Stephen Hawking - "God did not create the Universe"

You sir/miss are so German

 

I take that as a compliment...

 

I "assumed one god" because that's the cultural construct I was raised with so that's the default language that I use. But there could just as easily be a pantheon. In fact, I'd prefer that to an old bearded fella with no one to hang out with but a bunch of angels. Roman and Greek gods and goddesses knew how to party.

As I said, nothing in science has ruled out the existence of the divine. What it's done is given us explanations for natural phenomena that people in other times believed were due to divine agents.

 

The quotes from the book in the media seem to me not to be a sudden departure from what Hawking has already said before. I suppose it'll be interesting to see how he addresses certain topics in it.

 

And like argentine soccer fan said, this will tear down an image of god that is only believed because it can explain things. I often think that if there weren't as many fundamentalist, there wouldn't be as many strong atheists and the other way around. You often only hear about the people who make ridiculous claims about the age of the universe or that god hates ********, but you never hear about the majority of believers who hold onto a more moderate and historically accurate view of religion.

I would urge everyone to watch the following interview between Father George Coyne and Richard Dawkins. Father Coyne is a Jesuit preist who directed the Vatican Observatory and was a professor at the Univeristy of Arizona (he is now retired). He is a very respected cosmologist and considering this is the topic of Hawkin's book, his views shine light on the whole modern cosmology vs. god debate. Here is part one, there are seven parts, but if you are interested in this sort of thing, you will enjoy it:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po0ZMfkSNxc"]YouTube - Father George Coyne Interview (1/7) - Richard Dawkins[/ame]

 

Why ignore the history of all other religions, Greeks gave their gods natural qualities to explain what went on around them.

Lightning came from Zeus, Poseidon ruled the Ocean seas. Hindu gods also had Natural abilities. American gods, from Aztecs to Incas had natural abilities, Tlaloc god of Rain. etc.

So dude, Humans created gods to explain Nature the universe. I believe but I am not sure some started as spirits, some as kings (Gilgamesh, maybe even Quetzalcoaltl)

It was with the Greeks, Persians, Philosofical Indians (India) and Chinesse that a new type of god (gods) start to emerge. A mix of Persian (Babylonian) and Greek influences, (Egypt also) is what gave birth to our current (Western) notion of the Abrahimic god, at the end he won out over the other goods from Roman times, like the God "Mirtha" I believe that is what he was called, also the Zoroastrians did develop their Idea of a single god (a bit of a double good/evil gods), they had that since before Alexander until the Muslim conquest.

It was a progression to arrive to the idea of one god, even some Indian Religious gurus had the Idea of one God reincarnated into all the Hindu Gods.

Then came Siddhartha Gautama and other Chinese Philosophers like Confucius that developed the idea that a god was not needed in Religion, so they created philosophical Religions.

This was also going on in the Roman Empire, there were many religious movements at the time, many were probably even atheist (as in not believing the gods existed) but at the end we all know that Christianity came to power and freedom of Religion disappeared in the Roman Empire.

Who knows what the Roman, Greek, Egyptian Philosophers would have developed if they were free to keep up their schools, maybe the west would have developed their own version of spiritual/philosophical religion were the Gods were not needed. We will never know.

I think that you are ignoring many steps in the history of religion.

from Naturalistic, Animalistic, Zodiac, polytheistic, monotheist, to spiritual.

is animalistic even a word? I guess not, shoot hopefully you know what I mean.

May the gods help you out, may Acolmiztli guide your way in Mictlan

 

I haven't gotten a chance to watch the videos yet, but in case anyone else was interested, here ya are:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AdKEHzmqxA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AdKEHzmqxA[/ame]



[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCoTGTRfDy0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCoTGTRfDy0[/ame]


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIttENo2eOM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIttENo2eOM[/ame]

 

You should look up the definitions of theism/atheism and gnosticism/agnosticism.

Being an atheist does not mean that you say for a fact that god does not exist. It means that you are not convinced that god does exist while being agnostic only means that you believe that you can't know for sure. Most atheists as well as theists are in fact also agnostic.

