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Hawking Picks Physics Over God For Big Bang
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that in his new book, The Grand Design, Professor Stephen Hawking argues that the Big Bang, rather than occurring following the intervention of a divine being, was inevitable due to the law of gravity. '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. 'It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.' Hawking had previously appeared to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe. Writing in his bestseller A Brief History Of Time in 1988, Hawking wrote: 'If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God.'"
This is why I never did well in the higher math classes in college.
So... I thought gravity required there be something with mass in order to create gravity. Doesn't that mean in order for there to be a law of gravity you need stuff with mass attracting each other? Which requires something, not nothing, so --
Damn. There it goes again, brain matter all over the wall. Excuse me while I get a spatula.
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Well who created the all-mighty then?
It's turtles all the way down!
Still room for the old logical fallacy there. If God created gravity, then who created God? Most theists then state that God was always there, but then it's easier to simply say that gravity was always there.
Listen, you don't just randomly use "whom" as a sort of intelligent version of "who", you pretentious jackass.
It's ninjas all the way down!
Following your argument that God aka Gravity has always existed...
He's publicly stated a belief in an invisible sky wizard, improper use of "who" and "whom" is the least of bit of evidence pointing to a lack of intelligence.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Who created this law of things can only exist if it first have to go through the process of creation then?
You could have just said "Hawking Picks Rational Thinking Over Superstition"
.
Trolling is a art,
Still room for the old logical fallacy there. If God created gravity, then who created God? Most theists then state that God was always there, but then it's easier to simply say that gravity was always there.
It's easier to ignore the whole debate and watch TV. This doesn't mean that's the correct decision.
A true believer will just argue that God designed gravity that way for that very reason.
Personally, I think scientists should stay completely out of the religious sphere. They're not going to change anyone's mind, science and religion mix very badly, and commenting on theological issues only increases the perception among many religious types that science is their enemy/competitor.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
In the forthcoming book, published on 9 September, Hawking says that M-theory, a form of string theory, will achieve this goal: "M-theory is the unified theory Einstein was hoping to find," he theorises.
You just have to have faith.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
When I have an empirical proof that god exists, I will believe. For the moment, I have empirical proof that gravity exists, and Hawking simply extrapolated the laws of physics to the extreme, then came up with the big bang theory, and the theory still holds today.
No theist theory holds. It's all there to explain what we can't understand. And when we get to understand, we say "well, you know, God may have played a role anyway"...
But try to convince 90% of the human race that what I say is true. I may have a hard time.
Oh, summarize and bring the argument here please. I can't even be bothered to follow the link to RTFA. What makes you think I'd wade through a book so that you can be right?
You're missing the point too. The law of gravity is not created. It is not physical. A good book to read is "The God Delusion". Take a look.
Humans evolve. Humans create self replicating robots. Humans go away. Some robots say they were built. Other robots rebut 'But who built the builders?' No one, they were not built.
Or to put it another way, what if a self-aware cartoon character asks 'Who drew the drawers?' No one, they were not drawn.
Point is, what applies for one level doesn't necessarily apply for the one above it.
"If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God."
I always thought it was a metaphor, as in to "know the mind of God" as he puts it means we'd finally understand everything about the universe, not that we'd know what a literal God is thinking.
Either some people took Mr. Hawking's statement too literally, or I misunderstood...
You're saying that investigating the laws of the universe to figure out how/why the universe as we know it came to be is outside the realm of good physics?
I sincerely hope that was a sardonic statement. If that's the condition of people in general today, we're going to have a sticky few decades ahead of us.
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
He's publicly stated a belief in an invisible sky wizard, improper use of "who" and "whom" is the least of bit of evidence pointing to a lack of intelligence.
Here's an honest question, I ask of you as a fellow atheist:
Why do so many atheists feel the need to be smug assholes? What the fuck does it matter to you if he believes in 'an invisible sky wizard'? Why can't you just let people believe what they will, why must you impose your beliefs on other people?
Why's this a troll? Occam's razor is not law around here.
It's ninja turtles all the way down!
I was actually under the impression that the law of gravity, like time ans presumably other laws of physics, were inextricably part of this universe, which would mean they came into being at the time of the Big Bang. Does Hawking now say that's not true? Or have I always been wrong in my understanding?
Queue torrent of bullshit about wars and history. Atheists are just theists with a post-modern stick up their arse.
Actually, it's 4 elephants first, and then a single very large turtle.
Still room for the old logical fallacy there. If God created gravity, then who created God? Most theists then state that God was always there, but then it's easier to simply say that gravity was always there.
Cut out the middle man!
Or, don't multiply entities needlessly.
Creationists claim that everything needs a cause, including the universe, then posit a god as the necessary cause and immediately proclaim that that god is immune to the "everything needs a cause" claim.
Also, "God" has no explanatory value. He can do anything, and what he decides to do is completely unpredictable. If a scientist predicted a particle or force that can do anything and is utterly unpredictable, he'd be either ignored or laughed at.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Because "God did it" adds nothing to our understanding and adds an extra, seemingly unnecessary link in the chain of reasoning. It's a platitude, not an explanation. On top of that, "God did it" has never, in the entire history of mankind, been the correct answer where such answers became knowable:
Why does the sun move across the sky? God did it... no wait, the earth is rotating so it only seems the sun moves across the sky. Why do people get sick? God did it... no wait, it turns out there are things called germs and pathogens that affect our bodies and make us sick. Where does thunder and lightning come from? How is wine formed from grape juice? What causes the seasons to change? There used to be a "God did it" explanation for all of these.
So why should we accept "God did it" as the reason the universe exists?
=Smidge=
Pascal sent a letter. He wants his Wager back.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Atheist or not, SOMETHING had to have always existed. Otherwise it's turtles all the way down.
I saw a Mormon laughing at a Christian for believing that God always existed. He said that their belief of a God pyramid going back forever made more sense.
Scientifically, philosophically and theologically "the beginning" is just something we can't figure out. Perhaps our brains are too small.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
He may be breaking the laws of physics, in Louisiana
Their argument is that it's just so obvious that there's a god, or gods and you have to take their non-existence on faith alone; you can't prove they don't exist, so therefore it must be more likely that they do. It's basically the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction argument; we can't find any evidence of their existence, so they must be really well hidden.
