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Hawking says there are no gods

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Skeptic Ginger

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Stephen Hawking's Final Book Says There's 'No Possibility' of God in Our Universe
In Stephen Hawking's final book "Brief Answers to Big Questions," published Tuesday (Oct. 16) by Bantam Books, the professor begins a series of 10 intergalactic essays by addressing life's oldest and most religiously fraught question of all: Is there a God? [Big Bang to Civilization: 10 Amazing Origin Events]

Hawking's answer — compiled from decades of prior interviews, essays and speeches with the help of his family, colleagues and the Steven Hawking Estate — should come as no surprise to readers who have followed his work, er, religiously.

"I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science," Hawking, who died in March, wrote. "If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn't take long to ask: What role is there for God?"
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One of the disadvantages to being an atheist. Those who believe in an eternal afterlife can say "You're going to find out someday, bwahahahaha!!" If you don't believe in an afterlife, then Hawking has just stopped knowing anything. And no one gets to find out anything "later". Kind of sad, really, since I would love to see the disappointment on the faces of some of the self-righteous.
 
p0lka said:
1. Did stephen hawking say there's no possibility of god?
2. Who made stephen hawking the expert on god?
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1. Well yes:

"We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in," Hawking wrote. "For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in."
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2. How can one be an expert on nothing.
 
Everyone who thinks there is no God, take one step forward.

Hmm, Hawking didn’t take a step forward. God bless Him!
 
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The Big Dog said:
Everyone who thinks there is no God, take one step forward.

Hmm, Hawking didn’t take a step forward. God bless Him!
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Wow, harsh.

Hawking was an expert on the way the universe was put together. And his conclusion was that the universe and the laws of physics do not allow for the possibility of anything like a literal deity to exist. This is something that I have suspected for a long time - it's good to have some support for this conjecture from such a prestigious source.
 
It takes an expert to change a pipe or fix a computer. An expert is not required when the issue is not based on specialized knowledge that hardly anyone can master. Since God is not a pipe, anyone can give their reasoned opinion and it will be worth whatever their reasons are worth.

Hawking has resurrected Laplace: if my system explains what needs to be explained, why do I want a god? If I fix the pipe with my tools, why do I want the guardian angel? "I never found a guardian angel in my toolbox, sire".
 
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Again, Hawking was not an expert on god, he was an expert on the universe, which, if a god exists, the universe by definition must contain. His conclusion was that the universe has no space for a god. A god that exists must therefore be outside the universe and incapable of physically interacting with anything within the universe. Thus an god that exists is indistinguishable from one that doesn't exist. Why then propose its existence?
 
Myles said:
Nooo. He not only now knows nothing , he is not even aware that he now knows nothing.
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Speculation. You don't know that he isn't merged with the Pleroma or riding a centaur in the Elysian Fields right now. Perhaps he reincarnated and is even now in the womb, eagerly awaiting his future career as Space Spice in the K-pop revivial Neo Spice Girls group! But will her pop stardom survive a scandalous reveal of a chaste handholding relationship with T!gUR of the future boyband BigC4Tz? We'll find out in just 24 years!
 
In one of his previous books Hawking said, "I don't know if god exists, but if he does, he retired at the moment of the Big Bang."
 
Myles said:
Nooo. He not only now knows nothing, he is not even aware that he now knows nothing.
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But at least he used to be aware that he would now know nothing.

The Big Dog said:
Everyone who thinks there is no God, take one step forward.

Hmm, Hawking didn’t take a step forward. God bless Him!
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The cheapest trick in the book, and it suits TBD fine. I suppose the next one will be that Hawking conversed to Catholicism and received last rites on his deathbed.


Everyone who thinks there is a god, take one step forward.

Hmm, not one single dead pope took a step forward. Nothing to bless or condemn, apparently ...


By the way, does the capitalization of Him mean that Hawking has now been promoted to God in TBD's religion?! Or does the God of Catholics have nothing better to do than to bless Himself???!!
 
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dann said:
Hmm, not one single dead pope took a step forward. Nothing to bless or condemn, apparently ...


By the way, does the capitalization of Him mean that Hawking has now been promoted to God in TBD's religion?! Or does the God of Catholics have nothing better to do than to bless Himself???!!
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Oh no, you misunderstand! I was not suggesting that after he was dead, i was suggesting that happened while he was alive!

Everyone who does not believe there is a god, take one step forward.
actual then living hawking: doesn't move.

And there you have it.
 
Einstein wasn't an expert on god either but that didn't stop people from misrepresenting his views later. Hawking probably didn't want to leave any doubt.
 
The Big Dog said:
Oh no, you misunderstand! I was not suggesting that after he was dead, i was suggesting that happened while he was alive!

