Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
psyah,
there is a saying where i come from - when you slip and fall, you pretend you are happy and roll around. that is what you are doing with semantics - ghaib, created, all words. the fact of the matter is, you have no proof but choose to believe. some decide not to. this does not make you a higher being in any way.
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
[QUOTE]
Yes as much as atheists/agnostics believe that those who believe in unforeseen and and unproven God are mentally imbalance/unstable.
[/QUOTE]
I can't speak for others, but as a person who vacillates between atheism and agnosticism, I don't consider theists to be mentally unstable. Just irrational for believing in something of which they have no proof. If you suggest that mere human existence and the Universe is proof enough, I would argue that we might as well be creation of some super advanced species of Aliens from an alternate Universe. Are these aliens gods ? These aliens themselves having been created by another superior being and so on and so forth. I know this argument sounds funny to theists but it is as likely as an omniscient omnipotent presence watching over and judging each of our actions.
Or it might all be an accident and coincidence. The point is we don't know !
Theism gives hope to people who feel insecure about the fact that how pathetically insignificant we are in an Universe which is so much beyond our comprehension.
[QUOTE]
I wonder what they say when they feel astonished (the times when we low life brainless say O my God) ...
[/QUOTE]
Oh I just say, Oh my Dog!! and my German Shepard comes running :)
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
psyah,
there is a saying where i come from - when you slip and fall, you pretend you are happy and roll around. that is what you are doing with semantics - ghaib, created, all words. the fact of the matter is, you have no proof but choose to believe. some decide not to. this does not make you a higher being in any way.
Peace queer
You should make such statements when you are sure that you can absolve yourself from them in the first place. "You have no proof, but choose to believe" is just as applicable to you as it is to me. At least I have personal proof - a level of conviction that is undeniable, you don't even have that.
To a person who does not understand the conviction in faith reduces the 'proof' to - makes you feel fuzzy. Furthermore by the very words you choose such as "I would put my money on ..." infers that you are in the dark making wagers, pot-shots, guesses - that you self-deceptively pass off as some sort of proof.
You did not address my response - Stephen Hawking says that the universe is made from nothing - he has said nothing special I too say that the universe was made from nothing. In his very language he cannot avoid the use of the term "create" - at least I can attribute that Creation to God.
Also atheistic scientists claim that their findings explain "why" things happen, but in reality they cannot provide the answer to this question - at the very best they can explain "how" things are happening and then they have to resort to self-created "reasons" as to why ... I am not a member of this folly - I take what is given to me by Who I believe to be God. His Words ... Only the initiator of something can tell you "why" something happens, or someone who He/she has told. Otherwise the reasons will always be guess work - Trusting that guess work is the blind faith that you blindly give to those people.
Because science continually modifies the purposes and also the methods based on newer disclosures Hawkings has concluded that essentially that "truth" is relative to the prevailing knowledge. This is not a new concept at all, it has been entertained by many philosophers of the past - to no avail. The basic tenets of his theory of the universe having multiple histories is the same as this concept. You could not find a person swimming more tightly in circles than such scientists.
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
No need to feel sorry for us. Atleast we don't live every day in guilt and sins like most theists do. yes many things are beyond human grasps and unfortunately, religion doesn't give us an answer either. your religous scriptures is not an encyclopedia. We have to use our brains to find the truth behind everything, not some fairy tales that were developed thousands of years ago.
What religion gives you is a way of life. Yes its not an encyclopedia, and its not meant to be... and is encyclopedia the glory to life... emmm, don't think so.
Yes you have to use your brain and try to find the truth behind everything, true. Who's brain are we talking about? Oh yeah, the one most highly devised piece of technology beyond technology, so sophisticated its beyond imaginable. Even you my friend are unaware if you are fully healthy or are host to some particulars germs in time right now. Its because you are incapable of knowing everything anyways... Period!
Don't believe in fairy tales... ok. But why not u have a look at the history, and see for yourself the emergence of Islam from the least imaginable part of the planet. If that won't convince you, nothing would.
But you really have to give it a go before you come out all bashing and understating every other statement. Believe me, right in those historical encounters, you'll find enough mind boggling fairy tales that science will never have an answer to.
Cheers :)
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
@Mirch I can't speak for others, but as a person who vacillates between atheism and agnosticism, I don't consider theists to be mentally unstable. Just irrational for believing in something of which they have no proof. If you suggest that mere human existence and the Universe is proof enough, I would argue that we might as well be creation of some super advanced species of Aliens from an alternate Universe. Are these aliens gods ? These aliens themselves having been created by another superior being and so on and so forth. I know this argument sounds funny to theists but it is as likely as an omniscient omnipotent presence watching over and judging each of our actions.
Or it might all be an accident and coincidence. The point is we don't know !
Theism gives hope to people who feel insecure about the fact that how pathetically insignificant we are in an Universe which is so much beyond our comprehension.