The problem with that argument being that it's not that "I believe that there isn't a god or gods", but "I don't believe that there is a god or gods".
In philosophy, the situation you describe is known as Pascal's wager. Find more here and here.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
I am extremely dubious about our ability to even speculate about something so far removed from human experience as the birth of universes. That applies to physicists and theologians, though it seems to me that physicists at least try to test their hypotheses as best they can.
I'm pretty sure that, whatever the answer turns out to be, it won't look much like anything that anybody today expects. I won't call myself 'agnostic' because I believe it's at least in principle possible to reach some conclusions, eventually. I guess you'd call me "non-gnostic, for now".
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
"Well who created the all-mighty then?" That was an easy question. Moses created "the almight" about 1000 BC. He invented the single god, aka "all-mighty", inspired by the single god of a pharao a few centuries earlier (who btw was Nefertitis husband). Before that the hebrews were polytheistic like most other in Egypt. The big question is how Pharaoh had receieved the idea of a single god. Possibly he in turn was inspired by the zoroastrians, a monotheistic religion which had been created several centuries before him. It is not stranger than that.
So which one of the several million religion options should we choose? They're all pretty much mutually exclusive, and they all sentence everyone who isn't part of their particular sub-sect to eternal post-mortem punishment of one sort or another. Are you a Catholic? The Mormons, Jews, Baptists, Evangelicals, and so on all say you're a heritic who is going to burn. Are you a Baptist? Nobody else likes you either. Who's right? Which one do you choose? Pascal's wager, if you actually include _all_ of the numbers, says it's better to be an atheist.
I sincerely hope that was a sardonic statement. If that's the condition of people in general today, we're going to have a sticky few decades ahead of us.
I don't think there's anything unreasonable about what he said. If you're having an argument or discussion with someone and you believe a book that you read would convince them that you're correct, the least you can do is give them the gist of what the book is about and why you think it's relevant. If they want to know more or are interested, then they can read the book -- but it's kind of asinine to say, "Oh, just read book X and you'll realize there has to be a God."
If you disagree with me, go ahead and read Don Quixote (again, if necessary) and you'll see I'm right.
Until we can point an exact and computable equation for the entire past, present and future of existence, there will always be unexplored parts of the map. You can fill that void with any assumption you want - from dragons to flying spaghetti monsters, a big fat zero to $God. If you assume that this placeholder is omnipotent and mysterious, that removes all the messy frustration about why it's hiding out in the ignorance section.
Where you run into problems is that these seemingly harmless placeholders become memes. As you add lore around your placeholder of choice, there is competition between memes. Some survive. Some die. Some mutate. Evolution now kicks in. The placeholders become resistant to being replaced with other placeholders. As people start filling in the map, knowledge itself becomes a threat to the meme and it begins to complete for mindspace in which to live.
Now this harmless placeholder is, for all practical purposes, a real living thing scratching at your mind from the void beyond knowledge like some quantum virtual particle leaping out of a black hole.
Since we are talking about unprovable matters, I could also postulate there is a god that will send you to hell for being a nice person. This god is as likely to exist as yours. In fact, as long as there is more than one religion in the world, there are potentially many gods, who, once you die, will send you straight to hell for not believing in them. Surely, by being a practitioner of religion X, you are staking your eternal future too?
Score: i, Imaginary
Just like Christians stake their eternal future on the presumption that if God exists, it's the God from the bible (or rather their interpretation of it). They live their whole lives doing what their interpretation of the bible supports, and rejecting the concept that there could be anyone or anything different. If they are wrong, and there turns out to be a judgement day ruled by different deity they will spend eternity burning in other version of hell.
They live their whole lives doing what they want, and rejecting the concept that there could be anyone or anything greater than themselves.
Alternately: Everyone does what they want. Some people choose to rationalize their choices based on a fairy tale.
Sure it does. Atheists stake their eternal future on the presumption that God does not exist. They live their whole lives doing what they want...
False. That atheists have no "moral code" simply because the reject some arbitrary collection of do's and don'ts is a common but incorrect assumption. Sure, there are plenty of amoral atheists, but then again, there are plenty of outright scoundrels who will bleat long and loud about their "Christian values". On the other hand, some of the most "moral" people I know are atheists. They take full responsibility for their actions (no "salvation" just for uttering some magic words) and weigh those actions against a thoughtful and continuously evaluated personal code. In other words, they choose to do the "right" thing because it is right, not because someone else said it was right and threatened them with torture if they disobeyed.
If they are wrong, and there turns out to be a judgement day they will spend eternity burning in hell..
You do know that not every religion has the Judeo-Christian concepts of heaven, hell, and "judgement", don't you?
Stating that a supernatural being outside the physical limitations of the universe and of time either does or does not exist based on the physical limitations of the universe and of time and of our still quite limited ability to measure and explain those limitations is poor physics.
I mean, whose definition of God, gods, demigods, angels, demons, spirits, souls, or whatever do we even use to start looking? How do we test?
Some philosophy is from different branches of philosophy than science. You don't discuss metaphysics and theology from physics. Physics is empirical and objective. Once you violate empiricism and objectivity, you've violated science.
No doubt. I don't think Zeus will think much of their blasphemy.
I have even better resources for Pascal's wager here and here. It's too bad I doubt sheph will think about his own wager.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Atheists stake their eternal future on the presumption that God does not exist. They live their whole lives doing what they want, and rejecting the concept that there could be anyone or anything greater than themselves. If they are wrong, and there turns out to be a judgement day they will spend eternity burning in hell. That takes a great deal of faith (or ignorance take your pick).
And many theists assume that, even if there is a God, that it's important to him that you believe in him during this life. (Why would that be so important to God anyway?!)
And many theists assume that, if you don't believe in God before you die, that God will be so upset that he'll send you to hell for eternity. (Why do so many theists think God is a psychopath?)
And even if you do believe in God, what are the chances you've chosen the right one to believe in?
Christianity? What if the Muslims are right?
Islam? What if the Jews are right?
Judaism? What if the Hindus are right?
Hinduism? What if the Buddhists are right?
What if all the major religions are wrong?
And on and on it goes...
It seems overwhelmingly self evident to me that people inherit their religious beliefs from their parents and the society around them. They don't wait until they're adults, capable of making these kinds of Big Decisions with a rational mind. They don't research all the alternatives and make an informed decision. They're basically brainwashed from birth.
