluded middle:
It is known that there is at least one god.
It is known that there are no gods.

The excluded middle is that it is unknown for at least one god.

Now the game always ends here: In practice there is no way to tell, if there is a creator god, which either doesn't interfere in the universe after creation or hides/cheats, when doing interference, therefore such a god is meaningless; i.e. there is no reason to believe in such a god and such a god makes no difference.

The problem is that the conclusion after the "therefore" doesn't follow and it introduces psychology; i.e. no reason to believe.
Reason: Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, establishing and verifying facts, applying logic, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.
The cornerstone is justifying and it is very simple.
You and I use different justification for how we view the human existence and experience and I don't have to justify my beliefs to you.
My beliefs work for me and that is all I need. The same goes for you.

Further as back to such a creator god. The belief in a such a god can make a difference for a human.
Now your end problem is this:
For 2 different contradictory beliefs for which both beliefs work, you apply a meta-belief: You should only believe with evidence. The problem is that this can be falsified, because it can be observed that is possible to believe without evidence and such a belief can lead to further behavior.

We always end here: It is a fact that that a belief without evidence can lead to further behavior as long as the following behavior is possible.

And all that happens in threads like this is something I have learned from you:
Someone will answer: It is wrong, stupid, meaningless, pointless, irrelevant, gibberish and so on. But you taught me well, because I know that it is incomplete, because it is: It is A to me. That is the joke! They leave out that it is meaningless to them. But it is not meaningless for a religious person to believe something.
So the joke is this: What is meaningless to me, is meaningless to everybody else. But that is not the case, because if you remove me and rewrite it to this, it works in all cases: What is meaningless to someone, is meaningless to everybody else.
But that works for everybody as someone, but that is clearly not the case, because you know that if something is meaningless to me, it doesn't follow that is meaningless to you.
Now you just have to learn to apply that in reverse or not. Because you are not me and I am not you.

Zeus, a god believed in by many people for a long time is partly defined as living in a palace on Mnt Olympus. Using a methodology of science we can determine there is no such palace on Mnt Olympus, therefore Zeus does not exist.

There is no excluded middle, beginning or end. Zeus simply does not exist, that is a fact. Science can demonstrate that a god - Zeus- does not exist, that is a fact.

Hera, a god believed in by many people for a long time is partly defined as the consort of Zeus and lives in the same palace on Mnt Olympus. Using a methodology of science we can determine that there is no such palace on Mnt Olympus, therefore Hera does not exist.

Hera simply does not exist, that is a fact.

Science can be used to demonstrate that two gods, Zeus and Hera do not exist. That is a fact.

The gods that most people who claim to believe in a god or gods claim exist (not the various vague “if I define a god to mean something“ silliness that often happens in discussions like this) can be tested by scientific methods and be shown not to exist, as I demonstrated with the examples of Zeus and Hera.

I do not know why people insist of using the word “god" to describe their hypothetical creations, it causes nothing but confusion. Leave the definition of “god" as it has always been I. E. a term religious folk use for their deities.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Zeus, a god believed in by many people for a long time is partly defined as living in a palace on Mnt Olympus. Using a methodology of science we can determine there is no such palace on Mnt Olympus, therefore Zeus does not exist.

There is no excluded middle, beginning or end. Zeus simply does not exist, that is a fact. Science can demonstrate that a god - Zeus- does not exist, that is a fact.

Hera, a god believed in by many people for a long time is partly defined as the consort of Zeus and lives in the same palace on Mnt Olympus. Using a methodology of science we can determine that there is no such palace on Mnt Olympus, therefore Hera does not exist.

Hera simply does not exist, that is a fact.

Science can be used to demonstrate that two gods, Zeus and Hera do not exist. That is a fact.

The gods that most people who claim to believe in a god or gods claim exist (not the various vague “if I define a god to mean something“ silliness that often happens in discussions like this) can be tested by scientific methods and be shown not to exist, as I demonstrated with the examples of Zeus and Hera.

I do not know why people insist of using the word “god" to describe their hypothetical creations, it causes nothing but confusion. Leave the definition of “god" as it has always been I. E. a term religious folk use for their deities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover
That is a version of god, which other humans started believing in.
Again read the links I gave to deism, but this time you find them yourself.

Zeus and Hera are properly not believed in any more, but different versions of a first unmoved mover god are believed in.
Remember that there are deists today.