@TLK Oh I just say, Oh my Dog!! and my German Shepard comes running :)
Peace N3m3sis
I think from your words that I can reason with you better than some. Two discussions from what you have given above:
a) You believe theists are irrational - okay well how about the rationale in this argument? Does God Exist? Answer: I don't know. Hence, those who say He does not exist are just as irrational as those who say He does exist. It's a choice. How about this? Does God Exist? Answer: Yes. Response: Prove it, Answer: I can't ... I just know it.
What I mean is by saying that I know something to be true but yet I cannot demonstrate it so, does that mean I am being irrational? I don't think atheists can prove everything they believe in, nor can agnostics justify one stance from the other as being any better.
But let's assume for a moment that theists are irrational - Can you show me that truth and all things in the domain of irrational are exclusive from one another? I mean, what qualifier makes rational any more real than irrational?
What is the decimal of the square-root of 2? or Define PI as a decimal string.
b) The argument of being a creation of a super-advanced species of alien ... firstly is not a cogent argument, assuming we were made this way, then you would have to ask the question about who made them. Also, to even entertain this as a plausible explanation we need some sort of analogous proof that life can be created - we can't make life, let alone a whole complex race of beings that are self-aware. It is a far fetched proposition because there is nothing that we can see that is as advanced as us let alone more advanced to be able to make us. Assuming that life can indeed be made and coded in to matter.
We would have to conclude that the REAL God has to be unseen.
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
This asks for another debate!
N3m3sis atleast got a cat, he calls it a German shepard!
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
http://www.sciy.org/2010/05/21/first-synthetic-life-created/
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. - Albert Einstein :)
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
Everything has a cause what caused the big bang or the process of creation to say it just happened is not scientific or rational.
Even by mathematicians calculation the probability of creation happening by chance is 10 to the power of 158 this is deemed impossible especially when 10 to power of 50 is the limit of things happening by chance.
To proove creator exists or not you need to establish the proof of creator to say oh why god makes floods or why people die is wrong conclusion because you have not even answered question 1 in the first place.
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
Huh !! you believe some farishta or hanumanji brought it out of heavens and gifted it to Hawking ? It was designed by scientists not a gift from God.
Do most of the people here believe that atheists/agnostics are mentally imbalanced/unstable ?
Mr Smarts I said the same thing...............every thing we use today all contraptions were designed and put together by some smart person.....
But you and Mr HaWKINS ARE ARGUING THAT LIFE ON EARTH JUST HAPPENED BY ACCIDENT!
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
^There are "accidents" happening all over the universe all the time, but this one led to an evolutionary streak a substantial part of which can already be explained and what cannot be today might very well be explained in the future. If there was a greater design behind it, everything would have been perfect from the day it started but that is not the case. There are imperfections everywhere and we keep evolving and correcting them. Just as an example I would like to quote Dr. Michael Shermer on our imperfect eyes and their evolutionary process:
The anatomy of the human eye, in fact, shows anything but "intelligence" in its design. It is built upside down and backwards, requiring photons of light to travel through the cornea, lens, aquaeous fluid, blood vessels, ganglion cells, amacrine cells, horizontal cells, and bipolar cells before they reach the light sensitive rods and cones that transduce the light signal into neural impulses—which are then sent to the visual cortex at the back of the brain for processing into meaningful patterns. For optimal vision, why would an intelligent designer have built an eye upside down and backwards ?
It is because we evolved from sightless bacteria, now found to share our DNA, that we are so myopic. These are the same ill-designed optics, complete with deliberately "designed" retinal blind spot, through which earlier humans claimed to have "seen" miracles "with their own eyes." The
problem in those cases was located elsewhere in the cortex, but we must never forget Charles Darwin's injunction that even the most highly evolved of us will continue to carry
"the indelible stamp of their lowly origin."
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
^ you are joking with that statement you posted that "the eye is badly designed and we evolved from sightless bacteria" because i nearly fell off my chair laughing!
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
^ you are joking with that statement you posted that "the eye is badly designed and we evolved from sightless bacteria" because i nearly fell off my chair laughing!
:) Darwinism brings to mind
Blind leading the Blind!
In Darwin's mind
his ancestor Worm was crawling around one day
and happened to stumble upon a pair of eyes just laying around!
and there on one side or under the bush was a Brain that fit together with the pair of eyes!
Wa Laa the Worm become a seeing eye Worm!
and rest as they say is Darwins Lineage!
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
Who ever said that Science is the opposite of Religion/belief was very, very stupid.
Believes give us the answers that not based on sound reasoning but satisfy most people spiritually. Science looks for those hard core facts to figure out the answers.
Believes emerge from the known unknown. Science has been trying to make sense of the unknown.
Belief, often times, carries in itself the wisdom of the ages. Science tries to find that.
They are both serving very similar purposes. They are both feeding our curiosity to KNOW. They will continue to both agree and disagree with each other, simultaneously.