If God really is a psychopath; i.e., if God really is going to send you to hell for eternity because you didn't believe or did believe, but believed in the wrong God, then the vast, vast majority of humanity is screwed, and is going to hell, because even if you do believe in the right God, chances are your faith and adherence to your religion is watered down enough to piss him off to send you to hell anyway...
I would argue that to have true faith and confidence in God would mean having faith and confidence that he's competent and his plan doesn't suck so much that the vast majority of human souls will spend eternity in hell. You should have faith that God is not a complete psychopath just waiting to make the vast majority of his creation suffer torment for all eternity.
And, please: if you're religious, and disagree, or are even offended, please don't mod me down; instead provide some rational counterarguments to what I've said.
It's turtles all the way down!
Someone, it appears, actually read "A Brief History of Time."
Gee...I never thought of that. Now, just tell me which God I should worship so as to avoid my eternal suffering and I'll get right on that. Pascal's Wager is hundreds of years old and makes even less sense now than it did then. Not believing is just as safe a wager as believing in the "wrong" God.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
Stephen Hawking begging the question.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
I think the first step would be to define the Gods and describe their features. And then the second step is you can test those for features in double-blind tests. Somehow they cant' seem to get past step 1.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
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This is a interesting question I have thought of quite often and I believe I have a reasonable answer.
"Time" is a by product of creation of our universe.
Keeping this in mind, there is no "need" for anyone creating god. Without universe there is no time (or at the very least time as we perceive), yet there is god (for those who believe in god, and I do). Question of creation only arises when asked in reference to "time".
"Actually, it's exactly the same thing to say that gravity was always there."
No.
"I've never understood why hardcore atheists believe that scientific explanations preclude God as a valid concept."
Definition of 'God' usually requires it to be conscious. And a lot of religions believe in personal God. These concepts do not bring in anything new or worthwhile.
I’m curious about this book "I Don't Have Faith Enough to be an Atheist":
Looking at the description of the book on Amazon is quite interesting. According to the sycophantic reviews from other Christian religious authors this book must provide bullet proof arguments for the existence of God.
If it’s anything like “A Purpose Driven Life”: I’m not going to pick it up. For anyone who hasn’t read APDL; Don’t bother, it’s a real stinker. I was given a copy a few weeks ago with the assurance that it contains “bullet proof” arguments of God’s existence... It doesn’t.
The main argument of APDL goes: You exist because God created you, and he created you so that you would serve him therefore God exists and because God exists he must the Judeo-Christian God and his son must be Christ.
The argument is bereft of any content worthy of serious intellectual consideration. Oh, but they did take the time to try to hock some cheezy tie-in 'wares like "APDL Journal" and "APDL Cards" all available for a small "donation".
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How convenient. When you lose, change the game.
Point is, this god business doesn't necessarily apply to any level at all. It's your fairy tale, not mine.
With the proper application of apathy, you don't even need to do that much. In fact, I think I'll go fry myself up a delicious bacon/egg and cheese sandwich right now instead of pondering a damn thing. Who gives a shit? I'm not a physicist, biologist, theologian, or policy maker, why should I waste my time on any of this?
Oh right, because it's fun to argue on the internet... oh well :)
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Indeed, I live my life by the motto "What would Zeus Do?"
Pretty much anything he wants, it turns out.
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
As a (unfortunately non-car) analogy, think about the question "why did my wife smile when she looked at me just now?". The answer "she loves me" wouldn't be appropriate in a journal article in a scientific journal about correlating human brain activity with human actions, but it might very well be an appropriate answer in other contexts.
Are you arguing that "God" like "love" is an entirely subjective phenomenon that occurs only in the human brain? As an atheist, I'd tend to agree with that.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Well that's the whole point.
"Who created the creator?" comes as a retort to religious people saying "Something can't come out of nothing" and then saying that it must have been created by a god since for some reason god is exempt from this rule but any other explanation wouldn't be.
Atheist Communists started plenty of fights over religion.
Derp? That wasn't the question. the question was "When was the last time a war was started because of atheist beliefs? Here's a hint: Never. Wars are fought over "you have resource X and we want it", or "our god doesn't like your god, and he told us to kill you". You're not going to find atheists starting wars over their lack of god anywhere outside of Southpark reruns.
The fact that atheism is relatively new doesn't change the fact that it's just another religion.
Sorry, wrong again. Atheism pre-dates your religion - people didn't believe in god(s) long before they made up yours. And it's not a religion any more than not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Why do so many atheists feel the need to be smug assholes? What the fuck does it matter to you if he believes in 'an invisible sky wizard'? Why can't you just let people believe what they will, why must you impose your beliefs on other people?
It has nothing to do with me being an atheist, I'm just an asshole.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Just a minor quibble, but if it turns out the Buddhists are right, Christirans won't spend eternity being reborn and suffering - they only spend as long as it takes to figure out that the Buddhists were right and to get with the program. Unlike Christianity, Buddhism isn't one of those you get one chance, don't fuck it up kind of religions. (And yes, all of the above is just a huge fucking oversimplification - I am aware of that, but the point stands).
words, words, words, lemur, words, words words
I have limited bandwidth and thus have to queue my torrents, you insensitive clod!
The law of gravity is physical in the sense of a force acting upon matter and energy. Part of the big bang theories out there in fact postulates that the strong, weak nuclear forces, gravity, electromagnetic, etc were all bound together maintaining the inital singularity (if that term is even accurate) then one or more of them broke off that unified force and subsequently set the big-bang off. If that was the case then we have a whole new layer of physics to contend with, the fact that forces themselves have the potential to break down or decay. In simple terms: The very laws of physics may change over time. (Heavy isn't it?) So gravity itself (as a force) could at some point break down into some additional, more basic forces, convert to a particle based force, who the hell knows! For all of human history we've never really looked at the concept that reality itself (And that laws that form it) may be subject to change themselves over time.
But, tangent aside, as a physical "thingiee"... sure but nor more or less physical as "pressure", "heat", or to a lesser extent entropy.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
You may be unlikely to pick this one up too, but "Mere Christianity" is a very good book for the intellectual.
Or any of the other tens of accounts of the story which came first. Or other popularizations of it. Or Pratchett.
