matt770 Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 He is answering the question but it's a different question to the usual "why are we here?", which is typically a spiritual question and seeks a higher calling or raison d'etre. The way Hawking has interpreted it is much more practical - we are here simply because we survived the Darwinian gantlet........so far. I do agree it's fairly offputting to answer the question this way, at least how it appears on paper. Yet it's the most perfect and elegant way to answer it, because it is stripped of all the moralizing and religious/political BS that humans place on such questions. It can be freeing to just accept that life may be a happy accident, that we are here for just a short time on this earth, and something may or may not come next, and that doesn't have to be a bleak or meaningless outlook if I strive to make that short time as meaningful as possible FOR ME. What I find meaningful may not be so for my neighbor, but I don't need to shove my beliefs down his throat. A lot of our strife can be boiled down to people refusing to adopt that simple attitude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Next Generation Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 Yet it's the most perfect and elegant way to answer it, because it is stripped of all the moralizing and religious/political BS that humans place on such questions. It can be freeing to just accept that life may be a happy accident, that we are here for just a short time on this earth, and something may or may not come next, and that doesn't have to be a bleak or meaningless outlook if I strive to make that short time as meaningful as possible FOR ME. What I find meaningful may not be so for my neighbor, but I don't need to shove my beliefs down his throat. A lot of our strife can be boiled down to people refusing to adopt that simple attitude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azazello1313 Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 (edited) Yet it's the most perfect and elegant way to answer it, because it is stripped of all the moralizing and religious/political BS that humans place on such questions. It can be freeing to just accept that life may be a happy accident, that we are here for just a short time on this earth, and something may or may not come next, and that doesn't have to be a bleak or meaningless outlook if I strive to make that short time as meaningful as possible FOR ME. What I find meaningful may not be so for my neighbor, but I don't need to shove my beliefs down his throat. A lot of our strife can be boiled down to people refusing to adopt that simple attitude. well, you know, a lot of strife can ensue when person A decides that what is meaningful FOR HIM comes at the expense of person B. that strife is the natural condition of the world, and it is why human beings invented "morality" in the first place. the idea of divine judgment, whatever else you may think of it, is more likely to act as a brake on that kind of behavior than an accelerant. Edited May 16, 2011 by Azazello1313 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursa Majoris Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 Yet it's the most perfect and elegant way to answer it, because it is stripped of all the moralizing and religious/political BS that humans place on such questions. It can be freeing to just accept that life may be a happy accident, that we are here for just a short time on this earth, and something may or may not come next, and that doesn't have to be a bleak or meaningless outlook if I strive to make that short time as meaningful as possible FOR ME. What I find meaningful may not be so for my neighbor, but I don't need to shove my beliefs down his throat. A lot of our strife can be boiled down to people refusing to adopt that simple attitude. You'll get no argument from me. I completely agree with what you say. I just thought Hawking appeared to be a tad aggressive in the way he addressed the question, though I think there's a good chance he never even thought of the question in a philosophical fashion at all, just a practical one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
untateve Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 I figure I'll know for sure when I die. Or maybe I won't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azazello1313 Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 You'll get no argument from me. I completely agree with what you say. I just thought Hawking appeared to be a tad aggressive in the way he addressed the question, though I think there's a good chance he never even thought of the question in a philosophical fashion at all, just a practical one. or he was following his own belief system to its logical conclusion. "value" in society derives from what survives, the darwinian idea that the strong win and the weak perish. he assigns the winners "higher value". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clubfoothead Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 The plan is to get up and go to work tomorrow morning no matter who is right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt770 Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 well, you know, a lot of strife can ensue when person A decides that what is meaningful FOR HIM comes at the expense of person B. that strife is the natural condition of the world, and it is why human beings invented "morality" in the first place. the idea of divine judgment, whatever else you may think of it, is more likely to act as a brake on that kind of behavior than an accelerant. And that's what I find most comical -- everyone was out screwing and stealing, so we had to make up some really creative stuff about eternal damnation to scare them into doing the right thing. All the religious mythology is part & parcel of the social contract, and it's so ingrained that people take it literally, just eat it right up. Tell them it's all a bunch of hooey, they get indignant, violent even. Why, why, why??? Go cash in your VIP tickets to go see Jesus, or the 72 virgins, and leave the rest of us the F alone. Why do they have to convert everyone else? That's what I was referring to. What's even more absurd, even the threat of hell can't really curb our nasty vices, so what happens, we become a society of hypocrites. Sin all week, go confess on Sunday, rinse, repeat. The priests fondle kids, the devout extremist Muslim has a porn collection. No wonder we start 'em young, no rational adult who could assess these organizations would ever join. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeR Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 I give up: why would anyone give a rat's behind about Hawking's religious beliefs (other than perhaps his family and close friends)? This is about as un-scientific of a matter as it gets. Who's next, Wade Boggs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeR Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 I find it ludicrous that those on both sides of this issue have such a burning desire to be "right", ? I find it ludicrous that an atheist would have a burning desire to be right. Talk about the ultimate masochist. Call it a matter of faith and leave it at that.No argument there. The idea of wanting or expecting scientific evidence/proof of God - now that is, IMO, ludicrous. This is not some natural phenomena we're talking about. It's not as if he is saying that he's examined all of the data, and there's not enough to draw a conclusion on the existance of God. He is saying that his conclusion is that there is no God. But then he doesn't ever really lay out the argument for that conclusion. I think that he has faith that there is no God, just as much as a Christian has faith that there is a God. Exactly, bravo. People who think scientists have no faith of any kind (and aren't subject to biases etc) are kidding themselves. I'm not saying that to rip on them, my point is simply that they're no more or less human than any of us and do not inherently have a bead on truth or correctness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azazello1313 Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 Why, why, why??? Go cash in your VIP tickets to go see Jesus, or the 72 virgins, and leave the rest of us the F alone. Why do they have to convert everyone else? because they love you and want to help you avoid eternal damnation. I agree with a lot of what you said, and I see very little appeal in the threat-of-eternal-damnation/promise-of-eternal-bliss aspect of religion. is it the only way to keep people in line? maybe, but that doesn't make it a very convincing hypothesis. I think hell is real, but I look at it more as a present condition of the human mind. torment, addiction, insatiable appetites, that sort of thing. if you never escape that, you just never escape it. I have no idea what happens when we die, and I won't pretend to know. I believe in some way we may be reunited with our creator, but what exactly that means would be silly to even speculate. to me, the difference between faith and unbelief....the man of faith looks at those horizons of what we know, ponders what is beyond, and believes there is something holding everything together. a man of unbelief looks at those horizons and sees chaos, randomness, and nothingness beyond. everything else stems from this distinction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursa Majoris Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 a man of unbelief looks at those horizons and sees chaos, randomness, and nothingness beyond. Either it's chaos / randomness or nothing but not both. They are mutually exclusive. A true atheist would see nothing, I would have thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pope Flick Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 So I guess he's a fundamentalist scientist? His absolute statements about something that cannot be demonstrably proved sound as ignorant coming from him as anyone else, and frankly I'd expect better from him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 No argument there. The idea of wanting or expecting scientific evidence/proof of God - now that is, IMO, ludicrous. This is not some natural phenomena we're talking about. Isn't proof antithetical to faith, anyway? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursa Majoris Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 Isn't proof antithetical to faith, anyway? Indeed: The Babel fish is small, yellow, leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the NON-existence of God. The argument goes like this: `I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' `But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' `Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly disappears in a puff of logic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azazello1313 Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 (edited) Either it's chaos / randomness or nothing but not both. They are mutually exclusive. A true atheist would see nothing, I would have thought. not really. beyond what we can observe, there can be chaos and randomness, and beyond that, nothingness. and I would think THAT is the default atheist position, as to say there is naught but nothing beyond what we can observe would, in my mind, be to deny the possibility of any future scientific discoveries pushing back the horizon of what we can observe. Edited May 17, 2011 by Azazello1313 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kid Cid Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 How do you know there is an afterlife? Because the book says so. How do you know the book is right? Because the book tells you that it is infallible and therefore, correct about everything. But can you prove the book is right? No, no, NO!. Just read the damn book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Square Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 or he was following his own belief system to its logical conclusion. "value" in society derives from what survives, the darwinian idea that the strong win and the weak perish. he assigns the winners "higher value". I'm a little sleep deprived so bare with me if this doesn't make sense. If the majority of people believe in some kind of superior being and we are applying darwinian rules to find out who is the "winner" (or correct)... couldn't it be said that the thought of a superior being (whether correct or not) is the darwinian winner? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimC Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 So I guess he's a fundamentalist scientist? His absolute statements about something that cannot be demonstrably proved sound as ignorant coming from him as anyone else, and frankly I'd expect better from him. From what I understand about Hawking, you wouldn't be alone in stating that he is an over-rated publicity hound that has been proven wrong more than once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WaterMan Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 (edited) I'm a little sleep deprived so bare with me if this doesn't make sense. If the majority of people believe in some kind of superior being and we are applying darwinian rules to find out who is the "winner" (or correct)... couldn't it be said that the thought of a superior being (whether correct or not) is the darwinian winner? Only in the sense that it lessens stress and makes you happier thus you live longer. So in a sense(no offense guys) only the crazies are evolving. Edited May 17, 2011 by WaterMan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detlef Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 ? I find it ludicrous that an atheist would have a burning desire to be right. Talk about the ultimate masochist. No argument there. The idea of wanting or expecting scientific evidence/proof of God - now that is, IMO, ludicrous. This is not some natural phenomena we're talking about. Exactly, bravo. People who think scientists have no faith of any kind (and aren't subject to biases etc) are kidding