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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.'"
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.
Following your argument that God aka Gravity has always existed...
You could have just said "Hawking Picks Rational Thinking Over Superstition"
.
Trolling is a art,
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.
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...
I'm no physicist (far from it) but the reason you have trouble is that you're still thinking in 1800's physics lessons.
Gravity probably has a lot less to do with mass than you might think. Gravity is basically a "curvature" in space-time - a dent in a rubber sheet for an everyday analogy. It can be caused by the presence of mass, and it can affect mass because it makes the "shortest path" to something shorter (imagine denting a rubber sheet with two marbles close to each other - one will "roll down" the other's "gravity" slope).
Gravitational lensing is the most prominent evidence for this - we can actually see things that are hiding behind huge space objects (e.g. galaxies, stars close to us, etc.) because the huge object "bends" space around it, so the light gets distorted like it's been through a curved lense - to the light the travel was perfectly straight, but the space it was in "curved" as it went past the massive object. Thus, we are sometimes able to see parts of space that would technically be impossible to see otherwise - we are literally looking "around and behind" large galaxies / stars.
Then go back several billion years to a time when the universe was nanoseconds old, and its entire mass and energy (and, confusing as it is, space) was crushed into something smaller than the head of a pin. The laws of physics get really "weird" to our eyes at that point and lots of strange stuff happens. The single best source of information for us to explain what happens at that point is probably Prof. Hawking, a modern-day Einstein in this exact field. Given that there are probably a million and one errors in even my simple explanation, and he has a good reputation, I'd say he probably thinks he's correct and there are very, very few people in the world who can actually argue by having a complete understanding of the same facts but a different opinion.
When I have an empirical proof that god exists, I will believe.
Ironically, if you get empirical proof that God exists you will not be required to believe... Herein lies the problem.
I'm in the strange position of having reached the realization that essentially, unless I'm willing to devote about 20 years of my life studying the matter on my own I'm going to have to decide to accept it by faith and not by reason. Oh irony, you are so delicious.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
It's ninja turtles all the way down!
Actually, it's 4 elephants first, and then a single very large turtle.
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
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".
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?
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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
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.
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
Time and space are pretty much the same thing to a theoretical physicist, remember.
I finally figured that part out about 40 feet ago.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Reason would only take you so far anyway. Instead of answering "why" once or twice, science enables mankind to answer it to 5 or 6 levels of depth. That level of knowledge has given most of us life (multiplying the carrying capacity of the planet by orders of magnitude) and allowed us to live better and longer lives, too. But there are no ultimate explanations. Any chain of logic (or causality) must either extend forever and ever, or stop at something that just "is," and both options are nonsensical. (This is equally true whether or not any of the links in the chain are God).
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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."
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.