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Hawking says there are no gods

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David Mo said:
Philosophy has long since given up on supplanting science. It seems that you stayed in Thomas Aquinas. Keep up to date.
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Yeah it stopped trying to supplant science and started just trying to keep it in its wheelhouse. I don't see that as an improvement.

No wait let me speak your language. "The Great Philosopher Fizzlebuck Warmouth the 3rd said in 1874..."
 
Tommy and David appear to view people who agree with Hawking's observation that the laws of nature as we know them leave no room for the kinds of gods we find in our religions as dogmaticists stuck in their own paradigm.
Oh, how shortsighted of them to claim that science has disproven God! Don't they know that science isn't absolute and has limits? They are no better than the theists they decry! Poor souls, stuck like rats in a maze, not realizing that the essence of cheese is not confined to the plywood walls of their mental prison! (a metaphorical type of plywood, probably made from metaphorical pine, and I suppose the cheese is an allegory or something) Do the marvels of philosophy elude them? Do they take the shadows on the cave wall for reality? I, who see those vexing shades for the illusion they are, must educate these lost souls on the nature of reality!

In their zeal to teach us the error of our ways, they throw out mental rigor with the bathwater. Claiming that any conditional claim must secretly be a universal claim, and blurring the boundaries of philosophy to such a degree they're basically left with 'anything goes if you define your terms right, don't you seeee?'.

It's boring, condescending, and intellectually lazy.
 
And again I want to point out that yet again a discussion about God has been drug down to the "Lay waste to the entire concept of knowledge" level by our usual suspects.

Scorch the Earth! seems to be the only defense of God left.
 
Belz... said:
It's also rude, which makes his request ironic.
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In his head I bet he's wearing a toga and is in Plato's "finger raised pose" from the School of Athens painting while we're all squatting in a circle around him.
 
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Porpoise of Life said:
Tommy and David appear to view people who agree with Hawking's observation ... as dogmaticists stuck in their own paradigm.
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And often go to comical lengths, such as stuffing straw-man arguments into their mouths, to make this seem true. I thought it would take more effort to elicit from Tommy an admission that he's willfully writing both sides of the argument.

I, who see those vexing shades for the illusion they are, must educate these lost souls on the nature of reality!
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That puts on the table the hypothesis that the exercise is not so much to educate the masses as to play "educator" for its value otherwise. The meme "keyboard warrior" also fits the bill. Certain statements such as, "You can't pin me down," and "Swoop in for the kill," hint at these extracurricular roles. It's reinforced when every discussion inevitably converges toward the same few comfortable pet principles, irrespective of original topic.

I note that this dynamic does not operate in more rigorous philosophy, such as in journals and academia.

In their zeal to teach us the error of our ways, they throw out mental rigor with the bathwater.
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Deconstruction for its own sake.

It's boring, condescending, and intellectually lazy.
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And frequently aimed away from improving overall understanding of the topic at hand or of the world in general, and toward showing how brilliant they must be individually. Nine times out of ten I've observed these discussions devolve quickly to a semblance of ego reinforcement. After one arrives there, it tends to preclude the "instructor" ever admitting error. And at that point we're (in)effectively done.
 
LarryS said:
I am referring to the Big Bang itself (not prior or after). It requires all matter and energy and laws of nature (created) in one instant - or more accurately, with zero passage of time.
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No it doesn't, that is your assertion, it is not part of the theory to say what the initial condition that led to the BBE was.

If you took some time you would realize there are a plethora of speculative theories.

None of which say that it was 'created'.

Now pop science articles and shows, yes.

Alan Guth and string theory along with others, no.

There is no instant at the BBE, there is no 'time' it is just starting...
 
LarryS said:
No, this is what I am referring to. If the following are true:
energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed, and
laws of nature are fixed
then the entire Big Bang, creation of the total energy and matter, all the laws of nature, occurred in 0 time.
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That is your unsupported assertion, the BBE does not say that.