Everyone who does not believe there is a god, take one step forward.
actual then living hawking: doesn't move.

And there you have it.
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Is this TBD attempting to make a joke? That the deceased Hawking, when still alive, was an ALS patient for most of his life and thus unable to "take one step forward"?
Is TBD unaware of the fact that Hawking nevertheless was able to "move" since his wheelchair enabled him to do so?
And is TBD so bothered by the fact that Hawking actually 'stepped forward' and declared that there is no god that denial of this fact is the only way for TBD to cope with it?
 
The Big Dog said:
Oh no, you misunderstand! I was not suggesting that after he was dead, i was suggesting that happened while he was alive!

Everyone who does not believe there is a god, take one step forward.
actual then living hawking: doesn't move.

And there you have it.
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So the all-loving ever-merciful God smited him with ALS and the goodly, godly TBD thinks it is funny, eh?

Of course, clever humans managed to make better and better wheelchairs, speech technology and medical equipment.

But you prefer God, do you?
 
The Big Dog said:
Oh no, you misunderstand! I was not suggesting that after he was dead, i was suggesting that happened while he was alive!

Everyone who does not believe there is a god, take one step forward.
actual then living hawking: doesn't move.

And there you have it.
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Lol mockery of the disabled just like Jesus would do eh? Do you laugh at Cristians with ALS and other dibilitting conditions? What about Christian amputees?
 
Hungry81 said:
Lol mockery of the disabled just like Jesus would do eh? Do you laugh at Cristians with ALS and other dibilitting conditions? What about Christian amputees?
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You know who would have found that joke funny?

Stephen Hawking. I mean not laugh out loud funny or slap his knee, but...
 
David Mo said:
It takes an expert to change a pipe or fix a computer. An expert is not required when the issue is not based on specialized knowledge that hardly anyone can master. Since God is not a pipe, anyone can give their reasoned opinion and it will be worth whatever their reasons are worth.

Hawking has resurrected Laplace: if my system explains what needs to be explained, why do I want a god? If I fix the pipe with my tools, why do I want the guardian angel? "I never found a guardian angel in my toolbox, sire".
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This is the point.

I come to the conclusion via a different route. God beliefs are explicable (human generated myths). And after you explain god beliefs, there is no evidence left that needs an explanation.
 
The Big Dog said:
You know who would have found that joke funny?

Stephen Hawking. I mean not laugh out loud funny or slap his knee, but...
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The Big Dog is playing to provoke, as is usual in him because he's got nothing to say. Only this time the provocation is quite disgusting. Even his father confessor would be disgusted with it. Laughing at a disabled is not Christian and in addition the joke wasn't funny. Double penance.
There's no point in following him down this path.
 
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Thor 2 said:
Stephen Hawking said:
"We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in," Hawking wrote. "For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in."
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Hawking had a (perfectly good) model of the big bang in which there is no time before the big bang. His model shows us that such a cosmology is possible and consistent with what we know. But that doesn't mean that other cosmologies that are also consistent with what we know aren't possible.

For instance, here's a quote from Sean Carroll:
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2017/01/25/what-happened-at-the-big-bang/
So what I did to fill my time was two things. First, I talked about different ways the universe could have existed before the Big Bang, classifying models into four possibilities (see Slide 7):

1.Bouncing (the universe collapses to a Big Crunch, then re-expands with a Big Bang)
2. Cyclic (a series of bounces and crunches, extending forever)
3. Hibernating (a universe that sits quiescently for a long time, before the Bang begins)
4. Reproducing (a background empty universe that spits off babies, each of which begins with a Bang)

I don’t claim this is a logically exhaustive set of possibilities, but most semi-popular models I know fit into one of the above categories. Given my own way of thinking about the problem, I emphasized that any decent cosmological model should try to explain why the early universe had a low entropy, and suggested that the Reproducing models did the best job.
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angrysoba said:
So the all-loving ever-merciful God smited him with ALS and the goodly, godly TBD thinks it is funny, eh?

Of course, clever humans managed to make better and better wheelchairs, speech technology and medical equipment.

But you prefer God, do you?
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Have to thank God that Hawking wasn't born in the UK where a death panel would have ordered his death!
 
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Hungry81 said:
Lol mockery of the disabled just like Jesus would do eh? Do you laugh at Cristians with ALS and other dibilitting conditions? What about Christian amputees?
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Don't forget God had already rejected Hawking

Leviticus 21

16*The LORD said to Moses, 17 “Say to Aaron: ‘For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. 18*No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; 19 no man with a crippled foot or hand, 20 or who is hunchbacked or dwarfed, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. 21 No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the offerings made to the LORD by fire. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God.*22 He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; 23 yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the LORD, who makes them holy.