From wiki, direct quote.

"It is clear then that there is neither place, nor void, nor time, outside the heaven. Hence whatever is there, is of such a nature as not to occupy any place, nor does time age it; nor is there any change in any of the things which lie beyond the outermost motion; they continue through their entire duration unalterable and unmodified, living the best and most self sufficient of lives… From [the fulfilment of the whole heaven] derive the being and life which other things, some more or less articulately but other feebly, enjoy." Aristotle, De Caelo, I.9, 279 a17–30

Aristotle placed them outside time and space, hence you can't observe if they are there and thus science can't answer if they are there.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Astrology says that our destinies are determined by the constellations that the planets move through.
Science says that it's bollocks.
So the excluded middle must be somewhere in between, I guess. The constellations of the planets influence our destinies to some extent, right?!

Read above.

 

[kellyb]

Gods aren't and never were hypothesized.

I think they were. I think in the very ancient pre-science days, the deity theories were not only genuinely believed, but reasonable enough as a hypothesis, for the time.

People all over the planet came up with the same sort of gods to explain the mysterious, too.
See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_thunder_gods

Polytheistic peoples of many cultures have postulated a thunder god, the personification or source of the forces of thunder and lightning; a lightning god does not have a typical depiction, and will vary based on the culture. In many cultures, the thunder god is frequently known as the chief or king of the gods, e.g. Indra in Hinduism, Zeus in Greek mythology, and Perun in ancient Slavic religion; or a close relation thereof, e.g. Thor, son of Odin, in Norse mythology. This is also true of Shango in Yoruba religion and in the syncretic religions of the African Diaspora, such as Santería (Cuba, Puerto Rico, United States) and Candomblé (Brazil).

The Hebrews (and thus early Christians) had their own cosmology they postulated/hypothesized, as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibli...e:Early_Hebrew_Conception_of_the_Universe.png

It wasn't all just wishful thinking back then - it was the best they could come up with to explain how the world worked.

 

[kellyb]

There may be a morality (and consequences) associated with the choices you make but that is a separate issue and not part of the concept of free will.

To you and I, of course.

But fundamentalist Christians have a completely different way of looking at all that. A majority of their worldview is Bible-based, and their thought processes/cognition is theology-based. To them, free will = something more like "Eve ate the fruit, and so now pediatric cancer exists, because of free will."
It is a completely alien thought process over there in fundyland.

 

[Lithrael]

Tommy’s argument is “the idea that people shouldn’t just believe whatever they find helpful is, like, just your opinion, man.” Specifically when it’s something that’s got no evidence for it but (besides always not being there) is untestable. Which, I mean, fair enough. You can’t really logically argue first principles like “it always matters whether things are true.” You can only argue that it usually matters whether things are true because of the much better/more reliable outcomes from using correct information.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Tommy’s argument is “the idea that people shouldn’t just believe whatever they find helpful is, like, just your opinion, man.” Which, I mean, fair enough. You can’t really logically argue first principles like “it always matters whether things are true.” You can only argue that it usually matters whether things are true because of the much better/more reliable outcomes from using correct information.

And the weird thing is... this is actually a very common stance. It gets argued sideways and in the margin all the time here but whenever the fluff is stripped away the only person left arguing for it is the ying and yang twins and a couple of other usual suspects.

There's a lot more "Facts don't matter" people on this board than are in this thread. Most people seem to have a "Shut up and stop asking me" response to this.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

That argument is “the idea that people shouldn’t just believe whatever they find helpful is, like, just your opinion, man.” Which, I mean, fair enough. You can’t really logically argue first principles like “it always matters whether things are true.” You can only argue that it usually matters whether things are true because of the much better/more reliable outcomes from using correct information.

Yeah, but there is no correct/true information for this:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

• Science doesn't make moral judgments
• Science doesn't make aesthetic judgments
• Science doesn't tell you how to use scientific knowledge
• Science doesn't draw conclusions about supernatural explanations

In short, truth is as a process/behavior is limited like human mobility; i.e. the ability to move around.
There are four kinds of questions:
What if any is outside the universe?
How do things work?
How do reason and logic work?
What does it matter and how do the universe matter?
Evidence and truth only apply to the 2 in the middle.
Of course there are some combinations, but there is no single methodology for all 4; i.e. there is no one truth and as you pointed out, that truth matters, is not true. It is a belief.