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Stephen Hawking vs. God
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=2857 ^ | William M. Briggs

Posted on 09/04/2010 7:57:38 AM PDT by mattstat

Everybody knows the following story: At one time, long ago, most or all people believed that when a tree branch fell and caused damage that a god or other spiritual entity caused the branch to fall. This belief was animate, in the sense that the god himself was pictured as pulling the branch or otherwise knocking it off the tree.

Reasons for the god’s behavior were ascribed, usually to sin, and perhaps a ceremony of propitiation was performed to forestall future baleful consequence. But over anything else, it was the fact of the branch falling that was used as evidence for the god’s existence. The branch fell, something caused it to, we can think of no cause, therefore it must be the god.

As time went on and fewer people imagined actually witnessing the god yanking on the tree, but they did not discard the idea that, somehow, that branch fell because the god willed it. Branches falling were still evidence of the god’s existence, but now weaker evidence. Some branches might have fallen on their own, who cares why.

Of course, magical thinking of this kind applied to physical events of all kinds; disasters were called, and not that long ago, “Acts of God.” Once more, these “acts” were a proof of God’s existence, but recently only in a vague sense. The causation really went one way: God to act, and not so much act to God.

Man’s existence, crucially his uniqueness and superiority over all other animals was, and still is, used by few, but a diminishing few, to infer the existence of God. The reasoning goes: because the universe is, God is...

(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...


TOPICS: Religion; Science
KEYWORDS: god; scientism; stephenhawking
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1 posted on 09/04/2010 7:57:44 AM PDT by mattstat
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To: mattstat
Mr Hawking was cursed at an early age. A notoriously arrogant man he was. He still has not evolved. Little babies have such undeveloped minds.
2 posted on 09/04/2010 8:02:07 AM PDT by allmost
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To: mattstat

Another Internet genius trying to prove a negative through worthless and inaccurate anecdotes...

Derp, derp, derp.

We need more of this. The Internet isn’t noisy enough.

APf


3 posted on 09/04/2010 8:02:53 AM PDT by APFel (Regnum Nostrum Crescit)
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To: mattstat

After he takes his last breath he’ll know the truth.


4 posted on 09/04/2010 8:04:46 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: mattstat

Excellent article. Very well written.


5 posted on 09/04/2010 8:05:04 AM PDT by TheWriterTX (Buy Ammo Often)
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To: allmost

Liberals are godless people.

They are atheists or agnostics.

They are also in the minority.

Most people have a belief in God or at least in some kind of superior intelligent being.

God or religion play an important role in many peoples lives. It often acts as an anchor in their lives and the lives of their families.

They do not necessarily cling to these things or cling to anything like guns per se, but rather it is a matter of personal choice, freedom to choose; but quite often it is the bigoted godless bully agnostic or atheist that wants only their voice heard and no other...to force their views on the rest of us at the expense of our own feelings and beliefs.


6 posted on 09/04/2010 8:13:56 AM PDT by Ev Reeman
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To: TheWriterTX

Hawking radiation has never been seen. Take away that and this article may have well have been written by a cybernetic penguin. Or is it turtles?


7 posted on 09/04/2010 8:16:26 AM PDT by allmost
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To: Ev Reeman

The height of arrogance is the belief in self creation.


8 posted on 09/04/2010 8:22:13 AM PDT by allmost
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To: mattstat
my money is on God...
9 posted on 09/04/2010 8:29:30 AM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: mattstat

Stephen Hawking vs. God

I’ve got GOD way in front....Hawking will lose so badly he’ll need a wheel chair...OOPS... Lord I appologize...and be with the starving pygmies...


10 posted on 09/04/2010 8:29:35 AM PDT by jakerobins
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To: mattstat
Excellent article. I watched one of Hawkings programs last night and the thing which struck me most, was how many times "luck" was invoked in his explanation of how the universe and we came about.

Gravity was "luck." The narrow imbalance between matter and anti-matter was "luck." The improbable location of Earth at exactly the right point to allow life to "evolve" was "luck." Etc. etc.

In his effort to explain away the "luck" factor as being proof of God's existence, he comes up with an infinite number of possible universes in which the various lucky occurrences don't happen . . . not exactly sure how that proves God isn't necessary, but it seems to convince him.