With that logic you'd have to believe in absolutely everything. Ghosts, Vampires, Aliens, FSM, Unicorns, goblins, drangons, orcs, elves (short and tall), Fraggles, Transformers, ninja turtles, Voltron, Zerg, absolutely anything that anyone could dream of.
For some reason this makes me imagine a person in deadly peril shouting, "Save me, hydralisk!"
Is this really Hawking speaking? Has he finally lost his mind?
Yes. It's not that this is a single quote taken out of context from an entire book. He surely never mentions Conservation of Energy or entropy in this book. The statement is obviously not the conclusion of a lengthy argument, but rather the entirety of the argument and conclusion contained together in one sentence. Ergo your observations are undeniably correct and Hawking has no idea what he's talking about.
The enemies of Democracy are
Either way, you're doing what you want. This is how the human brain works. In fact, this is how every single living organism works. You have a single base motive : to find "happiness". For some people, this happiness is derived from following their religion. For others, this happiness is derived from other things. Either way, you never do anything that your brain believes won't lead to happiness. Every single action you take in your life is your brain attempting to achieve happiness. Your conscious mind, if it even exists, can only try to interpret these actions.
I've never understood why hardcore atheists believe that scientific explanations preclude God as a valid concept.
Strictly speaking it doesn't. You just don't need God as an explanation when you have real explanations. And for those things you still can't explain, invoking God doesn't help anyway - an unknowable power with unlimited capability and inscrutable will is compatible with any and every observation you make, and therefore has no explanatory value.
Also, people who cling to belief in God tend to cling also to myths that are demonstrably *not* valid concepts, so God tends to get thrown out with the garbage he's sitting in.
If theists had any sense they'd ditch Genesis faster than atheists do.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And I was being a pedantic one, sorry.
And also thinking that, shit, give someone a few million years to mull it over and maybe, assuming the Buddhists are right, the Christians might be able to say "well holy shit, I don't think this here Jesus guy is working for us, what with all the constantly being reborn and suffering and all." That might be optimistic.
words, words, words, lemur, words, words words
As other people have pointed out, that's Pascal's Wager.
However, if you actually think about it, the logic used in Pascal's Wager inevitably leads to the idea that you have to kill as many children as you can.
Consider:
And hey, if you do that, you'll become a martyr! Just imagine all the children you'll usher into heaven, even if you're going to hell.
you made me think, if you assume the christian god is the correct one (i dont, atheist and such), then believing in any particular version of christianity might even be more dangerous then being a muslim. If the christian god exists, and for instance, catholicism is the correct interpretation, then a protestant (reformed, whatever), person, will not only have not heeded the right set of rules of the god he believes in, he will have done things in his gods name, which go directly against gods will (which, for the uk/irish region, might include killing/fighting catholics)
If i was a god (and many people seem to assume god is some sort of allmighty benevolent but very strict human-like thinking mind, sort of a king of old), i would be more upset with people claiming to follow me, and in my (explicit) name, cary out misdeeds/crimes, some even against my own correct followers, then the guys who are just following the wrong god to begin with...
anyway, the problem i see with the pascal wager is that it neglects the potential cost of following a religion, it does not take into account any experiences you might lose, or effort you will spend in vain, worshipping a non existant god, a devout muslim will never taste pork, or taste a good whiskey, thus making his life on earth less complete, with a chance to find out that is all you ever get, if there is no afterlife. In essence, if there is no afterlife, this earthly life is all we humans have, devoting that to a non-existant god in that case (possibly) devalues literally all that we have, even if on an absolute scale earthly life earthly life + afterlife
People, what a bunch of bastards
depends on whether it's Friday night or not
There's far more religious people in prison than Atheists.
Also far less crime in countries with high rates of Atheism.
And murder rates seem directly correlated with Christian belief, not inversely as you might expect.
Christians are also much more likely to divorce than Atheists
So on the whole ... if there is a heaven, and entrance is based on good behavior and actions, there's probably going to be more atheists there then Christians.
No sig today...
And how do you know he hasn't? There are some pretty subtle arguments for the existence of God, such as Plantinga's version of the ontological argument using modal logic. I don't accept it, but the problem isn't a lack of understanding of science or critical thinking. (For what it's worth, I don't accept the argument because I don't believe the version of modal logic he uses correctly describes the universe, but that's a metaphysical position -- there's no possible observation that could decide between the modal logics I accept, in which the existence of God appears not to be provable, and the one Plantinga uses in which the existence of God appears to be provable).
If you think that because some religious people have stupid reasons for being religious they must all have stupid reasons for being religious then perhaps you should spend a few minutes with a critical thinking primer too.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I liked this book. I'm not big on religion but a previous boss, who enjoyed debating philosophy and occasionally his religious beliefs, gave me a copy. It was an interesting read.
Serious questions:
Were you raised Christian?
If so, doesn't it at all make you second guess yourself to think that the religion you think is most plausible just happens to be one your parents indoctrinated you into?
Bonus question:
Do you suppose a random ancient Greek person felt any differently about the surety of their faith? After all, their gods were involved in the fall of Troy -- that's just a matter of history.
i am not sure about buddhism, but hinduism also knows the concept of starting over again on a lower step (like going from human to a dog) if you screw up a life, so if in this life you are a christian, and as such do wrong things, you will simply end up as a lower lifeform, and if you do that right, you go up a step, without having to be the same christian guy again.
Being a christian in a hindu reality merely means having to back a few steps on your path to enlightenment, it doesnt mean being stuck in an endless loop of being wrong, so in that respect a hindu reality is more friendly to christians then a christian reality to hindus
People, what a bunch of bastards
Agreed. This is a version of what I call the Proof from Theological Proliferation, which, baldly stated, goes something like: "There are lots of books of theology, and you haven't read them all. Therefore, God." Or, "The proof is left as an exercise for the reader."
If there is a killer argument in the book, he should tell us what it is, rather than just brush off questions with a hand wave.
god IS the laws of physics
god is a metaphor, that some people need to take literally, because not everyone has the mind of stephen hawking, but they still need to understand the world, so mental shortcuts have to do
the whole hullabaloo over the existence of god is really silly, as soon as you realize that everyone has a different way of describing the same thing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Like many things in this subject it comes down to definitions. Theism is pretty consistent, in that most people accept it as being belief that a deity exists and is somehow active in this world or the supposed next. Atheism could have two basic meanings - depending on who you're talking to.