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
^ In fact I very strongly believe that religion and science are just not compatible with each other. Faith by very definition demands to accept without questioning, there can be no reasoning, we know because we are told and so we should believe, period. Science is a total antithesis of this, it thrives on questioning, on proof. It demands us to ask more and more, to know more and more. And as we are expanding our knowledge about this truly awe inspiring Universe around us, the more inconsistent it is becoming with the belief systems that most people believe in.
In fact this very quote by Hawking can be referenced in some way to the great French scientist, Pierre-Simon Laplace. He went to visit Napoleon to accept a copy of his work based on workings of the universe and Napoleon asked him why was there no mention of God in his book and where does God fit in the Universe and Laplace replied "Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis." :)
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
^ In fact I very strongly believe that religion and science are just not compatible with each other. Faith by very definition demands to accept without questioning, there can be no reasoning, we know because we are told and so we should believe, period. Science is a total antithesis of this, it thrives on questioning, on proof. It demands us to ask more and more, to know more and more. And as we are expanding our knowledge about this truly awe inspiring Universe around us, the more inconsistent it is becoming with the belief systems that most people believe in.
In fact this very quote by Hawking can be referenced in some way to the great French scientist, Pierre-Simon Laplace. He went to visit Napoleon to accept a copy of his work based on workings of the universe and Napoleon asked him why was there no mention of God in his book and where does God fit in the Universe and Laplace replied "Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis." :)
I cannot speak of other beliefs/religion but in islam we are not allowed to have blind faith, any muslim who has just blind faith because of parents needs to investigate about proof of creation, universe and life blind faith is just ignorance.
Islam is totally in tune with science and discoveries and as can be seen by its rich history of scientific achivements and innovations.
"science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." (Albert Einstein, 1941)
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
either that, or one could be of blind faith, and pooh-pooh those who need proof before they believe. i'd put my money on the guy swimming in circles trying to find a glimpse of a door, than on someone who believes there are doors of gold leading to lands of milk and honey because it makes him feel warm and fuzzy inside, but can offer no real proof of the existence of any of it.
Why put money on either? Why is there even a need for that? What makes the guy swimming in circles better anyhow? Btw he isn't trying to find the door...Most of these atheists' mission in life is to disprove god, deny the existence of a creator, to find mathematical "evidence" to back up their claims, NOT to search for the existence of god, or in this example "the door".
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
"science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." (Albert Einstein, 1941)
Since you seem to take Einstein very seriously, let me quote you a few genuine Einstein quotes with references:
The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.
Albert Einstein, Gutkind Letter (3 January 1954), "Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear", The Guardian, 13 May 2008.
It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. ... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Einstein, Albert. "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930, pp. 1–4.
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
Albert Einstein, quoted in Dukas, Helen (ed.) and Banesh Hoffman (ed.) (1981). Albert Einstein: The Human Side. Princeton University Press.
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
Since you seem to take Einstein very seriously, let me quote you a few genuine Einstein quotes with references:
i used one quote and my intention was not to divert onto a quotes competition because we be here all day quoting various scientists and individuals pro creation and anti creation.
The debate is about proof of creator you say no creator and everything happened by 10 to the power of 158 chance which in science is impossible.
and you also mocked the design of the eye as flawed and badly designed something which is laughable since you would not be able to read my reply if was not for you flawed and badly designed eyes!
Also the this debate started with stephen hawking who contradicts his earlier views that there is a greater power now he allegedly say no need for a god. So if this guy change his opinions regulalry why should we take his latest views as the truth tomorrow if he say ok i believe in god is that legitimate too?
Re: Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
^ In fact I very strongly believe that religion and science are just not compatible with each other. Faith by very definition demands to accept without questioning, there can be no reasoning, we know because we are told and so we should believe, period. Science is a total antithesis of this, it thrives on questioning, on proof. It demands us to ask more and more, to know more and more. And as we are expanding our knowledge about this truly awe inspiring Universe around us, the more inconsistent it is becoming with the belief systems that most people believe in.
In fact this very quote by Hawking can be referenced in some way to the great French scientist, Pierre-Simon Laplace. He went to visit Napoleon to accept a copy of his work based on workings of the universe and Napoleon asked him why was there no mention of God in his book and where does God fit in the Universe and Laplace replied "Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis." :)
The methods are entirely different. Obviously. Otherwise this debate wouldn't exist. Faith is usually free of questioning, however they serve the same purpose. They both attempt to satisfy our curiosity about the Multi-verse. Some people are happy with a faith's outlook on some of those issues, some aren't. Some don't need no "negation of hypothesis" (which is the way scientific research works) to believe what may be closer to the truth than something else.
I, personally, can not fathom the idea of not questioning (Note: I am "Curious" Lady :p). However, the point is, that the purpose of both faith and science are to try to understand what we don't. Science tries its best to carry within that purpose, a purpose to uncover those details with the most reliability and soundness that is rationally possible.