How can Stephen Hawking say there "IS NO God" (i.e., with certainty)?

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ProdglArchitect said:
It may very well be true that our Universe resulted from the events Hawking describes. That doesn’t change the fact that, in order for those events to have taken place, something must exist.
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Sure. So if we believe that a state where nothing exists cannot be actualized (i.e. there would be a logical contradiction in doing so), then there is no surprise that something must exist. Something must exist because “a state of absolute nonexistence” cannot exist, no need to invoke God.
 
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niceatheist said:
Strictly speaking, science can’t prove that Thor doesn’t exist. But what it can do is eliminate the need FOR Thor as an explanation for thunder and lightning.
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Interesting, thoughtful posts. Thanks for these.
niceatheist said:
Having read a number of Hawking’s essays over the years, his views on God could be pretty briefly summed up as:
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  1. I’m going to label this point as selection bias. If there is a God, then He has no limits. He could have made many Universes, some which are sterile or dead. That there are self-aware beings present in this one only proves that God made ours, at least, not sterile and dead. Further, while I know what you are getting at in terms of the very fine dependence on constrained parameters for producing physics capable of yielding our kind of chemistry and subsequently our kind of life, is it not premature to rule out other physics that could results in completely different chemistries sufficiently complex to produce life? Note, I’m talking about chemistry here at the physical chemistry level – I’m wondering about completely alien forms of matter, not just our standard model of particle physics in this universe, and completely different forms of interaction between these different forms of matter. To the point that one might not call their interaction “chemistry”.
  2. This point is probably the best answer I have heard to the prime mover argument of St Thomas, et al. Nicely done.
 
Padres1969 said:
Beat me to it. God is no more provable then disprovable. Yet Catholics and others insist God exists. So what is any different about Hawking’s statement?
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Those who insist God exists, go by faith, and trust in the testimony of the witnesses to Christ’s Resurrection.

Hawking presumably, goes by science??? Where is his proof?
angel12 said:
He had just as much right to his beliefs as we do
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I agree with this. May he rest in peace.
 
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It’s a fairly narrow set of parameters that lead to any kind of chemistry as we understand it. Whatever universe creates any kind of life, particularly intelligent life, is going to need to have the kind of physics that permit the formation of very complex and stable structures.

It’s one of the weaknesses of the Strong Anthropic Principle, that if it is true that only a narrow set of parameters lead to a universe capable of sustaining such structures, then that means even God is constrained.

I’ved used the analogy of the pizza chef before. A pizza chef has an almost limitless array of toppings to choose from, but only a very small subset would lead to an edible pizza. He could put motor oil, radium and benzene on a pizza, but it isn’t something anyone could eat.
 
For all his intellectual prowess, Hawking, like many scientists, is a man with a huge blind spot. He can work math like a genius (because he is one), and concoct theories of incredible subtlety, complexity, and sophistication – but he is incapable of considering a fundamental and simple question such as: “Why is there anything at all? Why is there not just nothing?”

With all due respect for his accomplishments in theoretical physics, men like Hawking are more or less useless when considering the “God-question” (which for me isn’t a question but I can understand that for many it is).

P.S. To answer your question (in the thread title) more directly: he cannot.
 
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The argument that a “state of absolute nothingness can’t exist” is a faith statement. You can’t prove it. It is no more scientific than the statement “God exists.”

We can also argue against it as I have already done. All of these “somethings” which exist must be subject to change in order for the chain of events which created the universe to have occurred. As contingent realities, the argument still stands that they must be brought into existence by something which is not contingent.

Again, Answer Atheism does a much better job explaining this than I can. Give it a read.
 
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JapaneseKappa said:
Sure. So if we believe that a state where nothing exists cannot be actualized (i.e. there would be a logical contradiction in doing so), then there is no surprise that something must exist. Something must exist because “a state of absolute nonexistence” cannot exist, no need to invoke God.
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Something that must exist does not change, it is not in a continuous state of becoming, it does not move from potentiality to actuality. That which is existentially necessary is pure actuality, because it cannot lack reality; it is the source of all reality. Anything that is changing is a contingent being.

Also a metaphysical contradiction is only as such, not because of nothing, but because of the nature of fundamental reality.

Nothing is not real, so something must necessarily exist, and that is what we call God.
 
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IWantGod said:
omething that must exist does not change, it is not in a continuous state of becoming, it does not move from potentiality to actuality.
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Where do you take that from?
IWantGod said:
That which is existentially necessary is pure actuality, because it cannot lack reality; it is the source of all reality.
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Where do you take that from?
IWantGod said:
Anything that is changing is a contingent being.
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Not necessary.
 
STT said:
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IWantGod:
Anything that is changing is a contingent being.
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Not necessary.
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Actually, yes, necessarily.

If something is capable of change, that means that there are influences, either external or internal, that are at play on it. That means that its form / state does not exist out of necessity, which means that it is a contingent being.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
Actually, yes, necessarily.

If something is capable of change, that means that there are influences, either external or internal, that are at play on it. That means that its form / state does not exist out of necessity, which means that it is a contingent being.
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How do you define contingent?
 
  1. subject to chance.
  2. occurring or existing only if (certain other circumstances) are the case; dependent on.
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(Wow… google definitions do not paste well on this forum >_>)
 
So you consider the second meaning in here? If so, why something which is changing exists due to another thing?
 
theCardinalbird said:
Oh. I’m just saying that the idea that we can’t prove a negative may need to be revisited
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Well, there is a sense in which science doesn’t set out to “prove” anything in the sense that it could definitively say it has reached the most precise and most accurate explanation that will ever be possible.
 
STT said:
So you consider the second meaning in here? If so, why something which is changing exists due to another thing?
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Because it’s form is dictated by forces external to itself. Something only changes in response to stimuli. Even a change which is
physically" internal is predicated on external stimuli to make that change necessary.

Basically, if it can exist in any other way, it is contingent, because there are reasons external to itself which cause it to exist as it does.
 
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