1) Denial that god(s) exist
This is rarely expressed as absolute certainty, and is a position I personally consider indefensible and problematic in that it shifts the burden of evidence. Also, no-one can say for definite that there are no gods, but one can with a reasonable level of certainty say that the gods described by the major religions are either highly improbable or hideously misunderstood by their followers and biographers. Personally I find it rare to find atheists who'll say with certainty that there are no gods, and most cases it's believers creating straw men that can easily be knocked over. If anyone suggests this to be the norm for atheists then I'd challenge them to show me evidence of well known atheists or atheistic groups that adopt such a line.
2) Non-belief in the existence of god(s)
This is the same as agnosticism. The existence of gods is a binary proposition. The best way to clarify this muddle is to ask the question: Do you believe that gods exist? The answers "no" and "I don't know" amount to the same thing. Personally I adopt this line for gods and all other supernatural frippery. An intellectually honest atheist should be willing to accept, given sufficient evidence, that gods could indeed exist.
It becomes slightly annoying when people self-identify as agnostics with the implication, or stated claim, that their reason for this is because they're not certain enough to adopt the position of atheism. Just as Christianity as a label can in some contexts be pretty vague, it's always worth asking someone to clearly state their beliefs. Atheism doesn't require certainty, and certainty only comes in to play when theists make very specific claims that can through naturalistic observation be refuted. Even then it can reach ridiculous levels - such as the argument that the devil planted fossils to confuse us, or the concept of Last Thursdayism. Therein lies madness like solipsism and conversations that'd belong among a bunch a stoned teenagers rather than serious philosophers and theologians.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
I was raised in a non-religious household. I came to Orthodox Christianity because of Richard Swinburne's defence of Christianity (a multi-volume series published by Oxford University Press). Swinburne in turn left the Church of England for the Orthodox Church after he found it the only Christian denomination that matched where his philosophical reasoning led him.
So it's quite common for people to believe in Christianity through being convinced of its claims, not only because of an accident of upbringing.
Sorry, but logic doesn't work this way. A logical proof only guarantees that if the premises of the argument are true, then the conclusions must also be true. Because of this, it is fundamentally impossible for a logical proof to demonstrate anything about the nature of reality. You must have at least one input assumption no matter what. This is why all results in science are necessarily contingent upon observation/experiment. Ontological attempts at proving a god (or anything else) are guaranteed to fail before they even begin.
One problem with Plantinga's argument is that he assumes it is possible for an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent entity to exist, but this is exactly the kind of god we know cannot exist because of the problem of evil (never mind the logical self-inconsistency of omnipotence). Because of this, Plantinga's "maximal greatness" is a malformed statement that has no meaning, and the whole proof crashes in on itself.
As for Stephen Hawking's argument, I'd have to read the book, but in principle it is completely accurate that there is simply no reason to believe in one.
When I try to discuss this with religious people, they often argue that my 'moral code' is based off of Christian teachings and wouldn't exist otherwise.
What they fail to understand is that their moral codes were created for very sensible reasons that likely predates their religion by millenia. We are social creatures, this is how we evolved. Our ability to function within groups has always been so crucially important to our survival. So within those groups, rules naturally form to make sure that group functions as well as possible to help give it better chances of survival. In small groups "for the good of the community" reasons work fine and dandy, but when groups grow beyond Dunbar's Number then more extreme measures have to be taken (as people will lose connection with the 'community' in larger groups and no longer feel as obligated to contribute to it). And the desire to avoid eternal damnation works well for the most part.
Pascal's wager is a poor one for many reasons. It's a classic false choice. All you're truly wagering against is the notion of a personal god who monitors and judges your every thought and action (which is a bet I'll take any day). Not whether a god or gods exist.
Many atheists will cede that they border on deist as in "If there is a god it's the equivalent of how we view ants, not some kind of overbearing father figure/mind reader/judge/asshole." What supreme being has the time or inclination to listen to what us dumb apes are thinking all the time? That sounds like a really short-sighted view of the possibilities of omnipotence.
Many atheists will also cede that there could be a higher power, just one that's also a part of the natural universe (aliens, AI machines, a singularity, etc.)
Just sayin!
I don't know how many years on this Earth I got left. I'm going to get real weird with it. - Frank Reynolds
If God really is a psychopath; i.e., if God really is going to send you to hell for eternity because you didn't believe or did believe
It's worse than that. Can you think of anything done on earth that deserves eternal, and infinite punishment? Think about it. Hitler was obviously a horrible person and his actions led to millions of deaths, but sending Hitler to hell would condemning him to the most painful experience imaginable (according to some theists) for trillions upon trillions of years.
And then throw in that at one time or another, various religions have stated that you deserve this punishment for everything from murder to premarital sex, from worshiping the wrong god to saying the 'name' of god, from having homosexual sex to simple gluttony. In my opinion, anyone that believes in a god that would punish someone in any way for all eternity believes in a god that is a sociopathic asshole.
Reading books on "logical-thinking" is completely relative, therefore it is irrelevant. It's the same as the common-sense or common-knowledge arguments...it's all relative to the one believing. Philosophy 101 brother :)
And even if you do believe in God, what are the chances you've chosen the right one to believe in?
That isn't actually a very strong argument against taking a position. Suppose I put twenty boxes in front of you and told you that one of them contained a good cheque for $1,000,000 and the others contained nothing. You can open any one, and keep the contents. What are the changes of picking the right one? Not great. What reason is there for choosing one box over another? Not much: maybe hunch, maybe try to interpret my facial expressions. One thing is sure, though: any strategy that involves opening a box is better than the strategy of not opening any of them because you can't decide.
Anyway, people at stages 5 and 6 of Fowler's model of faith development don't really make a choice between different faith traditions (so your argument about inheriting the religion of their parents doesn't apply to them, although they may inherit some ways of expressing that faith). In terms of the box game, these people recognise the nature of the game, don't put any faith in their ability to choose well, but simply enjoy the act of opening the box that they do.
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Himself. He's a recursive God. He created time, traveled back in time, and then created himself. So there! No need for stinkin' turtles.
Table-ized A.I.
Occam only meant that we can't invoke a more complicated explanation than necessary within science.
