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Hawking says there are no gods

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Porpoise of Life said:
Sure, science can conclude that every testable claim about gods is wrong, and that there has never been any evidence for the existence of gods, but how dare they infer anything about the existence of gods based on that?
Only wizards theologians can do that!
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My answer to that, though, and for that matter to Joe's excellent point, is that most of the same people won't accept the same standards apply to anything else. My canonical example is that if I came to them and told that Xnorg The Destroyer is emperor of the universe and I'm his tax collector, so they should wire their taxes to my account, most people will want to see some proof. They won't go "ah, I can't disprove that, so let's."

But take even more metaphysical claims. Imagine I told them that there are fractal dragons, who are both infinite and small enough to make themselves unseen. And that there's a race of invisible elves in my fridge that are all that keeps the fractal dragons at bay. Oh, and they're the ones who turn the fridge light on and off too. And I know that because a ghost (a holy one, no less) told me how to read between the lines of an old religious text and take fragments out of context and replace words with my own. And yeah, you need to be a wizard to disprove that. I have my old ex-GFs testimony that I'm a wizard, so who are you to have an opinion on it?

I think most will just think that I need medication.

I also think that most of them would quite instinctively understand that the onus is on me to provide the evidence there. And that there is no requirement for anyone to believe my crazy dragon stories unless such evidence is presented. They can and should just go with the null hypothesis that, until proven otherwise, the noble race of fridge elves don't actually exist.

All I'm saying is that I don't know why it comes across as so unreasonable when I apply the same criterion to their zombie overlord who can give you eternal undeath too, if you just swear fealty to him. I mean, of course, the Lich King. Err... I mean, Jesus.
 
HansMustermann said:
Science is a method, not some arbitrary establishment that decides what's right and wrong.

I'll whip out that Vince Ebert definition again: "The Scientific Method is, simply put, just a way to test suppositions. If I supposed for example 'there might be beer in the fridge' and go look in the fridge, I'm already doing science. Big difference from Theology. There they don't usually test suppositions. If I just assume 'There is beer in the fridge' then I'm a theologian. If I go look, I'm a scientist. And if I go look, find nothing inside, and still insist that there's beer in the fridge, that's esoteric."

For reference, he IS a physicist turned comedian.
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I know he is a comedian, but that "there might be beer in the fridge" isn't a theological question. Theology is defined as (among other definitions):

n. The study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions.
n. A system or school of opinions concerning God and religious questions​

So theological questions might be "ought there be beer in the fridge?" "what are the moral considerations of beer being or not being in the fridge?" These are questions science can't answer AFAICS.

That's the distinction between science and theological questions. That some religious traditions confuse the boundaries is true, but "the earth is 6000 years old" is not a theological question. The answer has theological implications however.
 
HansMustermann said:
For reference, he IS a physicist turned comedian.
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Few years back Randall Munroe, creator of XKCD, got behind on the strip due to his fiance battling breast cancer, so he had a week of guest artist strips which included Bill Amend, creator of FoxTrot, who has a degree in physics from Amherst College and Zach Weinersmith, creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, who has a degree in physics from San Jose State which cause Munroe, who has a degree in physics from Christopher Newport University to lampshade the fact that so many comic artists have degrees in physics.
 
GDon said:
I know he is a comedian, but that "there might be beer in the fridge" isn't a theological question. Theology is defined as (among other definitions):

n. The study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions.
n. A system or school of opinions concerning God and religious questions​
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Meaningless. You can't define and categorize your way into not having answers or making sense.

I can't say you owe me 20 bucks and make up a new form of economics that I define as "Questions about the 20 bucks you owe me" as proof of my original statement.
 
GDon said:
I know he is a comedian, but that "there might be beer in the fridge" isn't a theological question. Theology is defined as (among other definitions):

n. The study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions.
n. A system or school of opinions concerning God and religious questions​

So theological questions might be "ought there be beer in the fridge?" "what are the moral considerations of beer being or not being in the fridge?" These are questions science can't answer AFAICS.

That's the distinction between science and theological questions. That some religious traditions confuse the boundaries is true, but "the earth is 6000 years old" is not a theological question. The answer has theological implications however.
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Maybe. But

a) just because a domain is concerned with something else than whatever an example was about, doesn't mean you can't apply the same methods. E.g., equally I could say that economics is concerned with money not beer, and law is concerned with rules and punishments not beer, therefore you can't apply skepticism to my claim that I'm legally entitled to collect taxes on behalf of Xnorg The Destroyer. Just being able to name a domain doesn't make it special.

and

b) I put forward the thesis that most people don't actually seem opposed to applying the scientific method to religion too. Just as long as it's not theirs.

