Hawking says there are no gods

[Tommy Jeppesen]

If Hawking had an interest in and spent time reading and thinking about the concepts and beliefs relating to gods (as he may have done) then he would also be an expert on gods?

Are Christian Theologians that conclude Jesus actually was the son of a god any more of a "Jesus expert" than those that conclude he wasn't (even if he existed at all)?

It depends on how you use the word "expert".
Take the examples of different theoretical physicists and how they have different contradictory theories.
Does that mean that only one is an expert?

 

[ynot]

That is not a scientific conclusion.

We can't scientifically test for supernatural causes but that doesn't mean that we can rule out their existence. We can only start with a basic position which in science is that everything has a natural cause (with some randomness thrown in for good measure).

The default scientific position is to not rule IN the existence of things for which there is no evidence.

It's only believers and idiots that rule things in without evidence.

The supernatural can be ruled out because anything with any potential to ever be known via evidence isn't supernatural. It's merely natural that hasn't as yet been discovered.

 

[psionl0]

The default scientific position is to not rule IN the existence of things for which there is no evidence.

That was a strawman argument when BadBoy used it and it still is.

The supernatural can be ruled out because anything with any potential to ever be known via evidence isn't supernatural. It's merely natural that hasn't as yet been discovered.

There is no room in science for psychics or gypsies.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

The default scientific position is to not rule IN the existence of things for which there is no evidence.

The supernatural can be ruled out because anything with any potential to ever be known via evidence isn't supernatural. It's merely natural that hasn't as yet been discovered.

So to say that you know what is beyond the universe is not science. I agree.
Now for not yet been discovered, that is a belief, because you don't know that.
Maybe there is a limit to knowledge and sometimes it is okay to answer: I don't know. Here is what I believe.

 

[ynot]

That was a strawman argument when BadBoy used it and it still is.

I was commenting on your post, not BadBoy's

There is no room in science for psychics or gypsies.

If credible evidence for psychic phenomena was every found then it wouldn't be supernatural and there would be plenty of room for it in science. It would merely be natural that was finally discovered. In the meantime there's no reason to rule it in, and every reason to rule it out for now.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...I mean you appear to be ignoring a whole field of established science. ...

And then some.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Sure and now link that to Lawrence Kohlberg:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/simplypsychology.org-Kohlberg.pdf....

You are citing something from 1958? Reviewed or something in the early 90s? WTF?

Here are the references in your link:

References
Bee, H. L. (1994). Lifespan development. HarperCollins College Publishers.
Colby, A., Kohlberg, L., Gibbs, J., & Lieberman, M. (1983). A longitudinal study of moral
judgment. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 48 (1-2, Serial
No. 200). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gilligan, C. (1977). In a different voice: Women's conceptions of self and of morality.
Harvard Educational Review, 47(4), 481-517.
Kohlberg, L. (1958). The Development of Modes of Thinking and Choices in Years 10 to
16. Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Chicago.
Kohlberg, L. (1984). The Psychology of Moral Development: The Nature and Validity of
Moral Stages (Essays on Moral Development, Volume 2). Harper & Row
Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner &
Co.
Rest, J. R. (1979). Development in judging moral issues. University of Minnesota Press.
Rosen, B. (1980). Moral dilemmas and their treatment. In,Moral development, moral
education, and Kohlberg. B. Munsey (Ed). (1980), pp. 232-263. Birmingham, Alabama:
Religious Education Press.

Like I said, that hole you are in keeps getting deeper.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

we can 'do morality' with science just as we can 'do psychology' with science.
There is no need for morality to be as absolute and abstract as gravity in order for science to be able to take a look at it...

Exactly.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

And then some.

https://www.wired.com/2011/11/humans-social/

It's a controversial idea, admits anthropologist and study author Susanne Shultz of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

We are social individuals, which sometimes cooperate. Just look at the world and you get the sometimes.

What is it with the fact, there there is no single one factor explanation, when you look closer. It is always a combination of regularities, variations, abilities and limits.
A "we" is not something in itself. It is a biological, social, psychological and cultural construct just like "them" or "the other".

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ah... thought you could sneak a goal post move past us there did ya?

I see now it's "The hard sciences" that can't answer every question.

I have a master's in the science of nursing. I can assure Tommy and everyone else it isn't a 'soft' science.

That's an ignorant POV that one science is somehow less rigorous than another.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

You are citing something from 1958? Reviewed or something in the early 90s? WTF?

Here are the references in your link:

Like I said, that hole you are in keeps getting deeper.

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/newton.html
That is from 1666.

It is to easy to counter. If something is discovered before a given date, it is invalid, right?!!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Why does the absence of time mean there can be no possibility of a creator?

I think Hawking's point was that after one looks under all the cosmological rocks, no gods are needed to to fill any gaps.

Adding a god layer to the explanation of the universe gains nothing.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I have a master's in the science of nursing. I can assure Tommy and everyone else it isn't a 'soft' science.

That's an ignorant POV that one science is somehow less rigorous than another.

And yet, you use ethics, which is not science.
There is no law/theory of ethics like this:
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/newton.html

Now matter how much you choose a standard for comparing morality, it doesn't become science, because you choose.
You don't use observation. You use your brain and it is a fact that other humans use their brains differently. That is the falsification of your claim that you are doing science. When you do ethics, it is not observer independent.

 

[ynot]

Why does the absence of time mean there can be no possibility of a creator?

How much time would it take for a creator to create time?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So we can't consider models where time existed before there was a big bang?

BTW I'm not "ruling IN" anything.

And what good is that magical thought? Three big bangs back there was a god in that universe.

 

[psionl0]

I was commenting on your post, not BadBoy's

You copied BadBoy's argument (though you probably thought you were being original).

If credible evidence for psychic phenomena was every found then it wouldn't be supernatural and there would be plenty of room for it in science. It would merely be natural that was finally discovered. In the meantime there's no reason to rule it in, and every reason to rule it out for now.

Piffle. If you are predicting that every unexplained phenomenon will turn out to have a completely natural explanation then you are simply fortune telling.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I think Hawking's point was that after one looks under all the cosmological rocks, no gods are needed to to fill any gaps.

Adding a god layer to the explanation of the universe gains nothing.

I think, that you don't get that Hawking was thinking. It is theoretical psychics, not experimental physics.
We have no way of checking if there is something or nothing outside the universe, because we are inside the universe.

 

[psionl0]

And what good is that magical thought? Three big bangs back there was a god in that universe.

Why is the idea that there is more than one model of the origins of the universe "magical thinking"? And why the strawman conclusion?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/newton.html
That is from 1666.

You are to easy. If something is discovered before a given date, it is invalid, right?!!

Oh lordy.

How about if the science you are citing has new discoveries in the last 30 years? Think those 'discoveries' you mention have been reassessed?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Why is the idea that there is more than one model of the origins of the universe "magical thinking"? And why the strawman conclusion?

Your answer is a non sequitur to the discussion I replied to.

Try again.