 

I think it was Luftmensch who said it. But be that as it may, your reply is not applicable here as I obviously didn't try to tear down anything, but simply to establish what's likely and what's not. I specifically didn't equate this with any kind of proof that god doesn't exist.
And in fact, my quote is meant to address a deistic god as well.
1) We have no evidence for god
2) We have no need for god
=> It's unlikely there is a god...any god

As for the video, I did post the series in the Video thread a while ago, asking believers to give their opinion on Coyne's views...unfortunately there weren't too many responses (only one I believe).
I think it is an interesting view and certainly one of the more sensible views, but as I pointed out above, it's most likely to be false, especially with Jesus still being crammed in there...But even a deistic view would be unlikely to be true for the simple reason that a god is unnecessary and violates the rule of simplicity.

 

1) Actually, not being convinced that a god exists is not the same as not believing that a god exists. This is the difference between weak and strong atheism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism

2) When asked: "Do you believe that at least one god exists?", saying that you're agnostic is not an answer. You can only say "yes" (theist), "no" (strong atheist), or "I don't know" (weak atheist). But both "no" and "I don't know" makes you an atheist.

As I said above and as your quote also says, Agnosticism is an answer to the question: "Do you believe that you can know the nature of god?"

 

Coyne´s idea of god is not a god of scientific explanation, so to apply rules of simplicity to him as if he were, is a category error.

What you are proposing here is an inverse god of the gaps argument. You are saying that god is unlikely to exist because you don´t need god (a supernatural force) to explain material phenomena. I would say that 99% of all atheists subscribe to this argument including Dawkins, Harris and Hawkins (maybe?). This would be a solid conclusion if that is all god is, but this would go against thousands of years of tradition and, in my opinion, an over simplification of the belief in god.

The conclusion that you come to is fine, but you have to realize that this unnecessary ¨god¨ is not the same god that a lot of (less ignorant) people believe in. Therefore, to come to the conclusion you come to and apply it to ¨god¨ in general is a category error.

I often think how much easier it would have been for Jesus to point to material phenomena that had no explanation during his time (and there were lots) and simply point to a god of explanation. After all, if your inverse god of the gaps rational is valid, then he could have shown rationally that it is very likely that god exists since natural explanations were very limited. But that was not his message and that has not been the dominant religious belief in the history of Christianity. His message was one of faith, not of scientific explanation.

 

Well we know that the gods did not create the earth, we know that they are not necessary to create the universe, we can not detect their presence. We know that they do not perform miracles (we can usually explain them scientifically) and that they do not interfere in our daily lives (even when lots of people believe this), we know that people can not comeback from the dead like gods of old claim. We know that the stories in the Religious books are not real, even when they are based on Historical facts, but the miracles in the Koran, Bible, Vedas, Iliad, etc. are not real but exaggerations of stories.

What exactly do the gods do?

Ok, so you do not believe in he gods that have children with human girls and then these "virgins" have sons that are almost gods (Hercules, Jesus or Achilles) That is good, so your definition of god (gods) is not the same as the “ignorant” people you claim, but still there is no proof that Zeus, Yahweh, Huitzilopochtli or any of them dudes (aka gods) exist or ever did exist.

It does not mean that they do not or that they never did exist, maybe Ixchel is real but we can not detect her presence, but odds are she was just made up like all the other gods.

http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/mayan-mythology.php?deity=IXCHEL&ds=N

Do you mean the guy that got nailed to a cross by the Roman government for allegedly inciting revolt? Just like Spartacus

The dude that allegedly talked to a god (his father) and had conversation with his father, even when later in the book we find that that his father was actually himself, that Jesus?

Yes, and Mohammed did one better, allegedly there is lots of Scientific stuff in the Koran, and they are talking about the same god. The writers of the Koran did "borrow" lots of stuff from Persian/Greek/Roman Scientific findings and put that stuff in the Koran.

But is not like the dudes that wrote the Old Testament did not do the same with "borrowing" stories from their neighbors and making them their own.

Shoot even the Devil thing could be something that was "borrowed" form the Zoroastrians (that claim is still in dispute).

 

You live in a world where God shows up frequently, but you can't see him because your expectations are so far afield of the actual "miracles" he performs.

Miracles take place in different ways. Sometimes God does something remarkable, like heal a disease. If you went to India or China, you would have the opportunity to see this kind of phenomenon. It may happen here in the US, but not so often.

