Quizzes & Puzzles4 mins ago
Stephen Hawking on God
39 Answers
I do apologise if this has already been covered in AB....
How many of you agree with Stephens conclusion that God could not exist?
How many of you agree with Stephens conclusion that God could not exist?
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tenrec- The whole universe and our whole life experience exists in your head with or without God.
Today, I walked around a local lake in sunshine between the trees and wildlife with a beautiful sky.....and I find it extremely difficult to accept that all of everything in and out of this Earth came to be -spontaneously.
I really expected Stephen to come up with something MORE profound than atheism !
If you had all the disassembled components of a clock or perhaps a computer lying around in favourable or unfavourable environmental conditions for say fifteen or twenty million years- Would you expect these to assemble themselves into working machines- even if they were organic? I find that difficult to believe.....
Today, I walked around a local lake in sunshine between the trees and wildlife with a beautiful sky.....and I find it extremely difficult to accept that all of everything in and out of this Earth came to be -spontaneously.
I really expected Stephen to come up with something MORE profound than atheism !
If you had all the disassembled components of a clock or perhaps a computer lying around in favourable or unfavourable environmental conditions for say fifteen or twenty million years- Would you expect these to assemble themselves into working machines- even if they were organic? I find that difficult to believe.....
@Matheous. But what you personally find incredible (argument from incredulity) does not logically make the notion of a designer entity any more likely (teleological argument, or argument from design).
Its not as if this concept - that of a designer is new.William Paley made argued this with his watchmaker analogy in the early 1800s.
Such arguments fail the test of logic and science.
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Its not as if this concept - that of a designer is new.William Paley made argued this with his watchmaker analogy in the early 1800s.
Such arguments fail the test of logic and science.
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@Bazile
Lawrence Krauss explains it far better than I do."nothing" certainly is not a kind of vast void, empty of particles or radiation, into which the universe came into being and expanded.Nothing is actually pretty complex.
Have a listen.
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Lawrence Krauss explains it far better than I do."nothing" certainly is not a kind of vast void, empty of particles or radiation, into which the universe came into being and expanded.Nothing is actually pretty complex.
Have a listen.
http
//If you had all the disassembled components of a clock or perhaps a computer lying around in favourable or unfavourable environmental conditions for say fifteen or twenty million years- Would you expect these to assemble themselves into working machines- even if they were organic? I find that difficult to believe.....//
This just demonstrates your PROFOUND misunderstanding of the evolution process. I would suggest you do some more reading.
This just demonstrates your PROFOUND misunderstanding of the evolution process. I would suggest you do some more reading.
LazyGun -Before I even check your links, I know my argument is feeble and stupid.....I should have given more thought before posting.
I am becoming more agnostic by the minute!
Thanks for the Huff post. - The quantum level is as fascinating and definitely weirder than the concept of God!
Maybe the Parallel Universe theory can give us some hope of an 'afterlife'? Or am I already there??....
I am becoming more agnostic by the minute!
Thanks for the Huff post. - The quantum level is as fascinating and definitely weirder than the concept of God!
Maybe the Parallel Universe theory can give us some hope of an 'afterlife'? Or am I already there??....
@Mattheous There have been several distinguished intellectuals who thought the argument from design a good one.
Fred Hoyle was one. Even had a logical fallacy named after him :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyle's_fallacy
He was not a big fan of the big bang theory either - or earth based abiogenesis either, come to that ;)
Fred Hoyle was one. Even had a logical fallacy named after him :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyle's_fallacy
He was not a big fan of the big bang theory either - or earth based abiogenesis either, come to that ;)
I think there is a logical fallacy in the argument that God is needed to create the Universe.
Bazile asks what happened "before" the Big bang and there are good answers to this but not ones that are easy to grasp.
We can pose the same question of the religious notions - "Who created God?" The normal answers are that he is eternal or some such - they don't give us any better answers - the point is that he was necessary to the medieval mind, in a way that He just isn't now we understand how complexity can arise from nothing.
When you think about it a bit more deeply you realise that at the heart of all these "What came first" questions is the notion of time itself.
This is probably *the* big question in science and one that we've only begun to grasp at.
We know that time only shows us a small part of it's nature in our daily lives. That it is bound to notions of space and is actually very flexible. It slows in large Gravitational forces and at high speeds.
Indeed the commonly recited "fact" that the Universe started 14 Billion years ago rather ignores this fact.
It is based on extrapolating the Universe back and measuring time by a notional clock the way we do today.
If you could exist in the Universe and roll back the clock and the Universe gets smaller and denser time "inside" the Universe would slow down.