Atheism is more reliant on faith than is any of the other world's religions. Millions of "coincidences" must occur against astronomically small odds for the universe to be as it is today. That's a lot of faith in science.

I'll stick with God, thank-you very much.
11 posted on 09/04/2010 8:37:01 AM PDT by Sudetenland (Slow to anger but terrible in vengence...such is the character of the American people.)
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To: Sudetenland

I have a great deal of respect for science but even science was created by God.


12 posted on 09/04/2010 8:39:17 AM PDT by Ev Reeman
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To: allmost

Hawking is a scientist first and foremost. He only lives by facts and figures. The presence of God is something I hope and sometimes pray for but all I have to go on is faith I have been brought up with, the faith my family has and what I’ve read in scriptures. We have had unexplained miracles, stigmata, the virgin mary visitations, padre pio, terminal illnesses going into remission, images, shrouds etc and one thing for sure is that the wisdom shown in the bible is unparallelled. Things make so much sense and come true in the end that is scary but is relative to the human experience, scribed by humans. But you have to read it to understand that. It is for man. So if you live as a man you will understand. It is slanted against women so far as equality, but look how jesus showed mercy to prostitutes and how his mother was the most holy of humanity ever created. The inequality factor was more of a sing of the times when mankind was fairly primitive relatively speaking again ala 2,000 years ago. We have all this and more. But as it says in the bible blessed are those who do not see but believe ala the doubting Thomas parable. I don’t know. I want to believe. In my heart I believe but I have much doubt and angst every minute about God, probably because I more or less stopped practicing my faith and got away from people who were doing so. I know when I had strong faith I was never happier and always felt someone was there for me, someone I could fall back on in my mind and soul I guess. For people that have no belief in anything but the science we know and the science we don’t yet know, like hawking, I am sure there is some kind of void that can never be filled. I’d like to think humans did not evolve from aminals which in turned evolved from amoebas but two things about life are constant. The only thing definitive about it is birth and death, excluding miscarriages and abortions, and the birth of plants and other living things through nature processes. Pass the joint and whisky.


13 posted on 09/04/2010 8:40:43 AM PDT by celtictomcat
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To: Ev Reeman

GOD always wins.


14 posted on 09/04/2010 8:40:49 AM PDT by jerseyrocks
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To: celtictomcat

There is a basic fallacy at the heart of Darwinian theory and that is if man is descended from the apes, how come there are still apes and not all men?


15 posted on 09/04/2010 8:45:11 AM PDT by Ev Reeman
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To: celtictomcat

Your first two sentences make you sound like a fool. Hawking has never been proven right. Pick up a book, read ‘beyond’ the porn, whatever. How do you sit there and make this garbage up?


16 posted on 09/04/2010 8:56:16 AM PDT by allmost
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To: mattstat

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.

The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and get lost.”

God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this, let’s say we have a man making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “OK, great!”

But God added, “Now, we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.”

The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.

God just looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!”


17 posted on 09/04/2010 8:59:10 AM PDT by Til I am the last man standing (It's the internet Senators; We can see what you are doing!)
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To: Ev Reeman

I don’t agree with darwin at all, but I could counter your argument that man descended only from particular species of ape that was prone to evolve to humans while all the other specie did not. Again, I don’t believe in Darwins theories.


18 posted on 09/04/2010 9:01:45 AM PDT by celtictomcat
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To: mattstat

Okay, I must have missed a discovery or two in the last 40 years regarding gravity. I thought gravity came from something within a mass. Does gravity now exist apart from mass? Is gravity floating around space gathering up little particles to fit together? What am I missing. Plain English please. :)


19 posted on 09/04/2010 9:05:14 AM PDT by huldah1776
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To: allmost

I guess I was speaking over your head like hawking does. Yes hawking is a scientist first and foremost. How is that foolish? My second sentence should have said “hawking believes in scientific facts and figures first and foremost, real data he can see and analyze, and like all scientists he theorizes and hypothesizes, like he is doing with his latest comment”. At the end of the day his latest comment is speculation.


20 posted on 09/04/2010 9:07:01 AM PDT by celtictomcat
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