Sometimes the miracle is the result of angelic manifestations, but those too are rare these days, apparently.

But most of the time, the miracle is of a personal nature. Someone who has the willingness for God to use him or her to accomplish something significant for another person responds to a need. If you ask that person, they will usually say they felt "a nudge".

Now you can say that my example is silly, but you're speaking from outside the circumstances. You don't believe there is a god who loves people, so extensions of that principle mean nothing to you. You think you can explain that kind of behavior "scientifically", but how?

Can you "know" there was no "nudge"? Can you attribute it to a pink unicorn? Of course. But the person nudged "knows" better.

 

Muslims claim that Allah and Jehovah are the same god. Christians disagree. And well they should.

 

Do Hebrew people agree that Jesus is the son of god?

Do they agree that Jesus and Yahweh and the ghost dude are the same entity?

I would guess that they feel the same way that you feel about Muslims on this subject, also the same way Muslims feel about people of Baha’i Faith.

Also I am willing to gamble lots of money that the majority of the "miracles" in India are attributed to Hindu gods and not you version god. Just because Millions of Hindus claim miracles in their religion means that I am going to start believing in their gods.

Their gods are just as real as your god, and they are just as real as my gods.


BTW my gods are not real

 

The rule of simplicity is not a scientific law, it's a matter of getting probabilities: The more specific an unsupported belief is, the less likely it is true.

But I'm rejecting an assumption, not making one.
Well, it is a fact that god is not necessary to explain the world.
It is also a fact that we have no objective evidence for god.
You first need to make a case for god on that basis.

Wait, so is the god you believe in necessary or not?
Anyway, no god claim is based on objective evidence. So no matter how vague your god concept may be, it's still extremely unlikely.
This complete lack of evidence is actually the more important fact. Because even if we knew for a fact that the Big Bang or evolution or lightning or whatever couldn't possibly be of natural origin, even then wouldn't we have any justification whatsoever in believing in any kind of god claim.

Ok, I think of this differently, but let's go with this for a second. Let's assume that you're correct. So there is a completely different category. What can we say about it? Can you define it?
You see, the problem is that all we have is this natural world. Even if there was more, even if we knew for a fact there was more, since we don't have any access to it, it would be a complete waste to make any assumptions, let alone form beliefs.

Let's say I put a black box in front of you. What is in the box? If you can't look (or examine it in any other way), would it make sense to form a belief about it?
Is it a ticket to the movie theatre? Is it a grain of sand? Is it water? Is it a vacuum? Is it a fly? Is it chocolate?
The possibilities are infinite, so whatever you come up with is almost certainly wrong.

Then let's think about this:
Premise:
1) God is all good
2) God is all powerful
3) God is all knowing
4) Belief in Jesus Christ/God is necessary for salvation

Conclusion:
1) God wants to save as many people as possible (P1)
2) In order to save them, he needs to convince them of his existence (P4)
3) God knows what it would take to convince me of his existence (P3)
4) God can do whatever it takes to convince me of his existence (P2)
5) God does in fact convince me of his existence (P1)

However, I'm unconvinced. Therefore this god does not exist.

Depending on which gospel you read, Jesus did in fact do many signs and wonders...so why did god stop?

 

I would not mind if we could figure out how to turn water into wine with out the whole getting grapes ordeal.

 

Please explain this further and also include your definition of what a "fact" is.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100902/...ritain_hawking

In "The Grand Design," co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking says a new series of theories made a creator of the universe redundant.
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist," Hawking writes.


funny, how the title of the book could suggest that he believes in intelligent design.


From the OP

 

Just to put it rather simply, I think we all know one man's opinion is certainly not fact. Just because one is an esteemed scientist does in no way make such person's claims scientific "fact." In fact, no pun intended, a "fact" in science is generally thought of as something allusive, rather, explanations and observations are thought of in terms of probabilities (something you are 'sure' of simply has an extremely high probability of occurrence).

I am interested in hearing how is it that you (not quoting a book) might believe that the known physical laws of the universe are not only self-sustaining but also can explain away the need for a creator. Did such laws precede the generation of this universe, or were they created simultaneously with it?

 

lol


Stilton, I must say you impress me with your persistence. As always.