It's highly likely that for an observer inside the Universe as the Universe gets smaller and smaller it never actually reaches the "big bang"
So the Universe can be both 16 Billion years old and eternal.
Yes this sounds like nonsense to the lay person but you cant understand the very first moments of creation using the intuition you've built up over a few decades in a tiny corner of the Universe using natural language.
Bazile asks what happened "before" the Big bang and there are good answers to this but not ones that are easy to grasp.
We can pose the same question of the religious notions - "Who created God?" The normal answers are that he is eternal or some such - they don't give us any better answers - the point is that he was necessary to the medieval mind, in a way that He just isn't now we understand how complexity can arise from nothing.
When you think about it a bit more deeply you realise that at the heart of all these "What came first" questions is the notion of time itself.
This is probably *the* big question in science and one that we've only begun to grasp at.
We know that time only shows us a small part of it's nature in our daily lives. That it is bound to notions of space and is actually very flexible. It slows in large Gravitational forces and at high speeds.
Indeed the commonly recited "fact" that the Universe started 14 Billion years ago rather ignores this fact.
It is based on extrapolating the Universe back and measuring time by a notional clock the way we do today.
If you could exist in the Universe and roll back the clock and the Universe gets smaller and denser time "inside" the Universe would slow down.
It's highly likely that for an observer inside the Universe as the Universe gets smaller and smaller it never actually reaches the "big bang"
So the Universe can be both 16 Billion years old and eternal.
Yes this sounds like nonsense to the lay person but you cant understand the very first moments of creation using the intuition you've built up over a few decades in a tiny corner of the Universe using natural language.
We don't currently have a good theory about what happens at singularities such as are fund at black holes. The numbers become infinite which is a way of saying that the theory fails.
There is a strong probability that time stops and perhaps those infinities reflect that condition.
A further problem is that we are attempting to use natural language to describe such a situation.
English (and all languages) employs verbs like "stops", verbs imply time passing - where time stops this breaks down.
I doubt time goes backwards - that would break the second law of thermodynamics.
For most physicists the second law of Thermodynamics is the last bastion of science- breakit and causality is violated, glasses would unbreak themselves etc.
But when you talk about "God" and Science the history has been that things like lightning once ascribed to Gods ae now explained by science.
Most of the unsolved questions now are deeply linked to the notion of time in this way.
----
One last thought though
What is the difference between a highly evolved almost infinitely powerful alien and God?
It seems to me that the difference is the concern for humanity and salvation/- eternal life/Heaven life after death generally.
Without the human soul being saved God is just a creator alien
Unfortunately I've seen too many stroke and dementia wards in the last couple of years.
For me to survive death the human soul must first survive life and sadly I've seen too much evidence that that does not happen
There is a strong probability that time stops and perhaps those infinities reflect that condition.
A further problem is that we are attempting to use natural language to describe such a situation.
English (and all languages) employs verbs like "stops", verbs imply time passing - where time stops this breaks down.
I doubt time goes backwards - that would break the second law of thermodynamics.
For most physicists the second law of Thermodynamics is the last bastion of science- breakit and causality is violated, glasses would unbreak themselves etc.
But when you talk about "God" and Science the history has been that things like lightning once ascribed to Gods ae now explained by science.
Most of the unsolved questions now are deeply linked to the notion of time in this way.
----
One last thought though
What is the difference between a highly evolved almost infinitely powerful alien and God?
It seems to me that the difference is the concern for humanity and salvation/- eternal life/Heaven life after death generally.
Without the human soul being saved God is just a creator alien
Unfortunately I've seen too many stroke and dementia wards in the last couple of years.
For me to survive death the human soul must first survive life and sadly I've seen too much evidence that that does not happen
As humans, we cannot sense things outside our sensory range. Take the visible spectrum as an example.....outside of what's 'visible' the known spectrum is vast and for all we know perhaps infinite. Who has seen, or sensed the human soul, which may or may not exist. Just as there might be other dimensional universes alongside, or inside the one we are aware of....
From the little knowledge I have about quantum physics, the possibility of the existence of a soul sounds pretty ordinary or even run-of-the-mill compared to quantum mechanics theories.
For these reasons, I remain agnostic and open-minded. Personal experience has also contributed to my thinking that pretty much all things are possible in and out of this amazing universe....
From the little knowledge I have about quantum physics, the possibility of the existence of a soul sounds pretty ordinary or even run-of-the-mill compared to quantum mechanics theories.
For these reasons, I remain agnostic and open-minded. Personal experience has also contributed to my thinking that pretty much all things are possible in and out of this amazing universe....
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