Also was thinking, Hawking could be the first to speak to us from death, rig up his speech synthesiser to a Ouija board!
 
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Roboramma said:
Hawking had a (perfectly good) model of the big bang in which there is no time before the big bang. His model shows us that such a cosmology is possible and consistent with what we know. But that doesn't mean that other cosmologies that are also consistent with what we know aren't possible.

For instance, here's a quote from Sean Carroll:
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2017/01/25/what-happened-at-the-big-bang/
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Hibernating fails as there was no time in which to be dormant. (Only if current understanding is correct of course)
 
Darat said:
Hibernating fails as there was no time in which to be dormant. (Only if current understanding is correct of course)
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The point of my post was that we don't know if there was a time before the big bang or not. Carroll has published papers on models which include a time before the big bang. They are consistent with modern cosmology.

Hawking's model is also consistent with modern cosmology, but it's not the only possibility.

The truth is that we just don't know at this point.
 
The Big Dog said:
Everyone who thinks there is no God, take one step forward.

Hmm, Hawking didn’t take a step forward. God bless Him!
Click to expand...

What would Jesus say to this? I doubt this sort of behavior was what he had in mind when he had an afternoon of gay BDSM sex with some Romans so he could forgive sins.
 
David Mo said:
The Big Dog is playing to provoke, as is usual in him because he's got nothing to say. Only this time the provocation is quite disgusting. Even his father confessor would be disgusted with it. Laughing at a disabled is not Christian and in addition the joke wasn't funny. Double penance.
There's no point in following him down this path.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly.
I wonder why anyone would be so desperate for attention that they would stoop to this. That someone would deliberately attempt to make people disgusted with them is simply baffling to me.
 
p0lka said:
1. Did stephen hawking say there's no possibility of god?
2. Who made stephen hawking the expert on god?
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Lack of any evidence for a god despite thousands of years of looking for one?
 
Cosmic Yak said:
My thoughts exactly.
I wonder why anyone would be so desperate for attention that they would stoop to this. That someone would deliberately attempt to make people disgusted with them is simply baffling to me.
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I find the ignore button works wonders to filter out the noise.
 
Hawking: there is no god.
God: there is no more Hawking

I wonder if Hawking was a member here. Of course, Hawking treasured his anonymity, frequently wearing sunglasses and a wig. Unfortunately, the wheelchair gave him away.

In purgatory, they probably wired up his box to Rodney Dangerfield’s voice: what’s a guy gotta do to get a Nobel prize around here, I tell you, no respect, no respect at all....
 
I'm sure to some, this thread is meant to be some kind of Confirmation Bias for those who abide to Arguments from Authority, which sadly, is a logical fallacy that doesn't exclude Atheists. Surely Hawking knew the science better than any of us to reach a pretty good conjecture, but technically speaking, it is still a conjecture, not a definite assertion based on evidence. My position remains the same: The problem with the "God" argument is that the word itself can mean an infinite number of things. This is not in defense of theists, for in fact, I sustain the theory that even if we were to discover a "God", it would be so radically different from anything that any human being could even begin to imagine, that all religions would reject this "God" because it doesn't look anything at all like what they imagined in their Disneyland idealistic vision, to look like a God. What humans define as "God" is basically a projection of their own individual desires and fears. It's a God that humans created, not the other way around. If the question of "whether there is such thing as a God" were to be pursued with seriousness and intellectual honesty, it would be a scientific pursuit devoid of any emotional and personal biases. But it is not. This "debate" is basically a group of people with an emotional hunch about "something they define as God" being answered by another group of people who do not share does emotional desires for there to be one.

In short: God is dead. Hail Satan.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
My thoughts exactly.
I wonder why anyone would be so desperate for attention that they would stoop to this. That someone would deliberately attempt to make people disgusted with them is simply baffling to me.
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The point is to get a reaction. Period. That is it. To "make liberals upset" I think someone said somewhere.
 
God invoked the Big Bang, then stopped for lunch. In God's time, that was only about ten minutes ago in our time.
 
Your fallacy is:

Appeal to False Authority

(also known as: appeal to unqualified authority, argument from false authority)

Description: Using an alleged authority as evidence in your argument when the authority is not really an authority on the facts relevant to the argument. As the audience, allowing an irrelevant authority to add credibility to the claim being made. Also see the appeal to authority.

/I did find it amusing that so many anti-theists who spit furious venom at religious believers are swooning that someone would dare to make the same type of jokes that Hawking made about himself.
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
In short: God is dead. Hail Satan.
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Ron don't forget the baby for us to eat at the next Evil Atheist Membership Dinner. You forget last time and we had to send Dawkins out to get one and you know fresh baby is never as good as one that's been marinating for several hours.
 
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