And even then the application is usually subjective, as what one person considers more complex another considers simpler. I have (tongue-in-cheek) upset people arguing for a form of scientism by invoking Occam's razor to "prove" solipsism ("Zero objective realities is simpler than one objective reality"). Occam's razor is a methodological tool; it is not any sort of guide to what is or is not "true" (although some seem to have what looks to me like a religious belief that it is).
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No, it's virtual machines all the way...
:).
Seriously, that's why trying to prove certain things may not be possible. Saying they are likely to be XYZ based on certain evidence is wiser, but insisting that you are even close to 100% sure is being silly. If it turns out we really are in something similar to a universe simulator/virtual machine there's no guarantee we can prove anything about stuff outside.
For example, say I create a universe simulator, set up a universe, make copies and mess about with some copies. Pause one, edit and restart it.
How old would that universe be? From the "inside" it might be billions of years or more. From outside it might have just started a moment ago.
From inside that universe, based on the rules, there could be no evidence or need for a creator. From the outside there could be one or many creators involved in designing it, etc. Or the concept of "one" vs "many" doesn't really translate that well.
Yes it could turn out that isn't a creator at all, and it just so happens it's like that. But it could even turn out to be stranger - because the rules outside aren't necessarily the same as the rules inside, heck thinking they must be takes an immense leap of faith in my opinion.
Looking at the evidence, I think the universe isn't quite so simple as many think (even the very smart ones). As such, I personally believe there is a God and he has a strange sense of humour. I may be wrong, but how can a intelligent, rational and knowledgeable mere human being can be so sure he/she is right about the universe?
It's certainly not a simple 3 body newtonian universe we're in. And thank God the graphics are better than Civ2
Who created this law of things can only exist if it first have to go through the process of creation then?
Creation, in this context, doesn't have to involve design in any way, or any kind of "process" for that matter. Also, time-line is irrelevant -- one can even speak of time's creation. What we're basically discussing here is causality. So the gist of the matter is:
"Does existence need a cause?"
Let's assume that there was a big bang. My existence can be causally traced back to it. So, there is no "my existence", individually standing; it is a composite "situation", which is a result of the state of affairs at the bang. But can we speak of any existence which is not a result?
If the question was, "Is there a word that has a meaning by itself?", the answer would be almost obviously be "no".
So, "What caused the big bang?", IMO, is a very legitimate question. There cannot be a first cause -- otherwise the word "causality" would lose its meaning.
But it's not the dramatic reality about all this. What we are really admitting, I think, is that, existence itself is a composition of relations between objects (causality in action). I.e. "Existence is structure".
One thinks then, that reality is composed of objects (matter/energy) and relations (laws). However, our history of knowledge shows that, when you investigate "matter", using the techniques of the time, you always discover that it's "made up" of finer stuff. This stuff, can in turn be structures that are made up of even finer stuff. If not so, that means that it has nothing about it that is not in its set of relations (its properties).
So it's almost inevitable to arrive to the conclusion that what we call matter is a structure, composed of relations of things. Things which are nothing but their relations. At this point, I guess, we can't get rid if the "thing" linguistically, since we need it to define the relations.
In conclusion, it seems that there's nothing other than the laws of nature, that makes up the universe. In this context, causality is enforced by consistency and doesn't have to have a more specialized meaning.
Do we make any progress with this line of reasoning? You can still ask where the laws of nature come from? My metaphysical view tends to have an economical bias, not about the quantity of existence, but quantity of metaphysics involved. :-) So, I just accept that every possible world (any combination of laws) exists.
Interesting philosophy. I didn't know plants experienced happiness or sadness.
Probably that's why he put happiness in quotes. It's shorthand for a much longer explanation.
Plants seek out things that help them live/prosper. They turn towards light, etc. This doesn't require conscience thought or a brain on their part; they've just evolved in a way such that this is true.
If you disagree, forming a counterargument is more useful than nitpicking the word choice.
Gravity never says "let there be light". Gravity says "let there be heavy".
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
If you think that because some religious people have stupid reasons for being religious they must all have stupid reasons for being religious then perhaps you should spend a few minutes with a critical thinking primer too.
Out of curiosity, do you have or know of a good reason for being religious? You've cited one argument that you find interesting but lacking, which is closer than most people get to having a discussion better than "because my parents and my holy book says so" and I'd actually like to get to some good arguments. I don't really go out of my way looking for them, but I also never get any feedback from genuinely religious folks that's anything but pure faith and irrationality.
For the reference, my stance is based almost entirely on "lack of compelling evidence". I'm not militant about it, I just don't see the point in thinking I know something when I don't have a reason to think I know it.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
I was raised in a non-religious household. [..] So it's quite common for people to believe in Christianity through being convinced of its claims, not only because of an accident of upbringing.
I bet you were raised in a nation with a large Christian following, though. Just how many people will become Christian growing up in a Muslim country? How many Christians were there in every other culture before Christianity arose? Every culture, when separated from others, came up with their own religions. Does it sound like God really wanted one true message to be heard, and that it is Christianity? Or perhaps people were just making shit up.
Well then why can't something else be outside time and have the same results?
Or would you also call that god?
Or does being outside time somehow necessitate agency and if so why?
nor can we ignore the possibility it may be the truth, can we now?
Yes we can. Since it doesn't affect us in the least, we can ignore that possibility quite safely. Just like you can ignore the possibility that god is the most delicious jelly doughnut in the world and crafted all of this around him just to appreciate his greatness. Possible, but improbable, and not worth worrying about.
Do you not need people in order to believe in God?
"they choose to do the "right" thing because it is right, not because someone else said it was right and threatened them with torture if they disobeyed."
I call it individualized social-humanistic morality [link], where "right" is self-determined based on the awareness of the potential of human society.
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
Science still can't explain from where soul is coming from and what happens with it after death.
You are making a big assumption here. You are assuming that there is such a thing as a "soul" and you are assuming that science can't comprehend it. So far, even if there are still a lot of things to learn about the brain, science got a pretty good grasp on the electro-chemical processes happening in our brain and many other animals' brain too.
I am discussing the truth value of the proposition put forth by the original poster: that "atheists stake their eternal future on the presumption that God does not exist" and (not said but implied by the poster) god-believers somehow do not. I presented an argument showing that the proposition is false. My argument is not affected in any way by personal beliefs (either yours, mine, or anyone else's) or the intricacies of particular religions, which is all your last post refers to. Your remarks, though relevant and even interesting in other contexts, do not have a bearing on anything I said previously.