E.g., practically all Christians will go for the more parsimonious explanation for the Quran, than actually believing that an archangel dictated God's own words to Muhammad (pbuh) in a cave. I mean, if they actually believed that claim without any other evidence, they'd be Muslims, right?

E.g., virtually all Christians will disbelieve the miracles of Sathya Sai Baba, or for that matter his miraculous conception. They will have no problems even dismissing the many contemporary accounts from eye witnesses (which is more than we have for Jesus, btw) as unreliable biased sources, and go for the null hypothesis as long as better evidence doesn't present itself. I mean, they'd be Hindu if they actually thought that guy was actually all that.

Etc.

And that opens an important door. Because once you can be skeptical even of ONE religion, let alone ALL but one religion, then arguing that just one is exempt from that is really just special pleading.
 
HansMustermann said:
Maybe. But

a) just because a domain is concerned with something else than whatever an example was about, doesn't mean you can't apply the same methods. E.g., equally I could say that economics is concerned with money not beer, and law is concerned with rules and punishments not beer, therefore you can't apply skepticism to my claim that I'm legally entitled to collect taxes on behalf of Xnorg The Destroyer. Just being able to name a domain doesn't make it special.
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Not "special", rather "relevant" and "irrelevant". Legalities, economics, science and theology may all be at play at some point.

CS Lewis once wrote that if you put a dollar a day in a drawer, and if after 10 days you find you only have 5 dollars, then it isn't the laws of mathematics that has been broken, but the laws of England. It doesn't mean either is "special", just what is relevant. You might argue that theological questions are never relevant; that's an opinion rather than a scientific conclusion.

HansMustermann said:
and

b) I put forward the thesis that most people don't actually seem opposed to applying the scientific method to religion too. Just as long as it's not theirs.
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Again, it comes to relevancy: the question of "is" vs "ought" doesn't seem to be in the science sphere, though Sam Harris might disagree. Even so, I'd argue that questions of "ought" are very important, even if not susceptible to scientific experimentation.

HansMustermann said:
And that opens an important door. Because once you can be skeptical even of ONE religion, let alone ALL but one religion, then arguing that just one is exempt from that is really just special pleading.
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I don't know anyone who claims that a religion is exempt from skepticism or scientific examination. Faith statements, yes, but those are statements that are outside scientific examination in the first place.

But no-one thinks their religion gets a pass on factual claims. Even Young Earth Creationists think that their beliefs in a young earth are supported by science.
 
LarryS said:
He and others have expressed their opinions on what constitutes 'science' - and people can decide where on the continuum they fall. There is no right/wrong answer here. If there was a right/wrong answer - that answer would have to be provided by philosophy and not science.
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Can you give me an example of where “philosophy" where philosophy can give one of these right / wrong answers?
 
HansMustermann said:
My canonical example is that if I came to them and told that Xnorg The Destroyer is emperor of the universe and I'm his tax collector, so they should wire their taxes to my account, most people will want to see some proof. They won't go "ah, I can't disprove that, so let's."
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And yet this is exactly what all churches do. They call it a tithe and many parishioners pay it. So it may work out for you after all!



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Darat said:
Then you can't see color.
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You see a color and you feel hate. Science can explain the physical correlates of vision and hate. They are two different things. That's why psychology keeps talking about the mind and presumably it will keep talking for a long time.

This does not imply that my impressions are metaphysical things, but that the level of explanation of science doesn't deal with such a thing as a subjective feelings. Probably neural excitation and subjective impressions are different ways of talking about the same thing. But we need to make this distinction.
 
Funny how the guy who is so adamant that it only counts as scientific if what is discussed is literally published in a peer reviewed journal claims his informal brand of unpublished off the cuff philosophy is perfectly valid.
 
Porpoise of Life said:
Funny how the guy who is so adamant that it only counts as scientific if what is discussed is literally published in a peer reviewed journal claims his informal brand of unpublished off the cuff philosophy is perfectly valid.
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There is no contradiction. Requirements to consider something as scientific must be rigorous because scientific method is rigorous. If we want lower levels of rigour we can content ourselves with less rigorous requirements. "Perfectly" valid I don't know what it is. Too vague. What level of validity do you mean?
 
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