themselves. I'm not saying that to rip on them, my point is simply that they're no more or less human than any of us and do not inherently have a bead on truth or correctness. The issue that I have with holding science to a higher standard than religion in terms of making one prove it and the other not, which is what I believe you are doing, is that religions don't simply say, "have faith that there is a god and an afterlife". They take it a step further and map out a set of rules that one must obey to live in accordance with this god and set yourself up to make it to the good version of the afterlife. And, once you do that, I think you lose the right to say, "Hey, it's just about faith. You just have to believe." Because you're using that faith as a basis to tell people how to live their life. Thus, it's not unreasonable for people to say, "Show me. If you're saying that, not only is there a god, but he says that these are the rules, I want you to show me this god. Otherwise, I'd like to discuss these rules a bit further and not just accept them outright. Because, while I agree with some, I don't agree with others, so I'm not going to just aquiesse to an authority that you haven't shown me exists." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
untateve Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 The issue that I have with holding science to a higher standard than religion in terms of making one prove it and the other not, which is what I believe you are doing, is that religions don't simply say, "have faith that there is a god and an afterlife". They take it a step further and map out a set of rules that one must obey to live in accordance with this god and set yourself up to make it to the good version of the afterlife. And, once you do that, I think you lose the right to say, "Hey, it's just about faith. You just have to believe." Because you're using that faith as a basis to tell people how to live their life. Thus, it's not unreasonable for people to say, "Show me. If you're saying that, not only is there a god, but he says that these are the rules, I want you to show me this god. Otherwise, I'd like to discuss these rules a bit further and not just accept them outright. Because, while I agree with some, I don't agree with others, so I'm not going to just aquiesse to an authority that you haven't shown me exists." It's good you work in a hot kitchen for a living because you'll be spending eternity in flames. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeR Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 (edited) The issue that I have with holding science to a higher standard than religion in terms of making one prove it and the other not, which is what I believe you are doing, No, you missed my point entirely. Neither "side" can prove/disprove the existance of God, and expecting or trying to do so is ridiculous. It's kinda like trying to measure sound with a ruler, ie in the sense that you can't and therefore concluding that they must not exist (I could probably think of a better example given time, but hopefully you get the gist). God is entirely beyond being scientifically proven. In fact, I believe He made a point of making sure it's not possible because true belief in Him comes from faith. If He was proven beyond any reasonable doubt, we wouldn't be free-willed independent beings who come to Him by choice, but little more than robots simply accepting the obvious which has been blasted in our face. Belief in Him would have no more meaning than believing in a blade of grass. To believe in someone and/or what they stand for despite a lack of proof - that is faith and that is what makes it solid and real. religions don't simply say, "have faith that there is a god and an afterlife". They take it a step further and map out a set of rules that one must obey to live in accordance with this god and set yourself up to make it to the good version of the afterlife.Which, allegiance/etc to God notwithstanding, are no more than codes of morality, which people, theist and non-theist alike, live by anyway. They say stuff like don't kill, don't steal, etc. ie so what? Most if not all also recognize that people are inherently very imperfect and sinners - nobody makes it to the "good version of afterlife" based on their own pious life per se, it's more in their intent as well as God's forgiveness. I suspect he rolls his eyes and sighs a lot. I'd like to discuss these rules a bit further and not just accept them outright. Because, while I agree with some, I don't agree with others, so I'm not going to just aquiesse to an authority that you haven't shown me exists."I hear you; very logical. And no matter how the rules are worded, their will always be situations with extenuating circumstances etc. And since any given church is run by human beings, they are also inherently imperfect. And this isn't aimed at you or anyone specifically, but I think it would be great if people remembered that not all theists or even Christians are militant and/or fundamentalists. Using that as an excuse to dismiss all religions or "religious people" is idiotic to say the least. Also the whole "all these people knocking on my door" whine is absurdly overblown. I live in the freakin Bible belt and that's an infrequent occurance - and not once did anyone "get in my face." If I said go away (and I did), they quickly and politely complied. The horror. Edited May 17, 2011 by BeeR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detlef Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 (edited) BeeR, I realize that one's morality born from faith will always overlap with what they want to see in laws. It makes perfect sense to the extent that it would be impossible for it to be otherwise. I don't really have a problem with that, per se. My issue comes up with phrases like "God given rights" or using that divine authority as a basis for why the law should be. The two need to be separated, IMO, to have any validity outside of one's church. And, as far as it getting tossed in my face. I agree that I almost never see dudes coming door to door and, honestly, I don't mind when they do. It's just an invitation that I am free to decline. My version of "in my face" has more to do with faith-based legislation. Which, as I mentioned above, I realize is somewhat inevitable. And, as far as this just being the fringe whackos? There's a very sleazy and poorly thought-out abortion bill, riddled with lies and deceit, working it's way through the NC Congress as we speak. This is not just a bunch of hillbilly bible thumpers, this is the state government for one of the most progressive states south of the Mason Dixie. Edited May 17, 2011 by detlef Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 This is not just a bunch of hillbilly bible thumpers, this is the state government for one of the most progressive states south of the Mason Dixie. So, it's right there with Franco's Spain on the "liberal" scale, huh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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