Curiosity on Science Channel

[Skeptic Ginger]

Agreed but you're not reading in context. The question I phrased was what attributes was the episode giving to God, if any. Generally when I imagine Hawking to invoke God, it's NOT the God of Bronze Age myth but the Prime Mover, the reason there is existence in the first place.

That's not a fictional entity until you give it particular attributes. If you want to be poetic, God-with-the-Prime-Mover-attribute is just the equation that proves QM to cause existence from nonexistence*...

Believe me, I get the context. I still challenge the underlying premise.

 

[Roboramma]

Believe me, I get the context. I still challenge the underlying premise.

But you're addressing a different question than the one the poster you're responding to is talking about. You're referring to "evidence that people make up gods". That doesn't say anything at all about whether or not there is a "Prime Mover".

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

But you're addressing a different question than the one the poster you're responding to is talking about. You're referring to "evidence that people make up gods". That doesn't say anything at all about whether or not there is a "Prime Mover".

No, I am not. The whole "Prime Mover" question is just a spin off from other god fiction. The gap god concept merely adds a magic layer to our understanding which amounts to absolutely zero additional understanding.

It begs the obvious question, one I did not hear addressed on the program though I may have missed it, "did the Prime Mover have a prime mover?" To put it another way, it's turtles all the way down.

The Deist god, aka Prime Mover, IMO which I base on the evidence, is merely an attempt to move the goal post off the playing field. No evidence for god? No problem, we'll just define a god that leaves no evidence.


If you follow the evidence and don't stumble over the letting go of god barrier some people have a harder time than others getting over, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion people invented god fiction, ALL OF IT, including the concept that a god has something, anything to do with the Universe.

 

[Roboramma]

If you follow the evidence and don't stumble over the letting go of god barrier some people have a harder time than others getting over, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion people invented god fiction, ALL OF IT, including the concept that a god has something, anything to do with the Universe.

Sure, but there's no contradiction between "people made up the concept" and "the concept can be applied to an actual true thing about the universe that we live in".

I don't think it's likely, but that's the very discussion that you're trying to avoid. Yes, the fact that people made up gods is good evidence that they aren't real, but it isn't conclusive and you can't pretend that once we know "gods were made up by people" that we know "gods are not real". The two may be related but are not equivalent.