Creation implies time, time does not exist until after the BBE in our universe.

You keep asserting that teh theory requires or implies something, it doesn't.

What 'caused' the BBE, we don't know.
What conditions existed 'around' the BBE we don't know.

there is plenty of speculation but the answer is we don't know
 
David Mo said:
You won't find any of the above statements in a scientific journal.
They may be based on scientific data, but they are not scientific.
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:rolleyes:

You're in denial and you are using an incredibly flimsy argument "won't find that specific wording in a scientific journal."
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
:rolleyes:

You're in denial and you are using an incredibly flimsy argument "won't find that specific wording in a scientific journal."
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Yeah, I've always loved that argument. "If you're telling me my statement is wrong according to some area of study, you have to find where in its literature someone anticipated the exact wrong argument I've made, and refutes it." The literature in any particular field is not a laundry list of refutations of all the ways laymen can misunderstand something.
 
LarryS said:
I am referring to the Big Bang itself (not prior or after). It requires all matter and energy and laws of nature (created) in one instant - or more accurately, with zero passage of time.
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I think Lawrence Krause said that all matter and energy add up to 0, which is why we have something from nothing. You didn't need a something there to create the universe from.

So there was no time when energy and matter were created as such.

My understanding is also that the laws of physics were not "created" but are emergent properties of the reality we live in.
 
The whole of science can be viewed as a refutation of god ideas. The sun is driven across the sky by a chariot god: nope. Ok, god set the earth as the center of the universe: nope. Fine, god miraculously heals people: nope. Well, prayer works: nope.

We can go on and on about all the concrete things god is supposed to be able to do in our lives, the world and the universe at large and show science that refutes “god did it.” Not one supposed god-effect has escaped this.

All that’s left is god stuff we can’t possibly measure, detect or otherwise interact with. That stuff can be dismissed on two grounds: 1)All the other god-stuff has been refuted and 2)if we can’t observe an effect than who cares about a supposed source of the effect?




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xjx388 said:
The whole of science can be viewed as a refutation of god ideas. The sun is driven across the sky by a chariot god: nope. Ok, god set the earth as the center of the universe: nope. Fine, god miraculously heals people: nope. Well, prayer works: nope.

We can go on and on about all the concrete things god is supposed to be able to do in our lives, the world and the universe at large and show science that refutes “god did it.” Not one supposed god-effect has escaped this.

All that’s left is god stuff we can’t possibly measure, detect or otherwise interact with. That stuff can be dismissed on two grounds: 1)All the other god-stuff has been refuted and 2)if we can’t observe an effect than who cares about a supposed source of the effect?




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It's amusing how the Christian God is made to looks like a dude much of the time.

I mean I suppose Jesus had a gall bladder and an appendix, athletes foot and belly button fluff. Did he ever laugh at himself after stumbling while putting on his kacks in the morning or get mad after stubbing his toe. It must have been just fine for him to possess this perfectly designed human body for a while. Did he ever lock himself out or say the wrong thing in a crowded room.

Even if a long dynasty of god like dudes did/does exist, one of which happened to do something either intentionally or by mistake that created this universe, what's to stop us postulating that our evolved existence was not just pure chance, a corollary but inevitable consequence of this type of universe. Hell the "creator" may not even know we exist - it may not even still exist itself (if he ever existed at all).

(I dont think it could have been fairies or pixies though because their magic is not good enough. They are like class B type of Magical beings. It's like the difference between Superman and Iron-man. Iron-man could never turn back time - plus he needs mechanical stuff to make his s%$t happen at all).
 
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BadBoy said:
It's amusing how the Christian God is made to looks like a dude much of the time....
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It's in Genesis. The men that wrote the book, or that started telling stories that were passed down decided a god should look like them, so they wrote that god made men look like God. Clever innit? :rolleyes: Women were relegated to being made from man parts so we are the lesser beings. :( Convenient innit?

But fortunately, that's all a load of manmade fiction. :D
 
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