You seem to be too focused on your own personal beliefs to analyze this matter from an unbiased, rational point of view. I'm not inviting you to give up on your beliefs; however, in order to have a rational conversation, you must at the very least be able to abstract from them (which does not mean ceasing to believe in them). Otherwise, you will soon find you cannot have any meaningful conversation with people with different beliefs than yours (and then you probably wonder why they do not seem to respect your own).
Score: i, Imaginary
But if you believe in those religions, are you REALLY having faith in God himself...or are you putting your faith in those people who are telling you what God wants?
Ultimately everybody -- religious, agnostic, atheist -- is putting faith in themselves making the right call. I don't see any way around that.
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I'm curious how you would describe the reasons for even having a personal code?
Just like religious people, atheists have various reasons. But I think what it boils down to is that - with the exception of sociopaths - people generally have a sense of empathy and so doing terrible things to other people makes it hard to sleep at night, even with prescription drugs.
I've even seen an economic argument against things like murder. The fact is that religions tend to codify rules that existed before that particular religion itself did.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The ontological proof is the weakest one of the six common proofs.
Pretty much all of these boil down to "I really, really, really, want there to be a god".
And the rebuttals:
Anarchists never rule
One of the funniest and scariest things said to me: "You're an atheist? How do you know right from wrong if you don't believe in God? If I wasn't Christian, there'd be nothing stopping me from going on a killing spree."
You don't often see a person of (blind) faith have a crisis of conscience.
Is that supposed to be a good thing? I have no crisis of conscience about giving the same civil rights to homosexuals as to straights, whereas the pope also has no crisis of conscience in this area but he reaches a different conclusion. One of us is wrong.
There's probably a lot more "soul searching" and crises of conscience in churches now, because people are questioning their blind faith. When moral codes and social rules are explained from first principles, they make for fewer crises of conscience than if you are told what to do with no more explanation than "God says so".
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Moral atheists get the morals form the same place as modern Christians: modern secular humanism principals which boil down to "do not directly harm other people". The bible is full of evil stuff: kill your kids if they back talk, its ok to kill people who don't observe the sabbath, etc... The old testament is down right vile in places. Christians have generally rejected the "bad" parts of the bible and embraced the good parts: love your neighbor as yourself, turn the other cheek, etc... And the good Christians chose what is good the same way the atheists did.
Anarchists never rule
Here's an even better one, courtesy of David Michell
I may be modded off-topic for this, but I am genuinely curious as to your explanations for why an afterlife doesn't (or shouldn't?) exist, as well as how you qualify actions as purely deterministic. Not saying I agree or disagree (yet); I'm just very curious as to how you reached those conclusions.
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
But that's passing the buck from the logical argument to the logical system. It still leaves open the question as to whether or not the logical system applies to reality, in which case it is still up to observation to determine whether or not the premises (or conclusions) are true.
Not quite, because the difference between the modal logics is necessarily metaphysical and can't be decided by observation. The differences relate to what can be and what must be, whereas observation only tells us what is.
As for the "meaningless statement" issue with regard to omnipotence, if we take the classic one, "Can God make a rock so heavy he can't lift it?" this is far from a meaningless statement, because I can make a rock so heavy I can't lift it (granted, I can't create it from scratch, but I can form it from existing rocks). The statement only becomes ridiculous when you apply the attribute of omnipotence to the god.
It's not that it becomes ridiculous, it's that it becomes contradictory (and therefore meaningless) when applied to an omnipotent being. "A rock that an omnipotent being cannot lift" is already self-contradictory and so meaningless. Tagging "Can God create" in front of it doesn't give it meaning. It's a category error to think it says anything about the possible omnipotence of God.
Anyway, even if you don't accept the argument from evil, you still can't demonstrate that a god is actually possible, because to do that you'd have to show how such a god is consistent with the fundamental rules that underly reality, which we don't know. So the assumption that such a god is possible at all is still an unfounded assumption.
Yes -- but no more so than the assumption that such a god is not possible.
There's a final problem with this sort of logical argument that makes the whole thing just plain stupid instead of subtle: the whole thing boils down to, "The most amazing thing I can imagine must exist, therefore god exists." And no, that's patently absurd, because there is absolutely no guarantee that just because we can imagine it, it must be possible. This sort of logical argument, in other words, boils down to a play on words to disguise just how ridiculous it is.
But that isn't what the ontological argument does. The ontological argument refers to the "greatest" thing, and carefully defines "greatest" in such a a way that anything that exists is by definition greater than anything that doesn't. There's a problem with the notion of "greatest" beyond that point, though, which I think is one problem with the ontological argument (is a hearty meal greater than a comfortable bed?) If you can resolve that issue then the ontological argument most certainly leads to something that exists (if anything at all exists) and defines that thing as "God", although (and here's the second problem I have with most proofs of the existence of God) it's not clear that the thing is anything like what anybody actually thinks of as God. In that sense I agree that it's a play on words. It proves the existence of God by redefining "God" to be something it can prove the existence of.
ZARNIWOOP: But don't you see that people live or die on your word? .
MAN: It's nothing to do with me, I am not involved with people. The Lord knows I am not a cruel man.
ZARNIWOOP: Ah! You say . . . the Lord! You believe in . .
MAN: My cat. I call him the Lord. I am kind to him.
ZARNIWOOP: All right. How do you know he exists? How do you know he knows you to be kind, or enjoys what you think of as your kindness?
MAN: I don't. I have no idea. It merely pleases me to behave in a certain way to what appears to be a cat. What else do you do? Please I am tired.
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The fifth elephant wound up as treacle and mineral ores in Uberwald after falling off Great A'Tuin several millennia ago.
Actually, the elephant mostly wound up as fat strata, with mineral inclusions (former bones and nerves) [Headknock, Year of the Suspicious Moth]. Geologically speaking, the treacle deposits weren't part of the elephant at all; huge areas of Uberwald were at the time a marsh, where a wild ancestor of modern sugar cane grew [Hammersmith, Year of the Dizzy Anteater]. Demonochemical analysis [Ming Po-lu, Year of the Acrobatic Mussel] has shown that treacle is the end result of the slow baking process (or melbaization) of the cane biomass.
The force of the elephant's fall caused some of the muddy/sugary mixture to splash away. The splashes created the shallow treacle deposits that propelled economic development in previous centuries. Some splashes landed as far as Klatch (creating the sugary sands of Snikerstan, and the treacle glass drops known as nosebreakers) or even in the low seas bordering hubward areas of the Agathean continent (slowly dissolving treacle vents have created their own ecology, of which maybe the most interesting specimen is the Maraschino squid [Twoflower, Year of the Incontinent Water Buffalo]). The treacle mines of Ankh (now exhausted) were also created by such a minor splash.
In Uberwald most of the sugar cane was caught under the carcass of the elephant; as a result, Uberwaldian treacle deposits (whose size is estimated to be over 100 greater than all available treacle in the rest of the Discworld, [Lord Sweettooth the Lisper, Year of the Annoying Bullfrog, as revised by the Fifth Dentists' and Candymakers' Conference of Bonk, Year of the Emasculated Ant]) are deeply buried, and difficult to reach.
Being a moral atheist is a total win win, compared to being a mere Theist.
Version 1:
Dead Atheist: Oh!, um hi God..., didn't think you existed, oops!
Deity: No problem, it's not like I left any useful clues... Welcome to my heaven.
Dead Atheist: Nice... How come I qualify?
Deity: Because you were a moral and ethical being, because you lived by a code of ethics; you understood that love was the right thing to do even in a universe that you had good reason to believe was completely and utterly godless. You were moral because you chose to be, not because you "believed" in some silly magic book; or were too scared, or weak minded, to think for yourself.
You chose to do the right thing, even when you did not have to; you lived by a moral and honorable code, not by some mythical manifesto of terrorism and fear...
Dead Atheist: So what happens to all the myriad god followers, "believers", the Theists, martyrs, crusaders, suicide bombers, terrorists, etc?
Deity: Tricky one that! They are not really worth anything much, because they never thought for themselves ethically speaking... What do you suggest?
Anyway, no hurry, they can wait outside indefinitely while you decide what to do with them. Welcome to heaven!, go pick yourself out some virgins...
Etc...
Version 2:
Dead Atheist: Hello, Anyone There...! (nothing, nada, zip, zilch, silence, nope...)
Dead Atheist: Thought So! (vanishes in a sudden total existence failure)
So........
Looks like a Win Win to me!
There is no god; get over it already! Never exchange a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage.
Gravity attests to its existence by evidence of its effect, and we aren't quibbling about whether or not gravity is. But while it is well-known, do you have a good working definition of the force of gravity? Or are you merely restating its effects?
Nothing wrong with that, but do we have any scientific methods to actually 'see' the forces we are aware of? we can measure them, but to 'see' them? The four natural forces I am aware of, strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational, are actually only three apparently - the electroweak, electromagnetic, and gravitational. My knowledge of physics is constantly being revised as we identify and speculate on new, previously unknown things.
Sadly, God, the God of the Bible, already states that He cannot be seen by humans, His close presence is too much for us. So we won't be getting any physical evidence for you by His presence, though if He is in fact omnipotent, He could make Himself known to us directly. He doesn't seem to want to, and hasn't since Moses' time, and He hasn't given physical evidence of His existence since, well, now that you ask, since the last time someone was healed on Earth by miraculous means, and upon request. Which was probably a few minutes ago, most likely somewhere in Africa or South America, though that happens elsewhere.
Just a bit of research myself into 'proofs' of miraculous healings left me with the problem that even very credible reporters (Dr. Alexis Carrel, for instance) are most always ostracized and denigrated, and their previous accomplishments and reputation discarded. It's a neat trick, discredit the evidence by repudiating the reporter in spite of their previous reliability. Of course Carrel had other issues, but he did win a Nobel Prize. While you would think, as I did and still do, that miraculous healings would be big news, in fact they are universally challenged (as they should be) and dismissed without hesitation. Sadly, too many charlatans are out there faking healings. Since this is a matter of faith, it will be a point of contention between you and I. And this problem afflicts Science also.
But the Bible is not as old as the Bronze Age, as it is first based on the Torah, much of which is held to be written in Moses' time. The first five books refer to Creation, the first covenants, and establishment of Israel. Of old literature, early Greek or Mycenaean works are more or less contemporary to Moses.
I was taught that the Iliad and the Oddessy were both written by Homer. This has been in dispute for some time now. The dispute over authorship of the Bible is not even so simple, as it is also a dispute over authorship of the Torah. You'll have to argue with my Jewish friends over that one. They believe they have a history of their people in the Torah, and that's the end of it.
But this is all now faith. I'm stuck with no hard proofs to show you, I know. When we better understand gravity, we will have more to discuss.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
No. Scientists continue to use science to describe and understand the universe. The omnipotent being theory is just one of theories that they have examined and discarded as implausible.
And, therefor, there is no point in attempting to prove its existence. Yet believers continue to do so.
Wrong. Lack of faith in the existence of God does not imply faith in the nonexistence of God: it does not imply the presence of any faith at all.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Actually in modern physics, all forces are result of Gauge symmetry of the universe. For example, Electromagnetism comes from local O(1) Gauge symmetry, which is the symmetry that says not only are you free to multiply the field describing a particle by any complex number |z|=1, you are free to multiply by any complex function |f(x)|=1 of space time coordinate x and the field would describe the same thing.
The point is. Instead of thinking of the forces as ad hoc existence that some would say created by god, we now think of them as result of symmetry of the universe. Surely one can still argue god is responsible for the said symmetry, but that's just the same old historic moving-the-goal-post response from theists.
Lee Strobel (former atheist and crime beat journalist) has several great books that take a serious, rational look at whether the evidence stacks up for or against Christianity. I just recently finished The Case for Faith, and he looks at Hawking's arguments. He's got a good methodology: He takes the skeptic's view, and interviews top theologians, philosophers, and scientists. Here's just a few good pieces out of the chapter on miracles and science:
So, it seems to me that atheists are stuck trying to explain away "turtles all the way down" this time. In a nutshell: Thanks to Hawking, we can see gravity either in the old-school attraction-between-masses way, or in the curvature-of-spacetime way. Either way, gravity is built in to the universe. It does not compute that a part of the universe could be its own cause.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.